Puerto Escondido Digital Nomad Guide + Cost of Living
Puerto Escondido is a beautiful beach town in Oaxaca, Mexico filled with gorgeous white sand beaches, crystal clear waters, laid back culture, friendly locals, a wide variety of cafes and restaurants, all at affordable prices, making it quite possibly one of the best locations in the world for digital nomad living. In today’s post I want to share with you a breakdown of our monthly costs in Puerto Escondido, so you have a better idea and guide for planning your stay here. All of the costs I will be sharing are based on two people living together for one month or 30 days, and then I will break it down per person.
Coming to Puerto Escondido
You can easily access Puerto Escondido by airplane, bus or car. We flew in from Mexico City, which was an easy flight of a little over an hour. You can find direct flights from Mexico City for as low as $30 per person each way from what I’ve seen. When you land you will have the option to take a taxi or a shared van. The taxi runs around 300 pesos ($16), while the shared van is 70 pesos ($4) per person and will also take you directly to your accommodation. The airport is at furthest 20 minutes from any given point in Puerto Escondido.
If you come by bus, you’re also in luck because the bus station is right in the center of Puerto Escondido, so it will be easy for you to hop on a colectivo or grab a taxi for 100 pesos ($5.50) to your place.
I won’t be including any of these costs into the monthly total, as they will differ for everyone, and are one-time expenses.
Accommodation
Let’s start with accommodation. We were here during the month of February, which is the high season, and runs from November to March. This is their dry season, so accommodation options were more limited, and higher priced than if you were to come during their off-season months. There are several neighborhoods in Puerto Escondido you can choose to live in, but we narrowed our search down to La Punta, as it has a laid back vibe with a nice beach and lots of cool bars and restaurants to choose from.
We wanted to stay for a month and looked at numerous hotel and apartment options. Quick tip: If you’re planning to stay for a week or more, make sure you contact the properties directly, as we found most places have better rates for long-term guests. We wanted something basic, close to the beach, and preferably with a kitchen. We ended up finding a place that fit our needs for 15,000 pesos ($814) per month. It’s a basic room in a hotel with a lot of longer-term guests, a nice pool, and less than a 5 minute walk from the beach. While we don’t have our own private kitchen, we do have a shared one which is enough for us. The hotel is super central and a stone's throw from all the bars and restaurants, but also far enough away where we don’t hear the noise at night. In comparison to the other accommodations we looked at, this one had the best value in terms of what it offered. The others we looked at were either already booked out, were higher priced, or less expensive but less comfortable or further out of town. My best advice would be to book accommodation as far in advance as possible, especially if you’re coming during the high-season.
Our total for one month accommodation was $407 per person.
Wifi
Also, a quick tip to note about Wifi in Puerto Escondido. Don’t assume that your accommodation will have good Wifi. We had problems with ours and heard of several other people having the same experience at other accommodations. Before booking I would recommend checking Wifi related reviews or asking the property directly about their Wifi speeds.
Food
Let’s talk about food. We cooked about a third of our meals and ate out the rest of the time. There are so many good restaurants all around Puerto Escondido, ranging from authentic cheap eats to trendy gourmet restaurants. At the local taco shops you can expect to find street tacos for around 15 pesos a piece (about 80 cents), at the local Mexican restaurants you can get a big plate for around 100 pesos (about $5), and at the restaurants serving specialty cuisines the prices are typically a bit higher, ranging anywhere from 150-300 pesos (about $8-16) per plate on average. When we cooked ourselves we made a lot of veggie stir fries and salads, and typically spent around 100 pesos total on ingredients (about $5), between the two of us for the entire meal. Most days I also went out to work at a cafe and drink a coffee, which was around 75 pesos ($4). We enjoyed mixing up our routine and trying different places of all different price ranges, and on average we spent about 500 pesos ($27) per day on food between the two of us.
Our grand total per person per month for food was $407.
Water
One more thing to add on to the food category is water. In most kiosks you can buy a liter of bottled water for 20 pesos, but we discovered you can instead buy a 20-liter jug of water for 18 pesos, so 20 times the amount of water for 2 pesos less! Seems crazy right? Just make sure to keep the jug and bring it back each time to exchange it for a new one, because you will pay a one-time deposit when you buy the first jug. We ran through two 20-liter jugs per week.
Making our total cost for water per person to be 72 pesos or $4 per month.
Transportation
One of the reasons we love Puerto Escondido is because it’s a super walkable town. You can get pretty much anywhere in Puerto Escondido in about 1.5 hours by foot, and in La Punta you are within 15 minutes walking to everything. The whole area is great for walking because most streets aside from the main road aren’t congested with cars and scooters, so it's very pedestrian-friendly.
But there are of course times when you want to get somewhere quick and not have to walk. This is when the Colectivo is great! The colectivo is basically a small bus or shared taxi that drives up and down the main road all day long. To catch the colectivo you can walk up to the main road to one of the designated stops and flag them down- if you don’t know where to go, just ask a local where the bus stop is and they will know. There are dozens of colectivos driving at any given time, and the cost to go one way is 10 pesos (50 cents) per person. You can get just about anywhere along the main road in Puerto Escondido within 15 minutes on the colectivo, and then you'll just have a short walk to your final destination from there. The colectivo was our primary transportation method when we didn’t feel like walking. We used it to visit several beaches, supermarkets, and restaurants, and on average took it about 3 times per week, and spent 20 pesos each round trip.
Another option you have is to rent a scooter. It would be very convenient to have one here, however it isn't necessary like it is in other places such as Bali, for example. It’s a great option if you plan on traveling all around Puerto Escondido on a daily basis, or heading further out of town. The cost to rent one is around 200 pesos ($11) per day, and we’ve heard of people renting monthly for around 4,000 pesos ($217) per month.
Another option is to take taxis around everywhere, however this is by far the most expensive. It can add up quickly especially if you are traveling solo or as a couple, as taxi rides around town are about 100 pesos for a 10 minute ride. I recommend using taxis exclusively for when you’re carrying a lot of luggage, or if it’s late at night.
The final option is to rent a car. This option might make sense for bigger groups or families traveling here who want the most convenient and safest way to get around. Rental cars start at around 500 pesos per day.
We personally walked and used the colectivo the whole time we were here. While normally we would rent a scooter, we didn’t feel it necessary this time, and we really enjoyed walking around everywhere. It allowed us to discover places we might not have noticed on a scooter, and it was also super nice to get tons of exercise from walking.
Our total transportation costs for the month were 240 pesos ($13) per person.
SIM Card
Getting a SIM card here is convenient and affordable. We went to the nearby Oxxo convenience store and purchased ours there. We bought the Oxxo Cell service, and paid 29 pesos for the SIM chip and 200 pesos for 6GB of data valid for 30 days. We just bought one SIM Card to use in one of our phones, as it's easy to share the hotspot between each other.
Our total SIM Card costs were 229 pesos ($12) in total, or split in half ($6) each.
Laundry
Laundermats seem to be on just about every block. We were doing laundry weekly and paying 20 pesos ($1) per kilo. Our weekly bill was around 60 pesos ($3).
Our monthly total for laundry was 240 pesos ($13) or $6.50 each.
Travel Insurance
Whenever we travel we like to make sure we are protected in case any emergencies arise. If something unexpected happens and you’re caught without travel insurance it can be a catastrophe, so for peace of mind we use SafetyWing Nomad Insurance and pay $45 per month to keep us covered. I will leave a link in the description so you guys can check it out for yourselves.
Total Travel Insurance Costs: $45 per person
Entertainment
In the entertainment category I’ve included things like excursions, activities, going out for drinks, random purchases like candy, ice cream, or beers, etc. Obviously this category will vary greatly from person to person depending on individual desires and budget. Just for an idea of how much these things might cost I will give you a few examples. A half-day group snorkeling adventure out on a boat will run around 300 pesos per person. A surfboard rental is around 200-300 pesos ($11-16) per day. A beer from the market is around 20 pesos, and 30 pesos in a restaurant. Margaritas out at a restaurant range from 29 pesos ($1.50) at the cheapest up to 150 pesos ($8), depending on the place.
In this category we spent a total of 3500 pesos for the month between the two of us, so $95 per person.
Total Cost of Living Per Month
So now for our final cost of living for one month per person:
Accommodation: 7,500 pesos/ $407
Food: 7,500 pesos/ $407
Water: 72 pesos/ $4
Transportation: 240 pesos/ $13
SIM Card: 115 pesos/ $6
Laundry: 120 pesos/ $6.50
Travel Insurance: 830 pesos/ $45
TOTAL: 16,377/ $888
Now let's add in the entertainment costs, and again since they’re variable they will differ for each person
Entertainment: 1,750 pesos/ $95
TOTAL: 18,127 pesos/ $983
So yes, it is possible to live in Puerto Escondido for under $1000 per month and live very well. If you guys have been here before and have any tips or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments to help our fellow nomads out. I hope you guys enjoyed this guide. . You can also find me on Instagram @thenomadnextdoor where I share more of my daily experiences.
Disclosure: some of the above are affiliate links, which means without additional cost to you, I might receive a small commission on a purchase if you buy something through my links.