Three days in Todos Santos

A car. From the house in Las Tunas, the centro is about ten minutes, Cerritos about twenty, and taxis are not reliably available out here. With a car the whole area is easy; without one the trip gets much smaller.

The first provisions run. Los Pinos and the fruit and vegetable market across from El Sol 2 cover most of it, and the Agricole Cooperative is where we go for produce and local goods. Buy little and often rather than stocking for the week.

Everything after that can be improvised, and should be.

Do not try to make day one productive. The drive in from either airport is long enough that the goal is to arrive, unpack and find where the shade falls. Get the house sorted, then go back out before the afternoon goes.

Arrive, stock the kitchen, drive into town, eat tacos, sleep. That is the whole assignment for day one.

Late afternoon, drive the ten minutes into the centro and walk it: the streets around the plaza, the mission, and whichever galleries and workshops have their doors open. Many are studios as much as shops. For a first lap, Nomad Chic, Ceres, Casa Todos, Taller and Pronto Muy Pronto are the ones we would look at.

For a first dinner, keep it easy rather than important. El Poblano for al pastor, or the birria stand across from the central park, is a better welcome than a table and a wine list, and it leaves the bigger meal ahead of you. If the group wants to sit down, La Esquina is the low-key version of the same evening.

Then drive back early. The first night is for the pool, one drink outside, and a long sleep.

Day two points west and south. Go to the coast in the morning, while the light is good and the wind is usually lower. Cerritos, about twenty minutes south, is the easiest full beach day: a long open sweep of sand, board rentals and instruction in the area, and somewhere to eat nearby. La Pastora, five minutes north of the house, is the exposed one, and better watched than paddled into unless you know what you are doing.

Read the water before you get in it. Conditions change beach to beach and day to day: swell, tide and current all vary, so one good morning tells you nothing about the next. Watch what people already in the water are doing, and be honest about the group's comfort with shorebreak. A day on the sand rather than in the sea is not a failed beach day.

For lunch, stay on that side; Barracuda Cantina at Cerritos is the one we send people to. Then come back to the house for the hottest part of the day. This is the afternoon the pool exists for.

Make the evening the one you planned around. Hierbabuena, out in Pescadero, is our favourite: a garden restaurant cooking largely from what is grown around it. Go early enough to still have some light, book ahead, and do not plan anything after it.

Choose this if the group has settled in and nobody wants a long day in the car. It is the better option for most three-day trips.

Morning: coffee, then drive into the centro and do it properly — the galleries and workshops you walked past on day one, at a pace that lets you go in. Lunch at Jazamango Café in the garden, or Compa Chava's if the answer is ceviche and tuna sashimi.

If people want a walk rather than a wander, the Puerto Viejo hike from Hotel San Cristóbal is the one we point guests toward.

Afternoon: nothing. The pool, a book, a nap, music. Resist the urge to add a third thing.

Evening: cook and eat outside, which on a three-day trip is usually the meal people remember. If someone would rather go out, Tre Galline, Romántica and Il Giardino are the three we keep coming back to. For live music, look at La Esquina, La Morena and Barracuda.

Choose this if the group has appetite for a real outing and is happy to be in the car for a good part of the day. Commit to one of the two; doing both turns the last day into driving.

La Paz and Balandra. Northeast across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez side, which is a completely different ocean: calm, clear, shallow. Balandra has access controls and visitor limits that change over time, so check current entry requirements before you set out. Pair it with the malecón in the late afternoon and eat there before driving back.

El Triunfo and the cactus sanctuary. The other direction, up into the hills on the road east: a former mining town with a preserved industrial core, with the cardón forest on the way. The more contemplative version of the day, and the better one if the group has had enough beach.

There are other ways to fill a third day: off-road with Black Sheep Rentals, or, in season, whale watching. Armando can point you at what is running while you are here.

Either way, keep the evening simple. Get back, eat something easy at the house or find tacos in town, and spend the last night where you have been sleeping.

The simplest answer is the Casa rooftop, and on at least one night it should be. Otherwise: El Mirador for the view, Amaya at San Pedrito, or Barracuda Cantina at Cerritos if you want the drink and the water in the same place.

Day one: arrive, stock the kitchen, drive into the centro, eat tacos, sleep early. Day two: the Pacific in the morning, the house through the heat, and one dinner worth planning around. Day three: either a slow town-and-cook day, or one committed outing east.

One anchor a day and nothing else scheduled. That is the whole method, and it is why people who come for three days tend to come back for a week.