La Parguera is a fishing village turned weekend getaway on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico, tucked into the municipality of Lajas between Guánica and Cabo Rojo. The village proper is small — a handful of streets pressed up against the water — but the real action happens offshore, where dozens of mangrove cays form a sheltered lagoon known as the La Parguera Nature Reserve.
The signature draw is the Phosphorescent Bay, one of only a handful of bioluminescent bays in the world. Boat operators run nightly tours from the waterfront, and on a dark night the wake of the boat glows electric blue from the dinoflagellates living in the water. It is less dazzling than Vieques' Mosquito Bay (motorboat traffic over decades has dimmed the glow), but it remains worth the trip.
By day, the village turns into a launch pad for the cays: water taxis run constantly out to Isla Mata la Gata and Cayo Caracoles, where shallow turquoise water and white sand make for easy swimming. Divers head straight for La Pared, a vertical wall that drops over 500 metres just past the reef. Snorkellers can do well closer to shore around the mangroves.
The other Parguera curiosity is the casetas — hundreds of stilted weekend cabins built directly over the shallow water. They are an unregulated mess, environmentally contentious, and absolutely part of what the place looks like. The boardwalk and waterfront fill up on Friday and Saturday nights with locals from across the island; weekday Parguera is much quieter and probably the better visit if you came for the nature.