Book a trip to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca's surfers paradise - Mexico

Puerto Escondido is becoming Oxaca's new place to be on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

What used to be a quiet port town nowadays attracts surfers from around the world and holiday-goers who want to have fun but also kick back, soak up the sun and enjoy the beaches.

Puerto Escondido was the second destination of our 3- week's trip around Mexico, and our much-needed rest spot after 3 jam-packed days exploring buzzing Mexico City. For more info about the rest of our Mexican adventure, click here.

But despite growing popularity, Puerto Escondido is still relatively unknown and low-key. I only found out about the area thanks to my Dad, who visited the area in the 70's, and recommended we check it out. He had lived in a beach shack on Playa Zipolite for a few weeks while backpacking around Mexico - I can't lie it sounded like he had an amazing time!

I'm sure the area has changed a lot since my Dad's travels. For instance, there are a generous range of hotels, bars, and restaurants available, but it is not mass, dominating tourism - which I found extremely refreshing. There's still a sense of wildness to the area, with deserted beaches, dirt roads, and untouched jungle. 

Yes, the area remains authentic but with a splash of the modern. There's plenty of very chilled-out beach bars with sandy floors, beautiful natural beaches, constant surf breaks and welcoming locals. It's an amazing part of the world. Can you tell I fell in love with Puerto Escondido? 

Keep scrolling for how to visit it, and click here to check out our top highlights and 3 musts you should do too when visiting Puerto Escondido.

Get your bearings

Puerto Escondido has a few different areas to it, see below to see where might be the best fit for you. Personally, we loved staying in La Punta. 

La Punta 

Where we stayed. We noticed it's mostly where the ex-pat community is, but we also met a lot of Mexicans who were on holiday there or had moved there to work. Waves for surfers, restaurants on the beach, boutique shops and brunch spots.

It has a "digital nomad" kind of feeling with hipster cafes with young people working on their laptops. But the charismatic locals and majority of tourists being Mexican, keep the atmosphere down to earth. 

Main Zicatela beach

The beach is long and wide, with big waves and a lot of surfers. There are restaurants and beachfront hangouts to enjoy the sunset from. It's halfway between the airport and La Punta.  

Town centre / north beach 

The more local end of the beach and where you’ll get all of your local street vendors and hangouts.

Puerto Escondido town is more built up than La Punta and feels like a little city. We had to go there to find a bank to get cash and noticed it has modern supermarkets, more buildings, businesses and a port. 

Great Value for Money

Puerto Escondido is a great choice for those travelling on a tighter budget but like a bit of comfort.

It's relatively inexpensive compared to bigger and more known destinations like Tulum on the Caribbean coast. From the accommodation to eating out to the taxis, we saw a big difference in prices. This meant we felt less money pressure and could have more fun splurging on food and drinks. Woohoo, more cocktails for me! 

How to get to Puerto Escondido

Puerto Escondido is on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca.  There are a few options to arrive there, depending on where you come from, such as by bus or flying there. 

Bus: Ado is one of the largest Mexican bus companies. Check out their website here.

Flights: The main airport to access Puerto Escondido is Puerto Escondido International Airport (PXM).

Internal flights are a good way to travel around Mexico as the country is very big. We used Skyscanner to find the flights and then booked them on the airlines' website. 

We flew directly from Mexico City to Puerto Escondido with the airline Volaris. The flight was around 1 hour and $60 US dollars each.

Getting around

Another big positive was how easy everything felt in Puerto Escondido, such as getting around. We opted to walk and take taxis when needed. 

Uber is not so common in small towns and cities. It was not available in Puerto Escondido so we took local cabs. As most hotels are off main roads and there's no Uber, when we needed to go somewhere, like the airport, we asked our hotel to call us a taxi. They would come fast and it was all very easy and straightforward.

However, when getting taxis, my advice would be to ask the price of the journey and agree with it before you set off, as I didn't see them have taximeters. Note: It's also cash only (like most of Mexico). 

We also saw various spots where you can rent bicycles, scooters and cars which could be good options to get around as well.

Atmosphere

Atmosphere-wise, Puerto Escondido has a laid back vibe.

When visiting Puerto Escondido, leave your shoes at the hotel, get the bikini on, and kick back the Puerto Escondido way with a beer in one hand and a surfboard in the other. 

Useful recommendation

There are only a couple of ATM’s in Puerto Escondido, and none in the area of La Punta. Our hotel took card but most other places didn't take card. So get cash out whenever you can. One day we had to go into Puerto Escondido town just to find a bank and take cash out. We noticed there were a few there. 

3 Musts

There are a few things that you MUST do when visiting Puerto Escondido.

Read more.

Travel information ✈️

3-week Itinerary

We travelled around Mexico for nearly 3 weeks. We divided the trip into 4 parts, with 4 nights in each location, to explore the different sides of the country:

1. Mexico City (Central Zone)
2. Puerto Escondido (Pacific coast)
3. Chiapas - San Cristobal de las Casas (Central South)
4. Tulum (Caribbean coast)

International Flights ✈️

How to get to Mexico? We booked our flights to Mexico from Europe in February 2022 to fly on the 2^nd of June 2022, so we didn’t book too far in advance. I flew with British Airways, directly from Heathrow to Mexico City, and on the way back I flew directly from Cancun to Heathrow. The flights were about 10 hours each way, and in total were around £900. My partner Danny flew directly from Amsterdam to Mexico City. On the way, he had a layover in Mexico City from Cancun, and then he flew back to Amsterdam from Mexico City. His flights were around £800 in total.

Warning: Montezuma's Revenge 😷