Puerto Escondido is on the Oaxacan Pacific and its reputation rests on one beach. Playa Zicatela produces a heavy, fast, hollow beach break known as the Mexican Pipeline, it holds swell up to and beyond four metres, and it hosts international competitions. It is also one of the more dangerous waves in Mexico: the break is close to shore, it dumps into shallow sand, and the rip currents alongside it are severe. Every year it injures experienced surfers and drowns people who went in for a swim.
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That is not the whole town, and the distinction is the single most useful thing on this page. Puerto Escondido has half a dozen separate beaches strung along a few kilometres of coast, and they behave completely differently: Carrizalillo and Puerto Angelito are sheltered coves where families swim, La Punta at the southern end of Zicatela is where people learn to surf, and the main bay at Playa Principal is a working fishing beach. The town has changed fast in the last decade, from a surf and backpacker outpost into something busier with a substantial foreign resident population, and prices have followed.
What Makes Puerto Escondido Different to Pack For
Hot all year, with a wet season
Daytime temperatures run 29°C to 34°C with high humidity and barely vary. The dry season, November to May, is the reason to come; June to October is hot, humid and wet, with September and October the peak of the Pacific hurricane season on this coast.
The beaches are not interchangeable
This is the whole trip. Carrizalillo and Puerto Angelito are for swimming. Zicatela is not, ever, regardless of how calm it looks from the sand. Details below.
Carrizalillo is reached by 167 steps
The best swimming cove is down a long concrete staircase cut into the cliff, which you also climb back up in the heat carrying everything.
Sun at 15 degrees north with no shade
A merino wool base layer for women is not a beach item and earns its place for the long air conditioned buses to Oaxaca city, which cross the Sierra Sur and get genuinely cold, and because it survives a humid week without needing a wash.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Puerto Escondido Packing List
Footwear
Flip flops for the beach and walking sandals with a strap for everything else, because the streets are steep, potholed and sandy and the Carrizalillo staircase is 167 steps.
Water shoes for the rocky entries at Puerto Angelito and Manzanillo, where there are urchins.
For the Sierra Sur coffee villages, the Chacahua lagoons or the Atotonilco hot springs, waterproof hiking shoes are useful, though nothing in town needs them.
Clothing
Light, loose, quick drying. Two swimsuits minimum, three if you surf. A rash vest, which matters more here than at most beaches because surf lessons mean hours in the sun and on a board.
A cover-up for walking through town, where beachwear alone is out of place away from the sand. A packable rain jacket from June to October.
Long sleeves and trousers for the evening, for mosquitoes. A warm layer for the mountain bus. Nothing formal is needed anywhere in this town.
For sun
A wide brim sun hat, high factor reef safe sunscreen, a rash vest and sunglasses. At 15 degrees north with white sand and open water, and with the beaches offering shade only under rented palapas, this is the top category here. Zinc for your face if you surf.
Practical
Cash in pesos for the palapas, the colectivos and the surf schools. A dry bag for boat trips. Strong insect repellent, because dengue is present on this coast. A refillable bottle; tap water is not drinkable. Reef safe sunscreen for the snorkelling trips. Electrolyte sachets. And a waterproof phone pouch, since everything here happens near water.
What to Wear at Key Beaches
Playa Zicatela, and the honest warning
Three kilometres of open beach producing the Mexican Pipeline, with the town's bars and hostels behind it.
Practically: do not swim at Zicatela. This is not a cautious general statement, it is the specific advice of every lifeguard and local in the town. The shore break dumps in shallow water, the rips run hard, people are pulled out and drowned here every year, and the wave breaks close enough to the sand that being knee deep is not safe. Walk it, watch the surfers from the beach, eat and drink behind it, and swim somewhere else. There are lifeguards and red flags; believe them.
Carrizalillo
A small sheltered cove west of town in a horseshoe of cliff, with gentle water, palapas and a beginner-friendly right hander at one end.
Practically: 167 concrete steps down and back up, in full sun, so go early or late and carry as little as possible. This is the swimming beach and the nicest place in Puerto Escondido. It gets busy by eleven. Palapa chairs are rented by the day and include drinks.
Puerto Angelito and Playa Manzanillo
Two adjacent small coves reached by a short walk or a boat from the main bay, calm and shallow with snorkelling over rock.
Practically: water shoes for the rocky entries and urchins. Reef safe sunscreen. Shallow and safe, which makes these the alternative to Carrizalillo when the steps are unappealing.
La Punta and learning to surf
The southern end of Zicatela, where the wave is a softer, longer left and where the surf schools operate.
Practically: learn at La Punta, not at Zicatela proper, and the distinction is about two kilometres and a great deal of consequence. Rash vest, zinc, reef safe sunscreen, and a school that provides a soft board and stays in the water with you. The La Punta neighbourhood has the town's more relaxed cafes and yoga scene.
Playa Principal and the fishermen
The main town bay, where the fishing boats land in the morning and where the boat trips leave from.
Practically: swimmable at the sheltered western end and busy with boat traffic elsewhere. The morning fish landing is worth getting up for. The Adoquin, the pedestrianised street behind it, is the old tourist strip.
Turtle releases, dolphins and the lagoons
Olive ridley turtles nest along this coast in enormous numbers, with releases run at nearby sanctuaries, and dawn boat trips go out for dolphins and turtles. The Chacahua lagoons, two hours west, are mangrove with bioluminescence at night.
Practically: releases are at dawn or dusk; do not handle hatchlings except as the biologists direct and use no flash. Choose a sanctuary rather than a hotel gimmick. For the dolphin trips, insist on an operator that keeps a distance rather than chasing. Chacahua is a long rough road and better as an overnight.
What Not to Bring
Leave any intention of swimming at Zicatela, which is the one line in this post that matters most.
Leave standard sunscreen if you are snorkelling. Leave heavy luggage for the Carrizalillo steps. Leave valuables on the sand while you swim. Leave a September trip unless you can absorb a hurricane. And leave the assumption that a calm looking sea here is a safe one.
Essential Resources for Women in Puerto Escondido
Emergency numbers in Mexico: 911 is the national emergency number for police, ambulance and fire. 088 reaches the Guardia Nacional. English speaking operators are not guaranteed on this coast, so ask your accommodation to call where you can. The beach lifeguards, the salvavidas, are the fastest response for a water emergency and are stationed at Zicatela and the main bay.
Tourist police: Puerto Escondido has a municipal police presence and the Oaxaca state tourism office handles operator complaints. 078 is the national tourist assistance line, staffed in English.
US Embassy: the US Consular Agency in Oaxaca City provides limited services for the state, with the embassy in Mexico City at mx.usembassy.gov. Oaxaca City is seven hours by road or forty minutes by air. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: the Hospital General de Puerto Escondido handles emergencies, with private clinics in town including IMSS and several small hospitals used by the foreign resident population. Capacity is limited and serious cases are moved to Oaxaca City or Mexico City. Surf injuries, mainly shoulder dislocations, board lacerations and spinal injuries from the Zicatela shore break, are the routine trauma here, and the clinics know them well. Carry insurance that explicitly covers surfing.
Official health authority: the Secretaria de Salud at gob.mx/salud, with COFEPRIS for water and food advisories. Dengue is present on the Oaxacan coast with seasonal outbreaks, so repellent is a health measure. For storms, the Servicio Meteorologico Nacional issues the hurricane warnings from June to November.
US State Department travel advisory for Mexico: current advisory level and detail, issued state by state. Oaxaca carries one of the lower levels in the country. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Mexico: entry requirements, safety and health guidance, including the hurricane season information and the specific warnings about strong currents and drownings on Mexico's Pacific beaches, which name the risk this town is built around.
Official tourism authority: Visit Mexico at visitmexico.com, with the Oaxaca state tourism board for the turtle sanctuary details and the Chacahua lagoon operators.
Solo women safety assessment: Puerto Escondido is a reasonably comfortable place for a woman travelling alone, with a long established independent traveller and surf scene, a large foreign resident community, and Oaxaca's relatively low state advisory level. Violent crime against visitors is uncommon. What does happen is opportunistic: theft from beaches while people swim, from unlocked rooms and from the La Punta hostels, so use a lockable bag and the safe and take nothing to the sand you cannot watch. Use authorised taxis with agreed fares or the colectivos, since Uber coverage is thin, and do not accept a ride from someone who approaches you. By day the beaches and the town are fine to walk. After dark stay on the lit main strips of Zicatela, La Punta and the Adoquin, which are busy with people out late, and take a taxi between neighbourhoods rather than walking the unlit stretches of road between them, which is a genuine caution here because those gaps are long and dark. Do not walk on any beach alone after dark. Street harassment is present and is the ordinary Mexican coastal version, mostly verbal from men on the strip and beach vendors, and a firm no and walking on ends it. Drink spiking is a recognised risk in the Zicatela bars, and this is a heavy drinking surf town, so buy your own drinks and watch them. There have been reports over the years of assaults connected to the nightlife here, so the standard precautions of not leaving with someone you have just met and telling someone where you are going apply with more weight than in a quieter town. The dominant danger, though, is the sea, by a very wide margin. Zicatela drowns people. The shore break is heavy and close in, the rips are severe, and calm-looking conditions change within minutes. Swim only at Carrizalillo, Puerto Angelito or Manzanillo, obey the flags, never swim alone or after drinking, and if you are caught in a current swim parallel to the shore rather than fighting it. If you surf, learn at La Punta with a school, not at Zicatela. Beyond the water, heat and dehydration cause most of the medical complaints, the Carrizalillo steps are punishing in the afternoon, and in hurricane season a warning is a reason to change plans.
Reading On
Puerto Escondido has its own airport with direct flights from Mexico City and Oaxaca, and it is the Oaxacan coast at its liveliest. The Mexico travel guide for women is the parent for the country and the Mexico packing list for women covers a trip across it. Along the same coast, the Huatulco packing list for women covers the nine bays two hours east, which are calmer and better for swimming. Inland and up, the Oaxaca packing list for women covers the state capital, the markets and the mezcal. North, the Mazatlan packing list for women and the Puerto Vallarta packing list for women cover the Pacific further up, and the Cabo San Lucas packing list for women the tip of Baja. In the highlands, the Mexico City travel guide for women, the Puebla packing list for women and the Queretaro packing list for women. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why a thin wool layer belongs in a beach bag, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
