Where to stay in Los Cabos

San José del Cabo is the town nearer the airport, 11 km away according to the operator, with a historic centre of cobblestone streets and whitewashed buildings, a gallery district and the church of a mission founded in the 1730s. A Thursday evening Art Walk runs there from November through June. Cabo San Lucas, about 33 km away by road, is the livelier town, with El Arco at Land's End, a marina known for sport fishing and Médano Beach, one of the most popular swimmable beaches in Los Cabos.

Between them, resort hotels line the Transpeninsular highway, the Tourist Corridor. The tourism board singles out Palmilla for calm, shallow water and Playa El Tule as the way to the swimmable beaches of Chileno, Santa María and Las Viudas, and it counts 43% of the beaches in Los Cabos as swimmable.

Todos Santos, a Pueblo Mágico founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1723, lies on the Pacific about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas, with surf beaches such as Playa Los Cerritos near El Pescadero. North-east of San José on the Sea of Cortez, the East Cape takes in Los Barriles, known for windsurfing, the fishing village of La Ribera and Cabo Pulmo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site; most of its beaches are reached on dirt roads.

The airport is inland from San José del Cabo: about 13 km by road to the town centre, about 24 km to Cabo Real on the corridor and about 45 km to the Cabo San Lucas marina. Highway 1 is free and runs the corridor as a four-lane road with U-turn lanes and side roads at the resort gates; the toll road that bypasses San José and the corridor costs a car MXN 118 from the airport to Cabo San Lucas and MXN 51 to San José, at the tariffs of 13 April 2026 (via GetCar).

No parking-meter programme was found in either town as of September 2026 (via GetCar), so street parking follows the municipal traffic regulation: no parking on the pavement, in double file, within 5 m of a corner or a crossing, or on yellow kerbs, and officers may take the plates of a badly parked car when nobody is with it. Puerto Paraíso, the mall on the Cabo San Lucas marina, has parking for 2,000 cars (via GetCar). Beaches are public (via GetCar), and Chileno has parking lots for visitors who drive in.

Rental cars in the municipality carry an environmental fee of their own, 50% of the daily UMA per rental day, about MXN 59 in 2026. GetCar's guide Driving in Los Cabos covers the roads, the toll road and the police stop.

A room in Los Cabos carries three charges. IVA, the 16% federal VAT, applies to lodging. Baja California Sur adds its lodging tax, 4% of the lodging charge with meals and other services excluded; on a package that includes transport, food or drinks the tax is charged on 40% of the bill. The host must show it separately, intermediaries that sell the stay must collect it, and Airbnb began collecting it in January 2019, according to a state government release of 2022.

The municipality of Los Cabos then charges an environmental sanitation fee for each occupied room: 70% of the daily UMA, the reference unit Mexican laws use for amounts in pesos, in hotels, guest houses, hostels and motels, and twice the daily UMA for a room, house or apartment booked through a platform. At the 2026 UMA of MXN 117.31, that is about MXN 82 and about MXN 235. Hotels have charged it since 2022, and the town council set 1 February 2025 as the start for platforms. Todos Santos and Los Barriles belong to the municipality of La Paz, whose finance law and 2026 revenue law contain no room fee.

Foreign visitors over 12 who stay more than 24 hours in the state also pay Embrace It, MXN 488 per person per visit in 2026, online at embrace.bcs.gob.mx. It is not included in airfare unless the travel provider says so, the collection partner may add a service fee, and travellers can be picked at random to show the QR receipt. People with legal residence in Mexico are exempt.

The state tourism law counts furnished rooms, apartments and houses let for temporary stays as tourist services, whose providers must enrol in the national tourism register and tell the guest the total cost. No registration number for listings was found as of September 2026. Mexican consumer law also requires the total price, taxes and charges included.

UK government advice puts Mexico's hurricane season from June to November, and in August 2026 the municipality certified 18 hotels as temporary shelters for the rain and cyclone season; for a booking in those months, read the cancellation terms. The Art Walk in San José runs on Thursday evenings from November through June, and the Bisbee's Black & Blue fishing tournament draws anglers to the Cabo San Lucas marina every October.

Pay Embrace It before arrival, as the platform recommends, and compare totals with IVA, the 4% lodging tax and the room fee included.

Short airport runs and a historic centre: San José del Cabo.

A resort on a swimmable beach: the Tourist Corridor.

The marina, Médano Beach and nightlife: Cabo San Lucas.

Surf and a Pacific town: Todos Santos and El Pescadero.

Fishing, windsurfing and the reef at Cabo Pulmo: the East Cape.