San Felipe is a low-key Sea of Cortez town on the east coast of Baja California. It is not polished resort Mexico; its charm is salt, sand, shrimp boats, off-road dust, and the smell of fried fish around the malecón.
The water is the first surprise. The bay has some of the largest tidal swings in the world, and at low tide the sea can pull far back from the beach, leaving a wide, rippled floor where the Gulf seemed to be an hour earlier. Time a walk badly and you simply get mud; time it well and San Felipe feels like a town built beside a moving desert of water.
The other reason to stop is the surrounding desert. Valle de los Gigantes is an easy trip south of town, where enormous cardón cacti stand in the plain like slow, green columns. Back in town, the malecón is the evening promenade and the best place to eat the fish tacos that San Felipe claims as its own.