La Paz
Estero de Jaltepeque: the mangrove behind Costa del Sol
Cut the outboard near the mangrove and the water crackles like frying bacon. It is not the water and it is not the shellfish — here is what it actually is.
Read the guide7 min
Blog Spot
Places to go in El Salvador
Public places worth the drive — volcanoes, crater lakes and a downtown that spent thirty years being written off. Written by people who live here, with the practical details you actually need.
16 guides shown
La Libertad
El Sunzal without the contest: learning on a world-class wave
Famous waves are usually famous for being difficult. This one is famous for being long, which is why a beginner and a professional can ride the same wave a hundred metres apart.
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Ahuachapán
Barra de Santiago: the sandbar with an estuary behind it
A Ramsar wetland of 11,519 hectares, four species of nesting turtle, crocodiles in the channels, and thirteen unexcavated mounds on an island in the swamp.
Read the guide7 min
Usulután
Overlanding to Laguna de Alegría: the highlands nobody sells you
A crater lake at 1,200 m, a gravel shore wide enough to camp on, and a country small enough to go from world-class waves to cold mountain air in an afternoon.
Read the guide7 min
Sonsonate
Playa Los Almendros: the beach that searches your car
No plastic, no speakers, no alcohol, no soap — and they check at the gate. What you get instead is tide pools, black rock and a beach that is genuinely quiet.
Read the guide5 min
La Libertad
Jardín Botánico La Laguna: a crater full of shade
Twenty minutes from the capital, several degrees cooler, and almost entirely missed by visitors. Flat paths, dense planting and a lot of birdsong.
Read the guide4 min
San Salvador
Mercado San Miguelito: lunch where San Salvador actually shops
Multi-level, covered, and entirely uncurated. The best cheap lunch in the capital, and the one thing most visitors never find.
Read the guide5 min
San Salvador
Parque Bicentenario: 91 hectares of forest inside the capital
Terraced green amphitheatre, a wetland boardwalk, and almost 4,000 trees — all a few minutes from Zona Rosa.
Read the guide5 min
San Salvador
Parque Cuscatlán: where San Salvador goes on a Sunday
Free, shaded, and full of people using it. Sports courts, a walkway above the trees, and a granite wall carrying 30,000 names.
Read the guide5 min
Santa Ana
Tazumal: the Maya pyramid rebuilt in concrete
A stepped pyramid occupied for more than a thousand years, sitting in the middle of a working town. What you see is genuinely old and partly not.
Read the guide6 min
La Libertad
El Sunzal: the point break that put Surf City on the Olympic circuit
297 surfers, 61 countries, and a Salvadoran Olympian on his home wave — the ISA World Surfing Games' third stop in Surf City, and what's left of it when the contest towers come down.
Read the guide6 min
Usulután
Laguna de Alegría: a green crater lake in the east
Emerald water that smells faintly of sulphur, flower nurseries in the town below, and far fewer visitors than the western volcanoes.
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Santa Ana
Lago de Coatepeque: the lake that changes colour
Swimming, boats to a small island, and lakeside comedores — plus a colour shift nobody can schedule.
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Sonsonate
Izalco: the volcano that was a lighthouse
A bare black cone you can climb in a morning — one of the hardest short hikes in the country, and one of the strangest landscapes.
Read the guide6 min
Santa Ana
Cerro Verde: cloud forest between three volcanoes
Cool air, hummingbirds and orchids — plus the staging point for the Santa Ana summit and a front-row view of Izalco.
Read the guide6 min
San Salvador
Centro Histórico: San Salvador's downtown, rebuilt
Plaza Gerardo Barrios, a brutalist church with a rainbow inside, and Central America's oldest theatre — all within four walkable blocks.
Read the guide7 min