If you are looking for a beach getaway on Mexico’s west coast, Puerto Escondido offers up a beautiful beach town that hosts a lively bar & restaurant scene with cheap direct flights coming in from all over Mexico. Puerto Escondido is a small city with about 40k people and is a popular vacation destination for local Mexicans and tourists alike. We found this city to be authentic, reasonably priced, and easy to get around, especially compared to some of Mexico’s more touristy destinations like Cabo San Lucas or Puerto Vallarta. If you’re looking for an authentic coastal Mexican experience with incredible fish tacos and bars right on the beach, you have to add Puerto Escondido to your travel list.
The Beaches
In Puerto Escondido, there are plenty of beaches to go to within the city, but the first two below are must-sees.
Playa Carrizalillo
Not every beach in Puerto Escondido is meant for swimming, so if you plan on jumping in the water, this IS the beach you need to go to. The entrance is located on Benito Juarez street on the west side of town which is one of the best spots to grab food. After climbing down a staircase that will make you question your safety and cardiovascular abilities, you come across a little slice of paradise. This beach is sunken into a bay, lined with tiny bars that sell drinks in coconuts and fish tacos that are to die for (check below for recommendations). The beach is busy enough where you can leave your stuff alone while you jump in the water, but quiet enough where you can enjoy a good book and watch the sunset.
Playa Zicatela
This 4-mile stretch of paradise is likely where you will spend most of your time in Puerto Escondido. While the rip current here is too strong to swim, if you know your way around a surfboard, you need to land yourself at this beach. Towards the west end of the beach, you will find bars and restaurants stacked next to each other right on the sand with more restaurants and shops just on the other side of the street. This is a great place to grab a fancy dinner for the sunset, but you don’t worry, you don’t need fancy clothes to get in.
However, the east end of Zicatella, called La Puenta, is where the best nightlife is. Here you will find dozens of bars, restaurants, and hostels that are filled to the brim with party-goers stumbling around the sandy streets. La Puenta is where we found our favorite fish tacos (Pinche’s) and the best drinks. If we had to stay in Puerto Escondido again, we would stay in this part of town!
Playa Manzanillo & Puerto Angelito
While we didn’t spend much time at either of these beaches, these are two other great spots to kick up your feet and spend the day. With vendors walking up and down the beach with ice cream, food, and drinks served in whole pineapples, you can’t go wrong relaxing here.
Best Activities in Puerto Escondido
While the main reason for coming to Puerto Escondido is to find your place in the sand and drink your worries away, there are plenty of activities to do so your co-workers don’t think your only pasttime was asking the bartender for uno mas pina colada. Since this is a beach town, Puerto Escondido has all the water activities you would find anywhere else, like surfing, kayaking, and boat tours, but here were some of our favorite things to do.
Baby Turtle Release
We found out that Oaxaca is one of the few places in the world that turtles will naturally return to from all over the Pacific oceans to lay their eggs. Because of aggressive birds, poachers, and climate change (yes it’s real and yes it’s a real bummer), many of these turtle species are endangered. So as a way to get financial support to help the turtles, since the government gives zero funding, local organizations will let you release these baby turtles yourself into the ocean. It was one of our favorite things we did in Puerto Escondido, and it was an incredible opportunity to learn about local environmental efforts and take cute pictures with baby turtles. Don’t worry, this practice doesn’t harm the turtles, and in fact, they need our help by throwing sand at crabs and seagulls to help fight off the turtle’s main predators.
Snorkeling & Scuba Diving
As you can imagine, with warmer than normal water and cliffs that reach the ocean, Puerto Escondido’s waters are riddled with colorful fish, turtles, and more that make it the perfect place to adventure underwater. We connected with our local hostel to do a 2-hour snorkel tour for only $500 pesos per person ($25 USD). We loved the chance to observe the local wildlife and explore some of the other beaches in Puerto Escondido.
Get a Day-Pass at a Resort
If you’re a budget traveler like us, you’re probably skipping the expensive resorts and staying in a hostel or Airbnb. However, this does not mean you can’t enjoy all the amenities of the resort. One of our favorite days in Puerto Escondido was when went to the local resort and got a day-pass to use the pool and gain access to all the resort activities. The best part was that we didn’t even pay for a day-pass, we only needed to spend a minimum of $300 pesos per person ($15 USD), which was a steal. Here is where we enjoyed our day that also offered the baby turtle release; Club de Playa Villasol
Eating Your Way Through Puerto Escondido
Fish tacos, Pina Coladas in whole pineapples, and fresh fruit. Need I say more.
Fish Tacos
With the soup-like atmosphere, fish tacos seem to be the only palatable way to get nourishment without the meat sweats. And in Puerto Escondido, the fish taco game is at peak levels. Some of our favorite fish tacos were Pescadillas which are fish tacos with smoked tuna then friend and Octopus Al Pastor tacos. Here are some of our favorite spots below:
Canabrava – Octopus Al Pastor Tacos on the west end of Zicatela Beach.
Playa Carrizalilla for Pescadilla tacos. There’s no restaurant listed on google, but head to this beach and go to any of their bars for food!
Pinches Tacos – these were probably our favorite fish tacos in the city. The menu consisted of dozens of types of fish that you order, then you top it with all the salsas you want from their bar. Located at the east end of Zicatela Beach, in the La Puente area.
Agua Sala – incredible mahi-mahi tacos located at the west end of Zicatela beach.
Bars & Restaurants
There are basically four areas to get food in Puerto Escondido. Near Playa Carrizalillo, you can walk up and down the Benito Jaurez street to find dozens of restaurants that include international foods such as sushi, Vietnamese, and Italian food. Next, you have the two areas of the Zicatela beach. The main shopping district at the west end features dozens of bars and restaurants right on the sand that include fine dining and happy hours. On the east end called La Puente, you will find tons of trendy restaurants that aren’t on the water directly, but offer a great nightlife scene and the best fish tacos we had (Pinces Tacos). Finally, if you are looking for some authentic local Oaxacan classics, you can head to the main market in town called the Mercado Benito Juarez. Here you can find fish tacos, tlayudas, tamales, and all the other Oaxacan classics we got in Oaxaca (check out our article on that here: link). Here are some of our other favorite spots in Puerto Escondido to eat:
Palapita & Bikini Bar – these sister bars had our favorite happy hour in the city. For $80 pesos and $25 for refills, you can get a pina colada in a whole pineapple! You only need a couple, but with a happy hour from 5pm to 8pm, this is a great spot to enjoy the sunset and get your money’s worth.
Sushi En Rinconada – similar to sushi in America, it’s pretty common to find sushi menus filled with more cheese than fish. However, at Sushi En Rinconada, we got an incredibly authentic sushi experience with the freshest fish we had in Puerto Escondido.
Burr Eat Oh – as true San Diegans, we are suckers for a flour tortilla, which is extremely hard to find in southern Mexico. However, about 500ft from our hostel was the ultimate burrito shop/flour tortilla factory. Here I had some of the best Al Pastor in my life (which is one of my favorite foods) wrapped in a flour tortilla that I wanted to curl up in. The burritos were baby-sized and super affordable. If you can finish one of their grande burritos, you can call yourself a champion and put your name below mine on their board!
Puerto Escondido was an incredible place to spend a week relaxing on the beach and eating some of the most delicious and authentic fish tacos in Mexico. With tons of water activities, local beaches, and authentic Oaxacan eats, this is the perfect place for a Mexican beach vacation.
Wow! I feel like I was there with you. Tremendous amount of really helpful information. Definitely want to try so many of these great dishes and appreciate the heads up about day passes to resorts, I had no idea!
Definitely something to take advantage of when traveling to save some mula!