Three days covers it. Five is the trip people mean when they say they loved it. Here is what each day is for.
The honest answer is three days for the highlights and five for the trip people describe when they get home. Los Cabos is compact — two towns and twenty miles of highway between them — so the constraint is not distance, it is how much sun a person can take in a day.
Day one: the water
The bay in the morning, El Arco and Land’s End by boat, the swimmable beach after. You will be finished by early afternoon and you will need the afternoon.
Day two: the other town
San José del Cabo, the Art District, and dinner at the quiet end of Los Cabos. This is the day that changes people’s idea of the place.
Day three: pick one thing and do it properly
- A full day on a boat, rather than an hour of one
- The desert side — the trails and the dunes behind the Corridor
- A slow day: one beach, one long lunch, nothing scheduled
Days four and five, if you have them
This is where the trip stops being a checklist. Todos Santos and the Pacific coast are a day trip north. The east cape is a day trip the other way. Or you stay put, and the town starts recognising you, which is its own kind of holiday.
The one scheduling rule
Do not put the big night before the early boat. Everyone does it once. Nobody does it twice.