My take on Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, México…
4 min readSep 4, 2019
Half of my summer vacation (one week) was spent in Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca, Southern Mexico. Overall, I had a great trip. Puerto Escondido is a very interesting place, and I have never been anywhere similar to it. Lots of people come here from all over the world to live and to surf. There is a lot of diversity in regard to the tourists as well, many coming from Europe, Canada, and other parts of Latin America; SO many Argentines and Uruguayans. There are some people from the United States, but many more from these other regions. The Mexicans who live here are also from over the country. There are literally young beautiful people everywhere, no exaggeration here, especially in La Punta, which is known as the kind of hippie Bohemian area with a lot of foreigners. The roads are unpaved and there’s no nightlife, just small darling bars and restaurants. This is where I stayed as well, and of course, I loved it. It was so nice to just walk everywhere barefoot and drink micheladas in the street, on the beach, in bars, wherever, and watch people stroll. Tons of beautiful, tanned, pierced, tattooed, fit girls everywhere.
And of course, there are locals who grew up here and never left. Especially those who live to surf. This is definitely one of the best places in the world to surf; home of the Mexican Pipeline in Zicatela. I think my favorite part of put the Escondido is the fact that there are several many amazing beaches to explore, and most of them are not far from each other. For example if you just drive 40 minutes south of Puerto Escondido there is an area where you can find many beautiful beaches and a gorgeous view for sunsets (this area is all near Mazunte). There are tons of gorgeous lagunas as well. Living here is relatively modest, as there are not a lot of fancy accommodations and the infrastructure is not super advanced. There is no Uber, and the Internet is bad. Most restaurants and other facilities do not take credit card. The locals have kept it that way. If you want all that, you can go to Huatulco, about 1.5 hour south.
It didn’t take long for me to feel the vibe of Puerto Escondido. Everybody knows everybody. It’s interesting, because then the waves of tourists and travelers bring some newness and excitement for both the locals and the people who have decided to live here. However, they always end of leaving, of course. But…many of them come back. People are attracted by the quality of life, warm water, #VacationLife, and more. There are young families there (so cute) but also tons of single people and couples without kids. There’s a lot of sex. And drugs. Perhaps not too different from most Latin American or tropical coastal cities.
Traveling alone exposes you to new experiences, good and bad, and different risks. One of my favorite thing about traveling alone is that you definitely meet more people, because you are forced to. And some of the best times of my life have come out of just meeting new people and saying yes to whatever experiences present themselves. But there are a lot of risks too. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I ended up having one pretty traumatic experience in Puerto Escondido after surfing, an experience I am still processing in regard to how I feel about that place/town.
But, all in all, I had such a wonderful time there, and it really inspired me. I was kind of amazed to be in a place where there were so many young people are not working traditional jobs, choosing to enjoy a life of more leisure and nature than I have ever witnessed here in the US. I don’t know what’s in store for me these next couple years…but now I definitely know they don’t involve pursuing a PhD (those thoughts are long gone, LOL). Thanks for reading, and if you have any recommendations for other places to visit or live in Mexico/Latin America, I’d love to hear them!
