Best Things To Do in San Salvador, El Salvador 2025 4K.

What's going on everybody. This is Island Hopper TV. And today we're going to show you the 22 best things to do when visiting El Salvador. We're going to go out to the beaches, the volcanoes, show you around San Salvador, Bitcoin beach, eat some of the local food like pupusa. So this is going to be an exciting one from one of the most up and coming travel destinations in all of Latin America. First up here, we are in the Capitol. This is San Salvador with a Metro population around 2 million people here in San Salvador. You want to go to Centro Historico. This is the oldest and most culturally rich district. It's home to the city's most famous plazas, churches, markets, and here you'll find the Plaza Libertad, which is actually the birthplace of the city. You can go to some museums and visit the National Theater. This is really the cultural center of El Salvador. While we're around here, you can go to some of the markets. They do have markets around the Centro Historico, but then they also have a larger market where you can find a lot of cheap goods. If you're someone who's looking for maybe cheap souvenirs or something to bring back home, go to some of the markets around San Salvador or anywhere across El Salvador, but San Salvador is where they have the best markets. Maybe check out Mercado Nacional de Artesanes or the area around Ataco. As far as safety around these places go, El Salvador went from one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas to now one of the safest in all of the Americas. So big change and relatively safe from my experience. And right next to San Salvador is Santa Tecla. The greater area around San Salvador is known as La Libertad, but the area that we're talking about here is Santa Tecla. This is a modern area. They have malls, they have plenty of different restaurants, franchises from all around the world. So they've got a wide variety of foods to choose from. But this was the area that I found to be the more modern nightlife area, a lot safer than anywhere else that I saw around San Salvador. This is actually where our hotel was. We stayed at the Marriott, a good area to base camp. Then we went out to Ponche Malco. Now going out here is on the way to the coast. So you can hit this place up along the way. They've got like a cultural area where they talk about some of the indigenous people and you can learn more about El Salvador's history, which includes several different indigenous groups, including the Mayan and tribes who spoke the Nahuatl language. That man there was showing us how to imitate the sound of a Jaguar as well as other birds that were in the area. Here he is giving me an obsidian necklace. Now here we are at the Santa Ana volcanoes. So there are several different volcanoes across El Salvador. This one here is the largest, but there is around 36 active volcanoes across here. Santa Ana volcano does have a lake right there. It's a crater lake. It is a strata volcano. The height is 2,381 meters. That's about 7,800 feet above sea level. The last eruption they said was in 2005. I would suggest going there on a tour. Now here we are at the Tazumal. Now here we are at the Tazumal archaeological site. This here is Mayan history. They've found many different artifacts from here dating back to 250 AD. Now here we are at Lake Coatepeque often described as the most picturesque natural gem in all of El Salvador. It does sit in a volcanic caldera that was formed from an eruption about 72,000 years ago, sitting at an elevation of 2,500 feet. You can do water sports here like kayaking, jet skiing, boating, paddle boarding, swimming, or just relax. Now a really interesting strata volcano at the Southern flank of the Santa Ana volcano is Izalco at an elevation of 1,950 meters. It is the youngest volcano in El Salvador with the first eruption beginning in 1770 and it's erupted 50 times since then. Now we're headed down to the coast here. This area is known as Surf City. So it is several hundred kilometers of coastline in El Salvador known for famous surfing beach towns. You've got nightlife, just a surf culture vibe, really great out here. Some of the towns that we'll be showing you here, including El Zonte known for its bohemian vibes. It's definitely a surf town. There's around 3000 people living here. It's known as part of the Surf City region. And here you're going to find the signature surf break, which is known as El Zonte, a well-known right hand point break. Waves here are going to be great. So surfing in this area is perfect. If you're a surfer, you want to end up in a place along this coastline. And then right around here, you have the towns in the village with shopping restaurants, hotels, hostels, just a real chilled laid back kind of atmosphere. Not too overly crowded yet. That could change with time as tourism continues to pick up in El Salvador. But right now you can still get a chilled out vibe here. Now another positive about surfing in El Salvador is it's got warmer water. So surfers really like that. It does have the nickname Bitcoin Beach because of a donation that came in 2019 to build up and develop the area. And along this coastline, there's another town that you may consider hanging out in El Tunco. This one's a little bit bigger. I wanted to talk about the surfing a little bit more. You don't have to be an expert surfer to enjoy the waves out here. They have beginner level, they have intermediate. And then on days where there's high swells, obviously if you're more experienced, you would be in the water. Whereas if you're a beginner, you would stay out. But the waves don't get too crazy over here. You just want to pay attention to Surfline or some of the apps that talk about the swells, the sand here mostly in this area is black sand and there are a lot of rocks in there. So it's not the best beach for chilling. You're not going to get like white sand beaches. You're in this area of Costa Rica. That's a little bit further South where they have golden sand, but it's still a very chilled out vibe with the surfing community and everything. Let's talk about some of the food here. So you've got Elotes which is corn that's mostly boiled and then put on a grill and Elotes is very famous. And then you have other types of Latino cuisine like tamales. But then the most famous is pupusa. Now pupusa is like a quesadilla kind of cheese wrapped in a dough. Sometimes they put meat in there. It's not quite a quesadilla, but it kind of tastes like one. You dip it in sauce, really delicious. Hopefully you like cheese. We got some El Salvadorian candied alboroto. It's like a popcorn, candy corn kind of deal. And they do have two famous rainbow slides in El Salvador that you can check out. Now we're over at a hike. This is Puerto del Diablo. I hiked up here on about the afternoon time and it was a clear sky so I could see all around the volcanoes in all directions. This is just an easy hike just outside of San Salvador and you can do it in about an hour down and up. But you could see they've got these stairs that take you up there and then you get the viewpoint 360 degrees. It's quite high up here. It can be a bit intimidating when you're up there on those cliffs, especially if it's too windy. So take that into consideration. I would say don't get too close to the edge on a windy day. Just some quick facts about El Salvador. The population is around 6.3 million people. The official currency is the US dollar, although they are backed by Bitcoin, one of the only countries in the world that actually has that kind of economic profile. You also have an official language of Spanish and some indigenous languages with an ethnic composition of around 90% mestizo. That's a mix of indigenous and European descent. But anyway, back to the list here. So you can see lots of hiking and ecotourism opportunities, which we're about to show you some more of as we go around El Salvador. Not a very big country, but quite a bit going on for tourists. If you wanted to do a tour, you can get the rainbow slide and Puerto del Diablo in the same tour for around $65, which is about a half a day. Now we're actually going to explore some of the waterfalls. There are many different waterfalls, which includes zip lines around here. So that's another half a day tour. If you wanted to include waterfalls and zip lining, one of the most famous waterfall areas is near Wayua and that's the seven distinct waterfall hike. And that can be included in this famous area known as Ruta de las Flores, the route of the flowers, which we'll be talking about here in a moment, but you can do that on this trek. But now, as you remember, we talked about the golden sand beaches a little bit earlier. That's going to be in the La Paz district. So when you're flying in on a plane, assuming you're coming in from over the ocean, you'll see those beaches. It's not quite built up down here, but that's where they have that more golden sand. I wouldn't call it white sand, but here you have several different villages or towns, communities that are getting built up. El Salvador is really growing. So over the next 10 to 15 years, expect more infrastructure. You're not going to get much resort style stuff down here yet. So don't expect that. Like you get maybe Costa Rica, but El Salvador definitely up and coming. Another area you can check out down here is Punta Mango. Oh, and I wanted to talk about the Ruta de las Flores, which is the route of the flowers that comes in from the Western highlands. It's interior and it's really beautiful out here. Lots of colonial towns. And the best time is between November and February because the climate is ideal. Especially for the blooms. So really the way that I like to do El Salvador is I like to explore the interior in the early morning hours around the volcanoes and the roads and just exploring around the interior and then finish in the evening time around the beaches like Punta Mango. You can see right here, very tranquil and beautiful. I love it down here. It's so peaceful. And yeah, that's what I like to do is explore in the day and then chill and relax and enjoy the sunset by the evening along the coastline. I would say anywhere between three to seven days in El Salvador is perfect. If you want, you can rent a car. I would say the infrastructure is improving year over year, but do rent a car with caution just because some of the roads are still older, but it does give you flexibility to explore and stop when you want. Also save some money. The airport is about an hour to an hour and a half away from San Salvador closer to La Paz, the beach area there. Maybe on the first night consider getting a hotel in the El Tunco area and then going down in the afternoon, taking the drive down to the coastline. It's about an hour to an hour and a half to get there. Seeing if you want to stay in El Zonte or El Tunco or one of the towns down there. Check it out. If you decide that you like it, then you can book. I would say it could be a good experience either way because San Salvador is so close to the beach. If you have a rental car, I mean you're going to be able to do so much more on your own. Whereas if you have to do tours, you know, you're going to be restricted to their schedules. It just really depends on your comfort level. But those volcanoes in the interior, you got to check those out. Don't miss that. Especially that route of the flowers. We didn't have a lot of footage to show you on that, but that is definitely awesome. One of the routes that I was going to do at some point in time in the future is actually drive from San Salvador to Antigua or some of the towns in Guatemala, maybe Lake Atitlan. But yeah, that would be an awesome road trip. At some point we'll see if I end up doing it. Something to consider. I was in Antigua, but I flew into El Salvador. And thank you guys for watching this El Salvador vlog. If you plan to visit Central America, check out our Costa Rica travel guide. I'll post a link right here. Click that right there.