Mulege

We Drove Nine Hours Into the Desert and Found Paradise

We almost didn’t make it to Mulege. Nine hours of driving south from the border, through flat desert and cactus fields that stretch to the horizon, we kept asking ourselves if the payoff could possibly be worth it. Then the highway dropped into a valley, and suddenly there were palm trees. Not a few — thousands of them, date palms lining a river that cuts through bone-dry desert like some kind of geological joke. The Rio Mulege, fed by an underground spring, creates an oasis that’s been sustaining people for centuries. The Spanish built a mission here in 1705. The date palms they planted are still producing fruit.

We pulled into town just before sunset. Mulege is tiny — maybe two thousand people, a handful of streets, a single Pemex gas station, a few tiendas, and an old stone mission perched on a hill above the river. There’s no stoplight, no chain restaurant, no resort. The loudest sound at night was the burro braying behind someone’s house. After months of planning this Baja road trip from San Diego, this was the moment everything clicked. This is the Baja that people who’ve driven the whole peninsula talk about with that faraway look in their eyes.

Jenice stood on the bridge over the Rio Mulege and watched pelicans dive for fish in the estuary where the river meets the Sea of Cortez. She turned to us and said, “This is the most beautiful nowhere I’ve ever been.” She was right. Mulege is nowhere — magnificently, perfectly nowhere — and that’s exactly why it matters.

What Makes Mulege Different?

Most Baja travelers drive right through Mulege on their way to Loreto or La Paz. The town doesn’t advertise itself. There’s no tourism board, no Instagram campaign, no cruise ship dock. What there is, about twenty minutes south of town, is Bahia Concepcion — a thirty-mile-long turquoise bay ringed by white sand beaches where you can camp for free under a palapa, swim in water that looks like it was Photoshopped, and not see another person for hours.

Bahia Concepcion is the reason we came, and it delivered beyond anything we expected. The bay is protected from Pacific swells by the mountainous peninsula itself, so the water is calm, warm, and impossibly clear. Beaches line the western shore every few kilometers, each one accessible by short dirt roads off Highway 1. Some have basic camping infrastructure — a palapa, a pit toilet, a caretaker who collects a small fee. Others are completely empty.

But Mulege itself is more than a waypoint to the beaches. The town has a rhythm that seeps into you. Morning coffee at one of the two cafes. A walk along the river through the palm groves. A visit to the mission with its views of the oasis below. Afternoon kayaking in the estuary. Dinner at a family-run restaurant where the menu is whatever was caught or grown that day. This is Baja stripped to its essence — no frills, no pretension, just desert and sea and the people who’ve built a life between them.

Where to Eat in Mulege

Mulege doesn’t have a restaurant scene — it has a handful of family-run spots where the food is honest, affordable, and often sourced from the river, the sea, or the garden out back. Don’t expect menus. Expect to eat whatever’s fresh.

Los Equipales

Our favorite restaurant in town, set in a courtyard with hand-carved wooden chairs (equipales) and bougainvillea climbing the walls. The owner’s wife cooks traditional Baja Sur dishes — carne asada, fish tacos with fresh flour tortillas, and a machaca that had Jenice asking for the recipe. Dinner for two costs 250-400 MXN ($14-23 USD). Cash only. Open for dinner most nights, but hours are flexible — this is Mulege time.

Doney Tacos

A street stand on the main road through town. The al pastor is carved fresh off a small trompo, and the fish tacos use whatever was pulled from the sea that morning. Three tacos and a cold Pacifico cost 100-150 MXN ($6-8 USD). This is our go-to lunch stop between beach days.

Restaurant Mocka

One of the few spots with an actual printed menu. Mocka does solid breakfasts — chilaquiles, huevos rancheros, fresh-squeezed orange juice from the local groves — and serves as the unofficial morning gathering spot for the small expat community and passing road-trippers. Breakfast for two runs 180-300 MXN ($10-17 USD). The Wi-Fi here is the most reliable in town, which isn’t saying much.

El Candil

A sit-down restaurant near the town plaza that does grilled fish and shrimp plates. The chocolate clams (almejas chocolatas), a local specialty harvested from the bay, are something we’d never tried before — rich, meaty, and completely unlike any clam we’ve had in the States. Dinner costs 200-350 MXN ($11-20 USD) per person.

Palapas on Bahia Concepcion

Several of the beach camps along the bay have informal food service — a local family grilling fish under a palapa, selling cold beers from a cooler, or offering ceviche made from the morning’s catch. Prices are rock-bottom: 60-120 MXN ($3-7 USD) for a plate of grilled fish with tortillas. No menus, no hours posted. If the smoke is rising, the food is cooking. Some of the best meals we ate in all of Baja came from these beach palapas.

Panaderia Mulege

A small bakery on the main drag that turns out fresh bolillos, conchas, and empanadas every morning. We’d grab a bag of pastries for 50-80 MXN ($3-5 USD) and eat them on the riverbank before heading to the beach. Jenice declared their concha de chocolate the best she’d had outside of a Mexican grandmother’s kitchen.

Where to Stay in Mulege

Accommodation in Mulege ranges from free beach camping to comfortable small hotels. There are no resorts, no Airbnb scene, and no chain hotels. That’s the charm.

Hotel Hacienda Mulege (Mid-Range)

A colonial-style courtyard hotel with thick adobe walls, a small pool, and rooms built around a garden of palms and flowering cacti. It’s the nicest place in town and still feels like stepping back fifty years. Rooms cost 900-1,400 MXN ($50-80 USD) per night. Air conditioning works, which matters in Baja Sur. Walking distance to every restaurant and the river. This was our base, and we’d stay here again without hesitation.

Hotel Serenidad (Mid-Range to Upscale)

A Mulege institution since the 1960s, built by a pilot who landed on the dirt strip next to the hotel and never left. The Serenidad has its own airstrip, a pool, a bar, and hosts a legendary Saturday night pig roast with live music. Rooms run 1,200-2,000 MXN ($68-113 USD) per night. The vibe is old Baja — fly-in fishermen, road-trippers, and expats who’ve been coming here for decades. Even if you don’t stay here, come for the pig roast.

Beach Camping at Bahia Concepcion (Budget)

This is the move. Playa Santispac is the most developed beach camp — palapas, pit toilets, a small tienda, and even a natural hot spring at the south end where warm water bubbles up through the sand at low tide. Camping costs 100-200 MXN ($6-11 USD) per night. Playa El Coyote is quieter with better snorkeling. Playa El Requeson, a sandbar that connects to a small island at low tide, is one of the most photographed spots in Baja and costs 100 MXN ($6 USD) per night. Bring everything — water, food, shade structure, toilet paper. There are no stores on the bay.

Casa de Huespedes Nachita (Budget)

A family-run guesthouse in the center of town with basic but clean rooms around a courtyard. At 500-700 MXN ($28-40 USD) per night, it’s the best budget option with a real bed. The family who runs it has lived in Mulege for generations, and they’ll tell you where to eat, where to swim, and which beaches to avoid in the wind.

What to Do in Mulege

Bahia Concepcion Beach Day

Drive south on Highway 1 and turn off at any of the signed beaches. Playa Santispac (km 114) is the most popular and has the best infrastructure. Playa El Requeson (km 92) has the iconic sandbar. Playa El Coyote (km 108) has the best swimming. We spent three days working our way down the bay and each beach had a different character. Bring snorkel gear — the water is calm and full of tropical fish, especially near the rocky points between beaches. Access is free to 200 MXN ($11 USD) depending on the beach.

Mission Santa Rosalia de Mulege

Built by Jesuit missionaries in 1705, this stone church sits on a bluff above the river with panoramic views of the palm oasis and the town below. The mission itself is small and simple — thick stone walls, a bell tower, and a hand-carved wooden altar. It’s free to visit and usually empty. We climbed up early in the morning when the light turned the palm grove gold. The fifteen-minute walk uphill from town is worth it for the views alone.

Kayaking the Rio Mulege Estuary

Where the river meets the sea, a mangrove-lined estuary creates one of the best flatwater kayaking spots in Baja. Rent a kayak in town for 300-500 MXN ($17-28 USD) for a half day and paddle through the mangroves spotting herons, pelicans, ospreys, and the occasional sea turtle. The water is calm and the paddling is easy — Jenice, who is not a kayaker, loved it. Early morning is best before the wind picks up.

Snorkeling at Punta Concepcion

The outer point of Bahia Concepcion has clearer water and healthier reef than the beaches closer to shore. Local fishermen offer boat rides to snorkeling spots for 400-700 MXN ($23-40 USD) per person. We saw parrotfish, angelfish, sea stars, and a spotted eagle ray. Bring your own mask and snorkel for the best fit — rental gear in Mulege is limited and well-worn.

Day Trip to Santa Rosalia

Forty-five minutes north on Highway 1, the mining town of Santa Rosalia is a fascinating detour. The French built it in the 1880s to extract copper, and the architecture still looks more Parisian than Mexican — wooden houses with balconies and a cast-iron church designed by Gustave Eiffel (yes, that Eiffel). The town bakery, El Boleo, has been baking French-style bread since the mining days. A half-day trip is enough to see the town and the church. No admission fee for anything.

The Drive Is the Point

We need to address the elephant in the room: getting to Mulege is a commitment. From the Tijuana border crossing, it’s roughly nine hours of driving on Highway 1 through Catavina’s boulder fields, across the 28th parallel into Baja California Sur, and down through Guerrero Negro and San Ignacio before the road drops into the Mulege oasis. You can also fly into Loreto (LTO) and drive ninety minutes north, which saves significant time but means you miss the road trip.

We drove the whole peninsula, and we’d do it again. The Transpeninsular Highway is one of the great road trips in North America — the landscape shifts from coastal scrub to cardón cactus forests to volcanic badlands to palm oasis, and the sense of remoteness is real. You’ll pass through towns with one gas station and one taco stand, and the distance between services can stretch to a hundred miles. Fill your tank whenever you can. Carry water. Download your maps offline before you lose signal south of El Rosario.

But the drive rewards you. By the time you reach Mulege, you’ve earned it. The beaches feel more beautiful because you traveled to reach them. The cold beer at the end of the day tastes better because the nearest convenience store is forty-five minutes behind you. Mulege is not a destination you stumble into — it’s a destination you commit to, and it repays that commitment in full.

What Surprised Us Most

We came for Bahia Concepcion and we weren’t disappointed. But what surprised us was Mulege itself. We expected a forgettable supply stop — gas, groceries, move on. Instead, we found a town with genuine warmth, a history that stretches back three centuries, and a pace of life that made us reconsider our obsession with efficiency and connectivity. We stayed four days, and by the end, we were talking about buying a lot and building a small house. That’s what Mulege does. It gets under your skin.

Jenice says the magic is in the contradictions — a river in the desert, tropical fish in a cactus landscape, a Jesuit mission surrounded by date palms. Nothing about Mulege makes sense on paper. In person, it makes perfect sense.