Playa de la Ventana

Playa de la Ventana fronts the small village of La Ventana on the Bahia de la Ventana, about 50 kilometres south-east of La Paz in Baja California Sur, reached by a paved road over the hills from Highway 1 at San Juan de los Planes. The beach is a long, straight run of coarse tan sand and shell backed by desert scrub, facing east across the channel to Isla Cerralvo, now officially Isla Jacques Cousteau. The water is clear and deep blue with rocky patches offshore, and there is no meaningful surf, but from November through March a thermal wind known locally as El Norte funnels down the channel almost every afternoon at 15 to 25 knots. That reliability has turned an ordinary fishing village into one of the best-known kiteboarding and wing-foiling destinations in North America.

In season the bay fills with kites from roughly midday until sunset. Several schools operate directly off the beach, with introductory kiteboarding courses commonly priced from around USD 300 for a multi-hour package and gear rental available by the day; a launch area at the northern end of the village beach is the usual base. Mornings are a different beach entirely, glassy and quiet, good for swimming, paddleboarding and snorkelling on the rocky sections, and for spotting the mobula rays that gather in the channel in spring. Whale sharks and dolphins pass through the wider bay seasonally.

Services are village-scale: small restaurants and taco stands, a handful of cafes and bakeries catering to the winter kite crowd, beach camping and RV spots, casitas and small hotels, but no large resorts, no lounger concessions and no lifeguards. Cash is useful, and the nearest full supermarket and bank services are in La Paz, about an hour's drive. Outside the wind season the village empties out and the beach can be almost deserted, which suits swimmers and snorkellers far better than kiters.