Huatulco is all about the beaches. There are nine bays and over 30 individual beaches, so figuring which are the best beaches in Huatulco can be difficult. I recently spent two weeks exploring the bays, the little coves, taking taxis all over town and find the absolute best places to lay your towel and go for a swim.
If you plan to visit all of the different bays on your trip to Huatulco, I highly recommend either staying in the town of La Crucecita so that you are centrally located and close to taxis, or renting a car. The road network in Huatulco all seems quite new and is very well looked after (aka there are very few potholes). It’s very easy to drive and everything is very well signposted.
That being said, taxis from La Crucecita to and from all of the beaches are very inexpensive. La Crucecita to Santa Cruz is 35 Pesos (about $1.50 USD). La Crucecita to Bahia Maguey, one of the beaches that is furthest away, costs about 70 Pesos (about $3.50 USD). The taxis do not have meters, there is just a set price for each journey. Always make sure you agree upon the rate before you get in so there’s no surprise (although we found all of the taxi drivers in Huatulco to be very kind and trustworthy).
Want to know what else there is to do in Huatulco besides go to the beach, you can read my post about that here:
The Best Things to do in Huatulco
The board noting the cost of taxis (July 2019) from La Crucecita to all of the beaches.
The Best Beaches in Huatulco
Bahia Maguey
Bahia Maguey has only one beach, Playa Maguey. It’s a small little cove with perfectly calm waters and lots of restaurants where you can enjoy some food. This was one of my favorite beaches in Huatulco because it’s quieter than most of the others that you can get to by car, but you can still swim in the water.
There’s a taxi rank in the parking lot and you can get taxis from here until just before dusk. When the restaurants start closing, if you are going to need a taxi, then you should start packing up and heading up for a taxi. During the summer months when we were there, the sun was setting around 7:30 and even at 7pm we struggled to get a taxi. We probably waited for about 20 minutes for one to show up (then lots of them showed up).
Another nice thing about Maguey is that there is a lot of sand that isn’t taken up by restaurants or big groups. If you walk down onto the beach and turn right, simply walk past all of the restaurants and you will basically have the whole place to yourself to lay a towel and dig an umbrella into the sand. The water is very calm and you shouldn’t have any problem swimming. There are jetskis to rent here and you can also go on a banana boat ride if you want.
Enjoying the peacefulness of Playa Maguey just before sunset
Playa La Entrega
This is one of the most popular beaches for Mexican families in Huatulco. Here you’ll find tons of restaurants, a huge parking lot (where tour buses have plenty of room to park) and a big taxi rank where you’ll never struggle to get a taxi. Families come early and bring big tents to protect themselves from the sun and take up a large part of the beach where there aren’t any restaurants.
If you really want to enjoy this beautiful cove, I recommend coming here around 3pm and staying until just before sunset (unless you have a car, then definitely stay to enjoy the sunset). You can also come early in the morning before the tour buses arrive. This is mostly just on weekends and during the school holidays that you need to worry about it being to busy (Summer, Easter and Christmas). It’s much quieter during the week, so you can and should enjoy the restaurants for lunch and stay in the shade because wow does that sun get hot!
Entrega has a little area where you can jump off the rocks into the water or you can simply relax on the sand.
Bahia Conejos
This is one of the most beautiful beaches that I’ve ever seen. This bay is one of the furthest away and costs 85 Pesos each way, but there is a sitio for taxis just outside of the public beach entrance. Be sure to specify to the taxi driver that you want to go to the playa publica because if you just say Conejos they will take you to Secrets Resort, the big resort located within this bay.
The public entrance is literally a tiny little break in the trees, but there is a clear path and you’ll be able to follow it down to the beach. It’s not paved at all, it’s just a cleared track, so take caution when heading down. The fact that it’s not the nicest entrance means that you are very likely to have the whole beach to yourself. That, and the water is almost always completely unswimmable.
The beach is stunning and the waves are enormous. On our trip there, the lifeguard told us we absolutely could not swim in the center of the beach and that we had to leave before the tide came in otherwise we wouldn’t be able to leave. He said if we were confident swimmers, we could swim in the far edge where the waves were breaking a little bit gentler.
We opted not to swim and we didn’t stay for long, but I probably would have stayed for a while if I had an umbrella. The beach is so beautiful and rugged. It’s secluded and besides a few people who come to walk the beach from the resort, you’ll have the whole place to yourself.
There are no boat trips or jetskis to use at this beach. You may be able to come at it from the water on one of the boat trip tours, but they will not beach because the waves are too rough.
The beautiful Bahia Conejos in Huatulco. The color of the sand was totally different to all of the other bays I went to in Huatulco.
Bahia Tangolunda
This is a perfect beach if you are a confident swimmer and you enjoy having the beach to yourself. Similar to Conejos, be sure to tell the taxi driver that you want to go to the playa publica in Tangolunda. They will drive you down to the parking lot and then you walk a few minutes along the clear footpath to the beach.
On the far end (to the left if you are facing the water), you’ll find a few resorts, but from the point of entrance all the way to the right, the beach is all public and totally empty. There are a few locals that bring coolers and towels to sit in the shade, but during the week we were completely alone on this beach. There are no restaurants or vendors on this beach, so bring all water and snacks that you’ll want for your day out.
There is one guy on the beach who you can rent jetskis from. There was also a few people who were offering massages on the beach. If you want to go for a walk, head right (with the water on your left) and walk towards the pier. There are a few benches there and it’s a really lovely place to watch the sunset.
To get a taxi back to the town, you’ll need to walk back to the main road. From the parking lot, it’s about a 5-8 minute walk to the main road. Here you can attempt to hail a taxi, but if none pass, turn right and walk to the taxi rank that is about 5 minutes further down the road. You’ll see all of the taxis lined up on the left side.
The pier at Playa Tangolunda where you can walk or go fishing.
Playa Arrocito
This little beach in a tiny little cove is one of the best-kept secrets in Huatulco in my opinion. It’s a short taxi ride from the center of town and although it’s probably the smallest beach on this list, it still has absolutely everything. If you rent a car, there’s free parking. If you take a taxi, there’s a taxi rank in the parking lot. If you want to eat, there’s a restaurant on the beach.
You can also go out on a boat ride or rent a jetski. There is plenty of sand to lay your towel and there are even a few spots where you are completely in the shade without having to buy anything from the restaurant. There is one hotel here, Cosmo Resort and Residences, and they have a small private patch of the beach, but otherwise, it’s completely public and very quite.
The water is calm enough for most swimming abilities. There are a few waves, but it’s also very shallow, so you can touch the ground and still be quite far out in the water. There are no shops nearby the beach entrance, so be sure to pack any snacks and water (and beer of course) that you’ll need for the whole day.
The quiet Playa Tangolunda where you can sit for hours on an almost empty beach
Bahia de Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is a popular place for people to stay because there are several hotels, it’s still close to La Crucecita, it has a beach, and there are quite a lot of shops and amenities around. There’s a large parking lot here so if you are driving, you will find a parking spot at any time of day.
This is where to head if you want to go out on a boat cruise. On the left side of the parking lot, you’ll find the marina where there are several different boat companies offering boat tours. You pay for the boat, not per person, and depending on what you want to see and do, it’s about 2,500 Pesos (about $125 USD) for about 4 hours out on the water. This usually includes snorkeling gear.
The beach at Santa Cruz is nice because it has a lot of restaurants. The restaurants take up the majority of the sand here, so if you’re just looking to lay out a towel and catch some sun, this probably isn’t the beach for you. However, if you want to enjoy some seriously good seafood and cheap beers (sold by the bucket if you want!) all while having your toes in the sand, then this is a great place to spend the day.
Thanks to the fact that it’s so close to town and popular with tourists paired with very calm waters for swimming, Santa Cruz is one of the busiest beaches. It’s particularly busy on weekends and during school holidays (July, December, and Easter week). Outside of those times, it’s still one of the busier beaches, but it’s much quieter.
The beautifully small and calm Playa Arrocito
Bahia Chahue
This is the closest beach to La Crucecita. We actually walked here a few times. It takes roughly 20 minutes from the center of La Crucecita. Down the middle of the main street, Boulevard Chahue, is a nice pedestrian walkway that you can take all the way to the beach entrance.
The beach is not protected much by the bay, so the waves tend to be quite large. There is always a lifeguard on duty during the day, so if you do want to swim, just take caution and ask where the best place to swim is. It’s a large beach with plenty of places to sit and enjoy the sound of the waves.
I found that this was a really popular gathering place in the evenings when people finish school and work. Around 5pm, people start to arrive and jog on the beach, swim in the ocean, play volleyball or just sit and chat. It has a really nice atmosphere at this time of day and the sunsets from this bay are some of the nicest we say in Huatulco.
The view of the hazy jungle from Playa Chahue
San Augustin
Whenever we got in a taxi, which was basically every day, I always asked the taxi drivers which beach or bay was their favorite. Almost all of them said San Augustin.
It can be a bit of a mission to get to this beach, which is why everyone loves it so much. It takes about 45 minutes to drive there from La Crucecita and a lot of it is dirt road, which ends up making the trip almost an hour long. The best way to get here is either to rent a car or to see it as part of a boat trip. Make clear with the boat driver that you want to spend a bit of time here and get out to enjoy this beautiful cove.
There are a few restaurants on the beach, but it never seems busy enough for any of them to be full. The beach itself is very large, so there is plenty of space to find for yourself. It’s busiest on weekends, so try to come during the week if you really want to experience this peaceful spot. If you don’t want to go by boat and don’t want to rent a car, you can hire a taxi for the day. No one will take you one way and getting back by taxi would be almost impossible, so you have to have someone bring you, wait for you, and then bring you back. It shouldn’t cost much more than 500-600 Pesos.
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