Santa Teresa

A long, straight beach break that works nearly every day, sand bottom, with a heavy shore dump at low tide. Rips are real; ask locally before paddling out.

The gentler beach at the crossroads, where most surf schools teach and where the town does its sunsets.

The country's oldest protected area, at the tip of the peninsula. The trail down to the beach is steep and takes most of a morning; check the opening days before you drive.

Forty minutes east, a fall in three tiers with a swimming hole at the bottom. The scramble to the upper pools is genuinely slippery and people come off it every year.

Shalas run drop-in classes morning and late afternoon, most of them open-sided and above the beach. Booking is unnecessary outside the busiest weeks.

Naviera Tambor carries vehicles and passengers eleven nautical miles across the Gulf of Nicoya to Paquera. Online tickets are limited, so join the queue early in high season.

Sansa serves both airstrips from San José, leaving a transfer of well under an hour over the hill. Much faster than the ferry and the drive.

The last stretch and the whole town road are unpaved: dust in the dry season, deep mud in the wet. A 4x4 or a quad is genuinely useful here.

December to April is dry, dusty and consistently sunny, with clean morning surf.

September and October are the cheapest, but the road is at its worst and some places simply close.

Christmas to New Year and Easter week, when the town is booked out and rates are at their highest.

In the water at first light. The wind comes up mid-morning and the wave stops being worth it.

A drop-in yoga class, then breakfast at one of the open kitchens on the road. Neither is quick.

Fish and rice at a soda at the Mal País end, where prices have not yet followed the surf schools north.

Drive down to Cabo Blanco for the trail to the beach, or over the hill to the Montezuma falls.

Sunset from Playa Carmen with the whole town on the sand, then a slow walk along the road.

Over the point on the other side of the peninsula: a smaller, older village with a waterfall in the middle of it and cheaper rooms.

Boats from Paquera and Tambor out to the white-sand island in the gulf. Commercial, but the water is clearer than anything on this stretch of coast.