Popotla

Fishing villageYear-round (seafood); fall-winter (surf)

Popotla is a picturesque fishing village tucked into a cove about 10 minutes south of Rosarito. You enter through a white arch beside the wall on the south side of Baja Studios, and inside you find the opposite of touristy Rosarito: pangas on the sand, humble houses on the bluff and the smell of the sea and freshly caught seafood.

The heart of Popotla is its seafood market: here you buy, at fisherman prices, practically every species from the Mexican Pacific —fresh fish, shrimp, lobster, octopus, clams, oysters, crab, sea urchin— and even the peculiar "martian crab", a long-pincered crustacean said to be found only here.

Around it are nearly two dozen eateries, from fish-taco stands to sit-down restaurants, several right on the beach. The must-see curiosity is the restaurant built in the shape of the Titanic’s bow, a nod to the film shot right next door at the Rosarito studios (Baja Studios).

The beach is a rustic cove of sand and rock; not a polished resort beach but a place with local flavor. For surfing, it works as an exposed reef break that gives its best waves in fall and winter, when the wind blows offshore from the southeast.