Baja’s Most Beautiful Beach
Often referred to as “Baja’s Most Beautiful Beach”, a beach day at La Paz’ Playa Balandra is a must-do for us when we’re in town. This beach is one of the SEVEN beaches in the famous Bahia Balandra (Balandra Bay), which is part of the Sea of Cortez, and is super shallow and reasonably calm. Even at high tide, adults can walk all the way across it.
About Playa Balandra
Balandra Beach about a 30-minute drive from the city of La Paz, and the drive itself is lovely. It is surrounded by pink and grey cacti-covered mountains, that all offer hiking for exceptional views of the turquoise waters of Balandra Bay below. For best views, I like the Mirador Balandra Trail, which is moderate due to 550 ft elevation gain, and is about 3 miles out-and-back. You can see the little parking lot on the left about five minutes before you get to the actual beach entrance.
We paddled across the bay on our boards and got one of the little beaches all to ourselves where we watched the pelicans dive, spotted some crabs and fish and explored the rock caves along the shore. If you don’t have your own boards or kayaks, there are rentals available right on the beach.
Balandra Bay is a Natural Protected Area, so they limit entry to 450 people at a time. There are two time slots: 8am-noon, and 1-5pm. Because of this, it is always so peaceful and quiet, and never crowded. We’ve always got a spot on the beach with a palapa, easily. In the busier season, you have to get there really early to make it in. Warning: people line up for a long time for the afternoon shift, and do get turned away when it’s full. Today, being a weekday in January we were able to get in right at 8:15 am, have a few good hours of fun in the sea, and make it home for our favourite time of the day: Rocky’s nap, hehe.
Getting to Playa Balandra from La Paz
While in La Paz, in order to have a beach day at Playa Balandra, you can drive in like we did (Google Maps directions here), or take organized bus or boat tours from town, through it’s site, Trip Advisor, or Viator, or many other options. For those who prefer to book in person, there are plenty of tour companies that set up along the Malecon in La Paz offering different tours by land or water.
