When to Avoid Mexican Beaches and Balnearios

Semana Santa (Holy Week)

This article has been revised from my March 2024 post. In the last paragraph of that episode, I emphatically wrote that the key to bypassing crowds during Semana Santa was to avoid water. A few weeks later, I completely ignored my advice. We were visiting family in Monterrey, Mexico and decided to go to a waterfall on the Saturday before Easter which in Mexico is referred to as “Sábado de Gloria.” It was packed. Wall to wall people. The furthest thing from experiencing nature. And all the way up I was thinking to myself, “You idiot, you just wrote about this phenomenon two weeks ago.” The city of Monterrey, on the other hand, was wonderfully vacant. So, I have proven to myself that the words written below are in fact, “la mera verdad.” True.

A cello player walks the beach of Mazatlan during Semana Santa.

January through April are perfect months for basking in the sun on one of Mexico’s Pacific Coast beaches.  However, there are a couple of weeks during those months that you might want to plan around unless you love hordes of people: Vacaciones de Semana Santa (Easter vacation), which in 2025 is April 12-27th.

The week before Easter is officially Holy Week. Yet, when Mexicans refer to vacaciones de Semana Santa, they include the week after Easter also. Schools are out for the entire two weeks. Most everyone is off work the Thursday (Jueves Santo) and Friday (Viernes de Crucifixión) of Holy Week, even construction workers and others in the service industry who generally have few vacation days during the year. Anyone who can goes to the beach. Those who can’t afford the beach, head for the nearest water park (balneario) or waterfall.

Our first year in Mexico, we felt like two weeks was too much time off for our English students so we scheduled classes for the week after Easter. No one came. My fellow teacher Brett decided to spend his days off at the beach where, to his chagrin, there were no hotel rooms available. He ended up sleeping under a hedge near a park.

On the other hand, Semana Santa is a perfect time to visit one of the larger cities in central Mexico. Mexico City (officially CDMX now, short for Ciudad de Mexico) is much more manageable during Semana Santa. Half of the 20 million people who live there are at the beach! Or the balneario! The key is to avoid water. If water is not the main attraction of your Semana Santa destination, you should be just fine.

Kids play in the fountains at the base of the Monumento de la Revolución in CDMX.