El Salvador: A Kid’s Guide
Despite being eleven years old, El Salvador is my 31st country. It is also one of my favorites! I took my first international trip when I was only four. While backpacking, I have visited five of the seven continents (all but Australia and Antarctica). I have seen the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, the Pyramids of Giza, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Masai Mara in Kenya, and the Galapagos Islands. When I was seven years old, our family traveled for a whole year! We homeschooled and checked off 23 countries.
El Salvador is a beautiful country. It took us an hour to drive from our Airbnb near the volcanoes to the lush beach at our resort, Puro Surf. In fact, it only takes about 4-5 hours to traverse across the whole country. In the Ruta de Flores area, you can find mountains up in the clouds and gorgeous wildflowers. Near the shoreline, there are black sandy beaches and great surfing spots. Our family found everything we were looking for in El Salvador.
Our Resort: Puro Surf
Puro Surf is one of my favorite places I’ve stayed at (I also loved our all-inclusive in Egypt and Panama). It’s not just the hotel that makes it special. It was the experience, the location, and the employees that make it a worthwhile place to visit. If you are like me, you’ll want to go back! Some of the things I loved about Puro were the dining, the surfing and skateboard lessons, and our cozy (my favorite word!) room.
Accommodations, Restaurant, and Activities
First off, our room had a balcony, hot water for showering, an amazing view, and three full-sized beds; perfect for our family of four! All the days are filled with different activities including yoga, surf lessons, and Jiu Jitsu. For those who are more athletic, there is a fully equipped gym with weights, a punching bag, and more! The location couldn’t be any more perfect. The beach there has sandy and rocky areas, flowers and lush greenery, and mountains in the backdrop. The waves were perfect for the more experienced surfers. Because we were beginners, our instructors took us to a beach with much smaller waves at the time.
I especially loved the dining area, Covana Kitchen. The food was incredible, and the view was stunning. The hotel’s adorable cats will join you as you eat (if you want). They are perfectly tame, and some will even jump up to sit with you! It was also nice to be able to have access to the infinity pool after the beach. My parents loved the yoga class with their instructor Erin. Both the skateboarding and surfing lessons were super fun, easy, and the instructors were very helpful. I would recommend doing skate-surf before surfing as it helps improve balance. Our instructor said we were “ripping” which I later figured out meant “doing really well”. He broke the skate-surf lesson down into different sections:
- We started by simply standing on the skateboard while holding onto a shelf and practicing mounting and dismounting.
- Next, we discussed the correct posture on the ground and then tried it on the board while the instructor pushed us.
- After that, we practiced turning on the board in each direction.
- Finally you did figure eights on the skateboard!
Surfing
My highlight of our beach stay was the surfing lesson. Although I had gone surfing before, I hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as I did with my instructor Bryan at Puro Surf. Bryan helped me so much and, within five minutes, I was actually standing up on the board! Whenever he saw a wave he thought I could take, he would turn me around and shout, “START TO PADDLING!!!!!!” We even booked a second lesson because it was so fun!
Everyone at Puro Surf has been wonderful, and we had such a great stay. I would absolutely recommend staying here unless you hate fun. I’m even saving up for a plane ticket back to El Salvador, and more specifically, Puro Surf!
To see all our travel adventures during a year-long trip around the world, head over to our Instagram page.
Have questions about Puro Surf or traveling in El Salvador? Drop us a comment—we love sharing the real-life details that make trips smoother.
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