El Arco and Playa del Amor: Water Taxi, Glass-Bottom Boat or Kayak?

Everything ends here. The granite of the Baja peninsula runs out at Land’s End, drops into the sea, and leaves behind an arch, a scatter of rocks and two small beaches back to back. On one side lies the Sea of Cortez, flat most mornings. On the other the open Pacific. The beaches are called Playa del Amor and Playa del Divorcio, and the joke in those names is a warning: one of them you can swim at, the other you cannot.

There is no road. Nothing walks in. The only question worth asking before you come is which boat you get into, and the honest answer depends on how much time you have, how much you want to spend and whether you intend to set foot on the sand at all.

What you are entering

The whole tip of the headland has been a federal protected area since 1973 – just under four thousand hectares of water and rock, with a resident sea lion colony reported at more than thirty animals hauled out on the rocks below the arch. Fishing is prohibited throughout. So is anchoring, and so is leaving anything behind on the beaches.

One thing is worth spelling out because people still do it for a photograph: do not climb on the arch. Climbing the rocks is prohibited inside the protected area, and Mexican reporting on the rule points at Article 420 bis of the Federal Penal Code: its protected-area clause adds up to two years’ imprisonment and up to a thousand day-fines on top of the underlying environmental offence. Nobody is going to arrest a tourist for standing on the sand. That is not the point – the point is that this is a criminal statute and not a park notice, and the boat captains know it even when their passengers don’t.

The cheapest way: a panga from the beach

Water taxis here are pangas – open fibreglass boats, no schedule, no ticket office. You find one at Playa El Médano or in the Cabo San Lucas marina, you agree a price, and it takes you round to the beach.

Two things decide whether this goes well. Agree the price before you get in, because it is negotiated and not posted; recent reports put a round trip at somewhere around 200 pesos per person, and that figure is a starting point rather than a rate. And agree the pickup time and stick to it. The boat that dropped you is not obliged to wait, and there is nothing on that beach to wait with: no vendors, no shade worth the name, no fresh water. Whatever you want for two hours in direct sun, you carry ashore yourself.

The panga is the right choice if you want the beach and nothing else, and you are comfortable arranging things in Spanish or with hand gestures. It is the wrong choice if you want a guide, a fixed time, or a receipt.

The cheapest bookable way: the glass-bottom boat

A glass-bottom boat tour to the arch and the beach is one hour and €9.93, the lowest price on this whole site. It leaves from Pochos Cabos Activities on the Médano seafront, takes in the arch, the sea lions and the so-called Pirate Cave, and has a toilet and bottled water on board – which matters more than it sounds, given what the beach does not have.

Read the beach stop carefully, though. The listing offers time at one of three places: Pelican, Lover’s or Divorce Beach. That is the operator’s choice on the day and not yours, so if landing specifically on Playa del Amor is the reason you are going, ask before you pay, or book something that names it.

The one that does name it is a sightseeing cruise to the Land’s End arch with a stop at Lover’s Beach: three hours, €16.83, and by some distance the most-booked cheap option here with 322 reviews. It also carries the lowest rating of any arch trip here with more than a hundred reviews, 4.1 stars. Both of those facts are true at once and both belong in the decision – a great deal of people take it and a noticeable minority are not delighted. Read the recent reviews rather than the average.

The one most people actually book

The arch and Lover’s Beach tour with snorkelling is the best-attested trip in our inventory for this stretch of coast: two hours, €46.54, 4.9 stars from 361 reviews. It covers the arch, the sea lion colony and the caves around Lover’s Beach, and it snorkels at Pelican Rock, the sheltered wall inside the bay where most of the fish are.

That combination – arch plus snorkel in one short trip – is why it outsells everything. If you only do one boat thing in Cabo San Lucas and you can swim, this is the default.

The slowest and best way: paddling

Two kayak trips go round the same water under your own power, and both cost roughly eight to nine times the glass-bottom boat.

A glass-bottom kayak tour to the arch and Lover’s Beach is €83.40 and includes hotel pickup, and – unusually and worth noting – a full refund if the main sights cannot be reached safely. An operator who writes that down is telling you something honest about how often the sea says no.

The longer version, kayaking and snorkelling at the arch and Lover’s Beach, runs three and a half hours at €86.88 and holds 4.9 stars from 332 reviews. You are close to the water, you hear the sea lions rather than an engine, and you are working. In the middle of the day, in this sun, that last part is not a detail.

Which side of the beach you may swim at

This is the single fact to take away. Playa del Amor faces the Sea of Cortez and is usually calm; that is the swimming side, and it is where the boats put you ashore. Playa del Divorcio, a few steps away across the sand, faces the open Pacific, and entering the water there is prohibited – heavy shorebreak and dangerous currents, in a place with no lifeguard and no way to get help quickly. The local nickname for it before somebody invented the friendlier one was Suicide Beach.

Look at it, photograph it, do not go in.

What actually decides your day

Swell. Landing on Playa del Amor depends on the state of the sea, and on a bad morning a panga cannot put you on the sand at all – you see the arch from the water and go home. That is not an operator failing you; it is the reason the kayak trip writes a refund clause into its own listing – and that clause names Port Captain restrictions alongside the weather. Those happen: in August 2026 the authorities temporarily restricted access to the arch zone and to Playa del Divorcio after heavy swell, with black flags ashore and fines for boats that ignored it.

So: if the forecast is rough, book something that is worth doing from the boat, like the snorkel trip. If it is flat and you want an hour on the sand, the panga is unbeatable value. And if the water is clear, pay for the paddle.

All of it, forty-four offers from €9.93, is on the El Arco boat tours page. The snorkelling that goes on beyond the bay – sixty-nine offers from €9.93 – is under snorkelling in Los Cabos.