Good morning everyone,
Reporting to you live from NYC! It’s week two of my new job and I’m still thinking about the perfectly hot and crispy empanadilla I ate on the beach last week.
We had a wonderful time in Rincón, which is on the northwest coast of Puerto Rico. It’s about 2.5 hours west of San Juan, so you can drive from the capital or fly directly into Aguadilla airport, 20 minutes away. I always find it so challenging to find beach destinations that are a little bit special, a little rough around the edges, and that have some character. Sure, I love a perfectly landscaped resort just like the next guy, but I also love “hidden gems" and I think we found that in Rincón.
It happens to be one of the surf capitals of the world, so the vibe is very laid back, as you could imagine. Some beaches are perfect for parking your butt and watching the pros ride waves while others are excellent for swimming, with soft waves and decently pleasant sand. The coffee is very good everywhere on the island, which is another key performance indicator of vacation happiness for me.
All of the beaches are public, so the best thing to do is rent a car and check out new ones daily. We stayed at an AirBnB near Corcéga Beach, which was incredibly quiet and great for swimming. I loved it. Below are my recommendations for those of you ready to book a flight.
To Stay:
If you want a luxury hotel, I heard great things about Tres Sirenas. I also loved the look and feel of this villa, which would be perfect if going with another family. We stayed at an AirBnB right on the border of Rincon and Stella, which was oceanfront and affordable!
Coffee/Breakfast:
We don’t really eat breakfast in our regular life so on vacation, unless it’s a hotel amenity, we usually just grab coffee and a pastry at a café nearby. We had delicious iced americanos/lattes every day from: Cafe 413, Cafe Puya, Daily Dose PR, and then Coffee Masters on the way to the airport. Didn’t have a single bad cup!
Beaches:
The best activity to do during the day is go to the beach. If you’re into water sports, you can do all of them here. For swimming, my favorite beach was Corcéga, but Balneario Beach was nice because it was long and you could walk down it for 20/30 minutes. Make sure you have access to chairs/towels/umbrella wherever you are staying. For surfing, whether you’re doing it yourself or just watching, go to Domes Beach. On Saturdays, you can buy a giant coconut for $4, drink the water, and then bring the coconut back to the nice man who will scoop out all of the meat for you to nosh on while you watch incredibly beautiful individuals ride the wives. Not bad, eh?
Yoga:
I took a fantastic class at Barefoot Yoga PR, actually my first since the pandemic! It was so nice to do more than 30 minutes (I have zero attention span practicing alone in my apartment) and to get an adjustment from a teacher. It’s outside facing the ocean, which is lovely.
Daytime Food:
On our first day we hilariously tried to walk to a shuttered beachfront restaurant. Make sure to use Facebook for checking hours, not Google! The town is not super walkable and after 15 minutes of sweating, we arrived to a “Closed” sign. Then we wandered over to nearby El Ancla, starving since we hadn’t eaten breakfast. It was recommended by our friend Dave but I had forgotten about it. It has a cool location right on the beach, with some tables on the actual sand. The only food they had was empanadillas, a Puerto Rican specialty. We ordered one with mahi-mahi and one with shrimp and oh my stars they were such a revelation. Crispy, hot pockets of dough filled with local seafood and super well seasoned. We had to get another batch. They also served them with this Pique Criollo (Puerto Rican tabasco, the internet tells me) which was sooooo good. For drinks, we had rum punches that were sweet, strong, and tangy.
We also enjoyed lunch at Jack’s Shack, which was a cute little shack on the side of the road with tacos and burritos. You can expect to see both locals and New Yorkers here. Use the coconut-habanero salsa on your fish tacos. Quite good!
One day we just got a bunch of deli meats, cheeses, fruits and veg from Edwards Farm Coop and took them to the beach. I liked this supermarket for stocking up! Econo down the road had less variety of produce, but more snacks/beers/etc.
Dinners:
We had good food all 3 nights. The first night, we went to La Cambija, a very casual outdoor restaurant with mostly seafood. Both the blackened fish and the fish skewers were super fresh and well prepared. Cocktails were meh, might be better to grab beer/wine here.
Second night we went to The Beach House which has a pretty big menu that ranges from wings and tacos to tuna and steak. The buffalo wings were served dry with sauce on the side, which was new and kinda weird to me, but Brandon loved them. Drinks were fun too- but not as strong as at El Ancla ;) After dinner, we walked a few minutes down the hill to Calypso Cafe, where there was an incredible live musician singing reggae music. It was so fun and chill, everyone was dancing and listening, singing. Highly recommend for a Friday night (not sure when music starts, we came around 8).
The final night we went to estela, which is a fancier restaurant on the island. We enjoyed the food, but it wasn’t worth the price IMHO, and seemed overall quite hit or miss with the dishes. If you’re vegan, they had an entirely vegan menu option which was nice. It was a lovely ambiance on the patio, but we ended up going out dancing again (another spot with only locals and karoake) and getting pizza later bc we were unsatisfied haha.
And now, back to work!
Big hugs,
Jane