DuffelUp.com Blog

Hey guys - it's Will, Duffel founder here.  Before I start rambling about Los Cabos, where I spent Labor Day, and which is what I will show you today, I'd like to take some time to thank Kira for doing such a great job writing about cities all over the world.  As a person who loves to travel, I thoroughly enjoyed all of her articles and appreciated the time she spent researching the best places to go and most popular restaurants.  The goal is to enable you, whether you're Duffel users or not (if you're not, you should join!), to start planning your vacation, because it's never too early to start saving notes and ideas for your next trip.  Ultimately, that is Duffel's goal - to give you guys a flexible tool to plan your trip with friends and loved ones.  We hope we were (and will) able to get some of you on board!

Anyway, let's get started with our Cabo trip.  First thing is that you need to understand what "Cabo" means, because the first time I searched it on Google Maps, I was confused about why the map was showing a city called "Cabo San Lucas".  Well, Cabo San Lucas is a city at the southern most tip of Baja peninsula, and it is most famous for it's Arc, a piece of arc-like rock formation that is literally the southern tip of Baja  (pictured below).  Interestingly, there's another city 20 miles north of Cabo San Lucas called San Jose del Cabo, which is a bustling town that is more city-like and a little less resort-like, and is also often confused with the real "Cabo".  We actually spent four full days in Cabo, so I'll get started with the trip.

Friday 2pm - Check In to hotel

My wife and I landed at Los Cabos International airport (SJD) after a short 3-hour flight from San Francisco.  It was 2pm, and we innocently took an outrageously expensive cab from the airport to our resort in Cabo San Lucas, for a whopping $80USD (one-way)!  (Shame on my that I didn't do much research - I should have used more Duffel!)  A tip for next time, ditch the cab and book here for a hotel shuttle ($28 round trip, much better).  We checked in to our resort, Casa Dorada Resort & Spa and the ocean view lobby made me forget all about the ridiculously-priced cab ride. If you book at the link above, you get free brunch buffet for two!

View from the lobby

Casa Dorada, as I found out later, is one of the best situated resort at Cabo.  Its at a great location that is right by its private beach, and only a 10-minute walk from downtown Cabo San Lucas  Unlike other resorts, Casa Dorada resort is kids-friendly, so there wasn't loud music blasting by the pool until 4am.  Another perk is that 80% of the rooms have an ocean view, which makes almost every room perfect. If you're considering a getaway, but still want to have an option to hang out downtown, this is the resort for you.  I know my wife spent countless hours researching on this, so kudos for her!

Friday 6pm - Explore resort and dinner

For dinner, we ate at a fancy restaurant in the hotel, and it was definitely the biggest mistake we made during the whole vacation.  Thinking back, I still can't believe we paid $28/person for a mediocre buffet, when we could have gotten tacos for half the price elsewhere (yes, $14 tacos are still expensive, but they're all tourist traps).  We did enjoy our dinner right by the ocean, however, and the fun started after dinner when we walked around the resort and scope out where we will be spending most of our time the next day.

Hotel room, and more

Saturday 10am - Brunch & Beach

Have you ever seen Corona commercials, where the camera shows an ice-cold Corona and a secluded beach in the background?  It was pretty much our beach, except we have watiers taking orders of Coronas and drinks with umbrella on top.  Before beach and drinks, however, a good brunch buffet couldn't be missed, and was included in our hotel reserveration.  We had fresh juice and all-you-can-eat omlet, smoked salmon, fruits and some random Mexican dish (which actually changed everyday). 

While hanging out at the beach, you will be solicited by various vendors selling you jewelries, rags, boat tours, and other water activities.  The only things I'd recommend is a boat tour to the Arc, because I wasn't able to find and book the tour in advance.  Other activities, such as my personal favorite - jet ski - can be booked in advance and will save you up to 40%!

Beach with a view of the Arc just around the corner

Saturday 6pm - Dinner and night out downtown

Whenever I'm traveling, I always love to sample local cuisine.  But I got sick of Mexican food by day 2 of the trip, which was a bummer because, well, we were in Mexico!  We did try a restaurant we found on Trip Advisor called Mi Casa, and it turned out to be a land mine.  Fortunately, the downtown pier area has a wide variety of American restaurants, such as Jonny Rockets, Hard Rock Cafe, and Burger King.  After an unsuccessful meal at Mi Casa, we turned to the familiar Hard Rock Cafe.  The funny thing was that I had never been to a Hard Rock Cafe until then, so my first time was in a foreign country.

Sunday 11am - Brunch by the pool

The pool was probably the best thing about the resort.  You already saw some pictures, but here's one more (with cruise ship in the background).

Our vacation didn't just end there, but you do get a hang of how we spent the next two days.  Yup, we were either by the pool bar, inside the pool, sitting by the beach, or walking around downtown and enjoying a gelato. 

But anyway, our 48 hours is up, and I'd like to close with a brief comparison with my other beach vacation - Maui.  The biggest difference, which I'd say that this is both an advantage and disadvantage of vacationing in Cabo, is that Cabo is culturely different.  In Mexico, anybody can harrass you as much as they want, and you just have to get used to saying "No" or "Not now."  Even if you feel like buying something, you'll have to haggle with broken Spanish so they can understand you.  You will basically be under constant stress worrying about whether you got ripped off or not.  This will, of course, never happen in Hawaii.  The culture and privacy you receive in American soil could just make your vacation.  However, everything considered, our trip was half the price of Maui, so it could be a steal if you wanted to visit Cabo right now.  I know we definitely enjoyed it, and I'm sure you will too!