Things to Do in La Paz: How to Find It All in One Place

Jacques Cousteau called this the aquarium of the world, and people have been repeating it for sixty years because it hasn’t stopped being true.

From the terrace here you’re looking at the same bay the boats leave from. Espíritu Santo is a couple of hours north by panga. The whale sharks feed in the bay itself. Balandra is a half hour down the road. Almost everything worth doing in La Paz happens on or in the water — and you’re a block from where it starts.

The hard part was never finding activities. It’s working out who to book with, and doing it before the good days fill up.

What’s actually out there

Whale sharks come into the bay roughly October through April, and swimming alongside one is the thing most guests remember for the rest of their lives. Espíritu Santo runs year-round: the sea lion colony at Los Islotes, the beaches on the island’s west side, snorkeling in water that is genuinely the colour the photographs suggest. Diving here ranges from easy reef sites to the deeper stuff further out, and there are courses if you’ve never been under.

Then there’s kayaking, paddleboarding, sailing, sportfishing, and the mobula rays in spring.

One search :)

Go to bookwithbuddy.com and search La Paz.

You get everything in one list — dive trips, snorkel tours, wildlife trips, boat days, courses — from local operators, with real dates and real prices rather than an enquiry form.

Then narrow it. Filter by activity type if you already know what you want. Filter by date if half your week is spoken for. Filter by skill level if you’re not sure what you’re allowed to do yet.

That last one earns its keep. Most of the confusion around booking water activities here comes down to not knowing whether a trip needs a certification, whether the children can come, or whether you’ll be out of your depth. Set the level and you only see what actually applies to you.

Book it from your phone. You can do the whole thing before you land, which is what we’d suggest for anything in whale shark season.

Heading south for a day?

Plenty of guests pair La Paz with Cabo San Lucas or Todos Santos. Same search, different word — put in Cabo San Lucas and you’ll see what’s running down there. It’s a different kind of diving: the Corridor reefs, night dives, the marine park at Land’s End.

Worth knowing, though, that most whale shark tours sold out of Cabo drive you up here to La Paz anyway. It’s a two-hour trip each way and an early start. Staying with us, you’re already where the boats leave from.

Why the operator you choose matters here

La Paz takes this seriously, and you should too.

Whale shark encounters in the bay are regulated — permitted boats, limited numbers in the water, no touching, no flash, a licensed guide. Espíritu Santo is a protected area with its own rules. The sea lion colony at Los Islotes closes seasonally during pupping. These aren’t suggestions. They exist because this bay has been loved a bit too hard and the community decided to protect it.

Book with permitted, conservation-minded operators. It costs about the same, the guides know what they’re looking at, and the bay is still here in twenty years.

The people behind Buddy are divers, and several of them live right here in La Paz. They work with conservation groups up and down this coast, and it shows in who ends up listed.

If you dive, get the app too

Buddy is also a free app. Search Dive With Buddy on the App Store or Google Play.

It logs your dives properly and holds your certification cards — you send in a photo or the details, the Buddy team checks them with the agency that issued them, and they come back verified at no cost. They work offline, which matters on a boat with no signal.

Turn on your location and it’ll show you other divers in town. Useful in La Paz, where a fair number of travellers turn up with a certification, no dive partner, and no idea that six other people at the next hotel are in exactly the same position.

The rhythm of a good La Paz week

Water in the morning, always. The wind picks up in the afternoon and the sea state changes, so the good trips leave early.

Come back, swim, sit on the terrace, watch the light go pink over the bay. Walk the malecón at sunset with everyone else in town. Eat late.

Repeat until you start looking at property listings. It happens more often than you’d think.

And if you’d rather have a person than a search bar, ask at the front desk. We know the good ones.