Sayulita Hike To San Pancho

Before you start this hike, please go after you have eaten so you don’t get hangry and go with an adventurous spirit and easy going attitude.

There is a decent chance you will need to detour, get lost on a trail and double back, need to scale up the side of a dirt mountain, jump a fence and more… I will try to help you avoid that but some of you don’t always listen to directions.

The hike starts beautifully enough from the beach in Sayulita. As you walk along the beach you get further from the crowds and can admire the beautiful villas, waves and a basically untouched stretch of beach just 5 minutes from the town.

At the end of the beach is where it starts to get confusing… and I emphasize “starts.” As you get to the rocks at the end of the beach there is a villa overlooking said rocks.

It doesn’t fully look like a trail at the start but you will want to go over the rocks between the ocean and the villa to where you will see the path more from there.

After going over the rocks you will just follow the path through the jungle along the ocean enjoying incredible views of the beaches and oceans below.

Whenever the trail splits you will want to stay to the left each time until the time three trail fork right after the abandoned little hut.

At the hut you can go left, which should bring you back around to the beach, and give you a great lookout, but the middle trail will lead you the best way.

The middle path will lead you to the ideal option to continue on the trail to end one of two ways. You also want to go the middle trail so that you don’t miss checking out Playa Malpaso, which is basically deserted!

Definitely feel free to take a little break there and enjoy having a giant beach to pretty much yourself, there is also a tiny little cave there. The steep trail down to Malpaso is not ideal but looks scarier than it is and is definitely worth it.

From here there are two ways to end the hike and keep in mind there are like four different trails so a chance you may need to make some detours along the way.

Option 1: Via Playa Malpaso

Really there isn’t a great option to end this hike but this one is fine. You can walk all the way down Playa Malpaso, which is beautiful and end up at a dead end at Villa Vista Magica, which is private property on the rocks at the end of the beach.

Unfortunately… there is no way to get through this really, of course you can climb some fences and risk it but that is on you. If you could get through the Villa, this hike would be so much easier as you would basically be done and walk along Playa San Pancho until the town…

However, in reality you will see there is a break in the fence to the right of the private property sign. From there it is a steep kinda sketchy walk up the dirt.

From there you walk about a 3/4 a mile up the cobblestone driveway to the resort with probably not a soul in site. The walk is kinda pretty though as the jungle overhangs around you with just the sounds of the jungle.

Hopefully the gate is open at the end (it seems like it is almost always) or else you will be climbing the large gate!

From there it just gets worse as you will then walk the last 5 minutes along the aforementioned highway until you get to the main road and turn left down to San Pancho.

Option 2: Back To The Trail

This option has you go back up the steep little part you came down to see Malpaso and continue left along the trail. You will stay on that trail for another 15-20 minutes and ideally stay left as long as you can to avoid popping out on the highway too early.

At some point you will end up back at the highway and if you hit any dead ends you will just have to circle back around. This option you may end up at the same driveaway as the Option 1, with 5 minutes along the highway, or you could end up popping out earlier with 10 minutes to walk along the highway.