A Cerritos Beach weekend: surf, sunsets, and El Pescadero

Check-in at Pico del Punto is after 4 PM, which lands you here in the good part of the afternoon. The penthouse sits at the top of The Point at Cerritos with two bedrooms for up to four guests, two private patios, and a rooftop of its own.

The useful first move is to do very little: get your bearings from the patio, walk down to the sand, and see the bay in the light you will be looking at all weekend. The complex pool and outdoor shower are there if you want water without the ocean.

Save the shopping and the surf plans for the morning. The first evening is better spent finding out where the light goes.

Cerritos is the best-known beginner-friendly break on this side of the cape, and the wave near the point is the one most schools use. Peaks north of it thin out as you walk. If you are learning, or you have not surfed in a while, go out with someone who is in this water every day.

Two schools operate on the beach and publish their own details. CRT Surf School lists its location as Playa Cerritos, KM 65, México 19, El Pescadero, and advertises lessons and board rentals. Cerritos Surf Academy advertises lessons at Cerritos and describes its meeting spot as the north end of Playa los Cerritos, about ten minutes south of Todos Santos, by their own account.

Both are worth contacting directly. We do not hold inventory, schedules or pricing for either, and what is available changes with the season and the day.

The rest of a good Saturday is mostly walking and sitting. Walk north from the point and the beach opens out and empties as you go; there is more of it than most people use. Come back for lunch, go out again when the light softens.

Walk north from the point and the beach opens out, emptier as you go.

Being able to go up and down easily is the quiet advantage of staying here — a swim, then the patio, then the sand again, without a drive in between.

El Pescadero, the farm town just inland, is where the tortillerías, small markets and a good share of the food worth eating are. The kitchen at Pico is a real one, so a stop for provisions on the way in is usually worth it.

This is our current short list rather than a directory, and it is the same one in our longer Cerritos guide. Menus, hours and whole seasons shift on this coast — several places close for stretches of the year — so check before you set out. None of these are sponsored.

This is the Pacific side, so the sun goes into the water every evening. That makes sunset less an event to chase than a thing to be in position for.

The rooftop is the version we know best: the beach below, the light going flat over the bay, the soaking tub and the outdoor kitchen up there with you, and no drive home afterward. If you would rather be on the sand for it, the beach is a short walk down and the walk back up is the whole commute.

Checkout is before 10 AM, which is early enough that the last morning is best kept simple: coffee on the patio, a walk on the sand, and the drive out with the beach still in the mirror.

If you have a longer stay in you, Todos Santos to the north is the other half of this coast — galleries, a proper town, a longer dinner. Our Cerritos and El Pescadero guide covers that ground in more detail.