Todos Santos or Cerritos Beach: Where to Base Yourself

People planning a first trip to this part of Baja usually end up choosing between three places that are all within about fifteen minutes of each other. They sound interchangeable on a map. They are not.

Todos Santos town

A Pueblo Mágico with a colonial centre, galleries, a genuinely good restaurant scene and the Hotel California that everybody photographs. It is walkable, it has proper shops and a market, and there is something to do in the evening that does not involve driving.

What it does not have is a beach. Todos Santos sits a couple of kilometres inland, and the beaches nearest to town are beautiful and largely unswimmable, with heavy shorebreak and strong current. If you stay in town and want to swim, you drive.

Suits: first-time visitors who want to see the area, people who like walking to dinner, anyone travelling without a car.

El Pescadero

The farming and surfing town about ten minutes south of Todos Santos, on the highway. Quieter, less polished, more lived-in. There are good small restaurants, a couple of markets, and it is the closest town to Playa Los Cerritos.

Most accommodation in El Pescadero proper is inland, which means a short drive to the beach.

Suits: longer stays, people who want to be near the beach without being on it, anyone who prefers a working town to a picturesque one.

Playa Los Cerritos

The beach itself, about twelve minutes south of Todos Santos. A handful of small hotels, some beach clubs, vacation rentals and a lot of open sand. No town centre, no walkable dinner scene beyond the places on the beach.

What it has is the thing the other two do not: water you can actually swim in, and a wave gentle enough to learn on.

Suits: surfers and learners, anyone whose idea of a holiday is being in the water twice a day, people who would rather watch the sunset than drive to it.

The practical difference

It comes down to what you want to do without planning it.

Staying in town, the beach is an outing. You put on shoes, find the car, drive, park, walk down, and eventually drive back. That is fine once a day. It is not something most people do three times.

Staying on the beach, the ocean is simply there. You surf before breakfast because the board is by the door. You swim, come up for lunch, and go back down. The day organises itself around the water instead of around the car.

The reverse trade is real too: on the beach, dinner in Todos Santos means a twelve-minute drive each way.

What we would suggest

For a short trip of three or four nights, pick one and commit. If you came for the beach, stay on the beach. If you came to see the area, stay in town.

For a week or more, splitting is worth considering. Two or three nights in Todos Santos for the galleries and restaurants, then the rest on the beach. Most people find they wish they had given the beach more of the week rather than less.

If you have children, the beach end wins easily. Cerritos is one of the few places on this coast where they can be in the sea rather than looking at it.

Where we sit

The Cerritos Beach Inn is at the northern, quieter end of Playa Los Cerritos: ten rooms directly on the sand, a pool above the beach, and The Sunset for breakfast through dinner so an evening does not have to mean a drive. Todos Santos is twelve minutes away when you want it.