El Salvador

Surfing in Salvador

January 11th, 2026 – January 15th, 2026

Check out our last post on The Bahamas if you want a chronological account of this trip. We decided to hit two countries with our 7 month old for his first international adventure, one “easy” one (The Bahamas), and one with a little more oomph in it. Originally that second trip was going to be Jamaica, but 2 weeks after we booked that trip, one of the largest Caribbean hurricanes in history directly struck the island, leading to the pivot to El Salvador. Obviously trips are meaningless compared to life and wellbeing, hopefully the island of Jamaica can rebuild and when that day happens we’ll be there.

Traveling with a Baby Part Two

Is it still hell? Yeah a little bit. We had already survived the first two flights from America to Nassau, and now we had two more: Nassau to Miami and Miami to El Salvador. Two more two hour flights. They weren’t horrible. We were like sponges, we’d learned so much from our first round of flights. What toys were effective, when we should board, how to calm him down if he popped off. The best thing we did differently though was to just let him sleep. Miami to El Salvador he slept the entire flight, from takeoff to landing.

Maybe one day we’ll write a guide.

Surf City

We landed at El Salvador International Airport Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez and went to pick up our rental car from Avis. That’s where panic set in. Having a baby means you have less time to research, and one crucial aspect of this booking had been overlooked; the reviews. That’s right, this Avis car rental had a whopping 1.5 stars out of 5. With reviews mentioning scams up to the thousands of dollars. Great. I’ll give you a spoiler though, they were perfectly fine for us, besides the wait.

The experience was actually pretty crazy. Nobody at Avis spoke English and we were just shown a phone translation that said to wait outside and somebody would come up to us. We waited about 20 minutes and started asking questions to ourselves. Who are we waiting for? How would this person know us? That’s when we went looking for people to talk to. I typed in my question to translate and went around just showing people that looked official. Long story short, a really nice man and lady told us to wait in a spot and then parted the red sea of people standing around to get us to the right place when the Avis person showed up. A great first impression of the kindness of people here.

We piled all the luggage and people into the rental (barely) and spent the next hour driving through the Salvadoran country. The roadsides were filled with people in wooden stalls selling food, vegetables, shirts, swimming inflatables, anything you could possibly want. They were mostly selling pupusas however, literally every 5 minutes was a new roadside pupuseria.

El Tunco was our home for the next 4 days, a small oceanside town famous for its attraction to surfers because of the impressive waves that smacked against the rocky shore.

Dinner for the first night was a traditional Salvadoran meal: Burgers. Not really, but Garage Burgers was highly rated and we wanted something with sustenance. Emily and I both got the Semaforo, which was a Burger with Avocado, Bacon, and Cheese. It was actually great. The bread was really fresh.

Volcanic Coffee

We were used to having a baby at this point (kinda). Seven months of waking up at 6am after being woken up multiple times throughout the night. We were professionals at being walking zombies. This did mean we could visit coffee shops in the morning before any sane people had decided to wake up.

El Salvador is famous for its coffee because of its high altitudes, weather, and many volcanos. It was similar to Guatemala in that sense, we’d be saying that a lot this trip, it was almost like they were neighboring countries.

Tusell Tostadores was our first coffee adventure for the trip. A small, single room shop at the far side of town. I got an espresso shot and Emily got a regular iced latte. I have no idea how to describe coffee, but here’s Emily’s description ” it was nutty, not too bitter, well balanced, smooth”. I haven’t had too much coffee in my life, but this was one of the better ones. Take that information as you will.

I went with a traditional Salvadoran breakfast, Tipico. This was a platter of Scrambled Eggs with Peppers and Loroco (a central American flower), Beans, Fried Plantains, Chorizo, and a Ranchera Sauce.

Pool Day. Fun Day

Day On, Day Off.

National Dish

Pupusas from Pupusería El Sol

Cliffside Dinner

Coctel de Conchas from Cielo Mar

The best part about traveling with a baby that still drinks formula is you need a constant supply of clean, safe water. El Salvador does not have clean, safe tap water, so we needed some ASAP. A quick walk away was the local Tienda. Inside, under the small tin roof, was a flickering light that illuminated two small aisles of everything you could want. An old man stood in the corner smiling. I bought a gallon of water for $2 and, as always, some local snacks.

The snacks were okay, the Candy Maiz tasted like fruit loops.

Volcano

Hiking San Salvador Volcano at Parque Nacional El Boquerón

Stepping out of the car was such a relief. It had been 90+ degrees our entire time in Salvador, but because our elevation was so high, it was now a cool 65 degrees. This was honestly a relief, the thought of hiking up a volcano with a scorching sun beating down on us was daunting.

The actual hike was nowhere near as hard as some of the reviews made out to be. People were acting like you had to fight for your life to get the top. Emily had a baby strapped to her and breezed through. It maybe took about 30 minutes to get to the top, barely breaking a sweat. And at the top, wow. The views were gorgeous.