Three days in Todos Santos

A car makes the difference. With one, the coast, Pescadero and a longer day east are all in reach; without one you are mostly in the centro, which is a perfectly good trip but a smaller one.

The other is 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 trying to stock for the week — it is seasonal, and it is better that way.

Everything after that can be improvised, and should be. The hours people remember here are usually the ones nobody planned.

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

Arrive, stock the kitchen, walk the town, eat tacos, sleep. That is the entire assignment for day one.

Late afternoon, walk into the centro at whatever pace the group is moving — the streets around the plaza, the mission, and whichever galleries and workshops have their doors open. Many are studios as much as shops, and the conversation tends to be the point. If there is appetite for browsing, Nomad Chic, Ceres, Casa Todos, Taller and Pronto Muy Pronto are the ones we would put on a first lap.

For a first dinner, keep it easy rather than important. El Poblano for al pastor, or the birria stand across from the central park when it is out, 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 go back early. The first night is for the pool being warmer than the air, 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 is the easiest full beach day — a long open sweep of sand, board rentals and surf instruction in the area, and it is the beach that suits all levels. La Pastora, north of town, is the advanced one, and better watched than paddled out 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 spent on the sand rather than in the sea is not a failed beach day.

For lunch, stay on that side. Barracuda Cantina in Cerritos is the one we send people to for grilled shrimp or fried fish and a cold drink in the shade. 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. The passionfruit cocktail is the drink to start with, and the salads, the Pizza Bueno, the arrachera and the chard enchiladas are what we order. Go early enough to still have some light, and do not plan anything after it.

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

Morning: coffee, then the centro properly this time — the galleries and workshops you walked past on day one, at the pace that lets you actually go in. Where day one was a lap, this is a stop-and-look. Lunch at the Jazamango Café, in the garden beside the gallery, or at 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, whatever the courtyard is doing at four o'clock. 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 decent part of the day. Commit to one of the two — doing both turns the last day into driving.

La Paz and Balandra. Head northeast across the peninsula to the Sea of Cortez side, which is a completely different ocean: calm, clear, shallow. Balandra is managed with access controls and visitor limits that change over time, so check current entry requirements before you set out rather than turning up and hoping. Pair it with time on 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 of the sanctuary on the way. This is the more contemplative version of the day, and the better one if the group has already had enough beach.

There are other ways to fill a third day if neither appeals: off-road with Black Sheep Rentals, or, in season, whale watching.

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 rather than somewhere new.

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 down at Cerritos if you want the drink and the water in the same place.

Day one: arrive, stock the kitchen, walk 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 here for three days tend to come back for a week.