TFC Travels: San José del Cabo, Mexico

Interested in staying in San José del Cabo not too far from Cabo San Lucas? Check out the neat things to see in San José del Cabo, Mexico

Hello friends! Last week we went on a much-needed family vacation down to Mexico and we just got back home on Saturday. Our little trip was economical since we were trying not to spend too much, but we had a great time! The last time we had been on a big vacation was 11 years ago when my husband and I got married. We celebrated our 11 year anniversary on June 5th, the last day of our vacation! It’s hard to believe it’s been 11 years 😉

I took a lot of photos so I am sharing them in several posts over the next week or 2. This one has the best photos 🙂

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort Los Cabos All Inclusive. It was an okay place, not spectacular, but okay. If we go back again we will stay at a different all-inclusive resort. We really like being able to eat most meals without having to pull out a cash or card so we love all-inclusive resorts, especially with kids.

We stayed in San José del Cabo, which is about 20-30 minutes from Cabo San Lucas. San José del Cabo is less touristy and low-key. You won’t find many night clubs there (if any). The downtown area has a lot of historical buildings and the town is more traditional and less party atmosphere than Cabo San Lucas.

Some parts of town are pretty rough. From the airport (which is in San José del Cabo) to our hotel we drove through town on the Transpeninsular Highway and went by a lot of dirt roads and shacks. The area our hotel was in was the Zona Hotelera and is much different from the rest of town.

The downtown area is historical but is well-kept and there are a lot of art shops. It is a very traditional area and they host art festivals there on Thursday nights until the first week of June when it starts getting too hot. The Zona Hotelera is modern, and the areas around Highway 1 between the airport and the ocean are rough looking. If you want to see real Mexico, San José del Cabo has a good mix of everything.

A tour guide told us that there are no private beaches in Mexico – all beaches are available to anyone. Which is so cool! The guide also told us that the beaches in San José del Cabo aren’t great for swimming. Our beach had black flags the entire time and the waves were too strong for any swimming. So no beach swims for us!

Zach did get a mild jelly fish sting on his foot while wading. The waves brought in some small blue bottle jelly fish but fortunately it wasn’t bad. I was going to get photos of the jelly fish but my phone ran out of battery and died…bummer!

Right next to our resort was an estuary/park (Estero San José). We walked through the park to get downtown. Some of the park was in disrepair from a hurricane that came through in November. I think they are working on repairing everything but it seems to be a slow process

The paths of the park were mostly sand. Some of the paved paths along the water were destroyed by the November hurricane

We took a city tour that included a boat ride over by El Arco and Lands End. It was awesome! One of my favorite parts of our trip

An old fish cannery that is now a historic landmark

Pelican Cove

Lover’s Beach

El Arco

A sea lion sunbathing

  El Arco from the Pacific side

 After the boat ride we stopped at the Marina Mercado to do a little shopping

We toured The Glass Factory next, which was cool! We watched a vase being made. I took lots of photos so I’ll share more of those in a later post.

We stopped and got some coconut on the road. This was my first time having fresh young coconut. It was amazing!

Misión de San José del Cabo Anuiti built in 1730

Downtown San José del Cabo

We had a great time relaxing and unwinding {mostly} except for a few travel stresses.

My favorite photo of the beach from our trip