Puerto Escondido or Barra de la Cruz?

These are the two poles of surf travel in Oaxaca, about two and a half to three hours apart on the coast highway, and people agonise over choosing between them. They shouldn't — the two places are different enough that the right answer is usually obvious once you're honest about what you want from the week.

The waves

Puerto Escondido gives you variety and a very high ceiling. Zicatela is a heavy, fast, sand-bottomed beach break that produces serious barrels and serious hold-downs. La Punta at the southern end is a long, mellow left that longboards beautifully. Carrizalillo is a small protected cove where most people take their first lesson. Three quite different waves within a short taxi ride.

Barra de la Cruz gives you one wave and no alternatives. But that one wave is a long, sand-bottomed right point that gets compared to Snapper Rocks, and on the right swell it does something Puerto simply doesn't have — a connected, rippable wall you can ride for a hundred metres or more rather than a fast barrel that ends.

Skill level

• Beginner — Puerto, without question. Carrizalillo and La Punta have schools, rental boards, and forgiving waves. Barra has none of that infrastructure and the point at size is not a place to learn.
• Intermediate — either, but Barra is the more rewarding wave to progress on. Long walls give you time to actually work on turns; Zicatela mostly gives you decisions.
• Advanced — both, for different reasons. Puerto for the barrel, Barra for the point.

Crowds

Puerto is a genuine surf town with a large resident surf population and a steady flow of travellers, and the lineups reflect that year-round. Barra is busier than it was a decade ago and a good forecast does bring day-trippers over from Huatulco, but a weekday dawn is still often a handful of people. If crowd tolerance is a deciding factor, this is the clearest difference between the two.

What a day looks like

In Puerto: surf, coffee somewhere with wifi, lunch out, a second session or a nap, dinner from a long list of restaurants, and as much or as little nightlife as you want. There are ATMs, supermarkets, pharmacies, and people to meet.

In Barra: surf at first light, eat at the beach restaurant or cook what you carried in, watch the point through the middle of the day, surf again if the wind allows, and be asleep early. There is no nightlife, no supermarket, and no ATM. Whether that reads as a warning or as the entire appeal is the actual question you're deciding.

Getting there and doing both

Puerto Escondido has its own airport (PXM); Barra is served by Huatulco (HUX), about 45 minutes away. Because the two airports sit at opposite ends of the same stretch of coast, an open-jaw trip works well — fly into one, drive the coast, fly out of the other. If you have ten days or more, that's the move, and it removes the choice entirely.

The short answer

• Choose Puerto if you're learning, travelling with non-surfers, want options when it's flat, or want a town around you.
• Choose Barra if you're a confident intermediate or better, the wave is the reason for the trip, and you'd trade restaurants for an empty point at sunrise.
• Choose both if you have the days — they're one coastal drive apart and complement each other well.