El Tunco: Wiping Out in El Salvador’s Beginner Surf Capital

El Tunco is a small town on El Salvador’s Pacific coast. The town has a reputation as a backpacker beach party town. It’s definitely a backpacker beach party town. El Tunco is also one of the best places to learn how to surf.

In fact, there isn’t much else to do in El Tunco besides party and surf. I’m not much for partying these days, but had always want to try surfing. So, we stopped in El Tunco during our trip to El Salvador, my head filled with dreams of catching gnarly waves. Those dreams never came true.

How to Get to El Tunco

El Tunco is a well-known tourist destination and as such, it’s pretty easy to get to. If you’re coming from Santa Ana or La Ruta de Las Flores or pretty much anywhere else in El Salvador, you’re going to have to transfer in San Salvador.

Buses leave from Estación Ceiba de Guadalupe fairly regularly, but as is the case in Central America, check with your hotel or hostel before you set out. Catch a La Libertad bound bus and tell the driver you want to be dropped off in El Tunco. Centrocoasting.com has a ton more information about El Salvador’s buses should you want it.

Buses in El Salvador are generally pretty safe and easy to use, but if for some reason you want to spend a lot of money unnecessarily you can also catch a cab or an Uber to El Tunco from San Salvador. There are also tourist shuttles that stop in El Tunco to and from Antigua, Guatemala and Leon, Nicaragua.

A street vendor walks behind a tourist on the streets of El Tunco, El Salvador

What to Know About Traveling to El Tunco, El Salvador

Once you’ve arrived in El Tunco, you’ll find that the best way to get around is by using your own two feet. The town is basically just a handful of streets and nothing is all that far from anything else. The only problem might be lugging your bags or suitcases in the heat. It’s hot.

El Tunco is very much a touristy beach town. This came as a bit of a shock to us, after having spent the previous days in the much less touristy Ruta de las Flores and not-touristy-at-all San Salvador. How strange to see bikini clad gringos eating vegan food and speaking in English.

El Tunco supposedly has some pretty rollicking night life. There are plenty of opportunities to get rip roaringly drunk, if that’s your thing. Crowding into a packed bar full of intoxicated twenty-year-olds sounds like hell to me, but it’s a thing you can do in El Tunco. Maybe it’s something I would have enjoyed ten years ago.

Today, my idea of a good night out is doing nothing more than grabbing a couple of beers from a convenience store and watching the sunset. That’s what my wife and I did, and it was great. El Tunco’s beach is a nice place to watch the sunset.

During the day, the beach isn’t anything to write home about. The dark volcanic sand is pretty cool, but it’s pretty rocky and the waves are way too rough for swimming. Nobody comes to El Tunco to swim or hang out on the beach. This is a surf town.

Dark sand beach at El Tunco


Tell the Teacher We’re Surfing / Surfing El Salvador

Before leaving on our trip, I had a vision/fantasy in my head of becoming a laid-back beach bum surfer dude. I’d let the sun bleach my hair, get a sea turtle tattoo on my leg and maybe one of those cool shark tooth necklaces. El Tunco was going to be the place where my surfer dude fantasy would become a reality.

You can throw a rock randomly into the air in El Tunco and it’ll probably crash down onto the roof of a reasonably priced surf school. My impression is that they’re all pretty comparable in quality and price.

For an affordable price, I forget how much exactly, the school checked the conditions and set me up with a lesson that day. They outfitted me with a board and a wetsuit and in minutes I was following the instructor down to the beach.

I told myself I’d buy one of those shark tooth necklaces if I could manage to stay on the board at least once.

We went through some brief instruction on the beach, then launched our boards into the gently crashing waves. My instructor was kind and patient as I feebly attempted to push myself up onto the surf board. But each time, the ocean ripped the board out from under me. Waves pummeled me over the head and I tumbled upside down in the water.

Towards the end of the lesson, I was almost able to stand on the board for a whole second. I was out of breath, bruised, beaten and with a nose full of sea water. My wife has a whole collection of embarrassing videos of me falling off the surfboard. I did not end up buying a cool shark tooth necklace.

My instructor and I stand in front of the ocean before my utter failure at surfing

Is El Tunco Worth It?

I left the beach more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life, my surfer dreams dashed against the rocks by El Tunco’s moderate, beginner sized waves. I still had a great time. Life’s all about trying new things, right?

And in the end, I enjoyed El Tunco. I spent the rest of my time on the beach admiring the other surfers from a distance, and with a much deeper appreciation for how difficult the sport is.

While El Tunco is a touristy backpacker beach party town, but it’s far less annoying than other touristy backpacker beach party towns I’ve been to. Unless you’re super serious about surfing, I wouldn’t stay more than a night or two. If you aren’t interested in surfing, El Tunco is nice but it’s probably not worth the trip.

However, it is a great place to surf and to take surfing lessons. You can easily fit a side trip to El Tunco in as part of a bigger El Salvador journey, or come here and stay in one of the surf hostels that line the water. Hopefully your attempts at surfing go better than mine.

Beach shacks alongside a river that runs to the beach in El Tunco, El Salvador

Not interested in surfing or partying? Check out more about El Salvador here: Exploring El Salvador: Central America’s Hidden Travel Gem is Ready to Shine

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