This town just feels different, and everyone who lives here has a Rocky Point story. Mine started twenty-five years ago on a weekend vacation with my parents that somehow turned serious.
I met a local girl at the now closed Ranas-Ranas Cantina – she was born and raised right here in Puerto Peñasco – and after letters, long-distance calls, and my Army deployment after 9/11, we got married in the little church on the Malecón with mariachis and half the town invited. We spent the first ten years in Chicago raising our first daughter and shoveling snow, but fifteen years ago we pointed the moving truck south and never looked back. Best decision we ever made and here’s why.
There’s no traffic unless you count the golf cart doing 25 mph – and nobody honks because we’re all secretly jealous they’re already on vacation. Crime is so low that the police mostly direct traffic for parades and rescue baby sea turtles.
My kids love it here because once they started school, they instantly joined the famous Rocky Point birthday-party circuit. If you’ve never seen a Mexican kids’ birthday party, you’re missing a spectacle: piñatas the size of Volkswagens, clowns, bouncy castles, tables of homemade tamales, and enough cake to feed a small army. It’s nonstop – every single weekend there’s at least one invitation, sometimes three. My kids come home with pockets full of candy and are already talking about whose party is next Saturday.
They go to school where the same teachers have known them since kindergarten and where they’re completely fluent in Spanish – reading, writing, and arguing with the ref at soccer games just like any local kid.
People here actually greet you. “Buenos días” isn’t optional – it’s automatic, whether pumping gas at Pemex or passing someone on the sidewalk. In the States, I went whole years without strangers making eye contact. Here, politeness is the default setting.
Everything is five minutes away. Grocery store, beach, fish tacos, the kids’ soccer practice, the sunset spot on Whale Hill – all five minutes. You don’t burn gas, you don’t burn time, and you definitely don’t burn out.
Sure, summer still cranks up to 115° like clockwork, but these days most of us have Starlink beaming down crystal-clear internet from the sky, so we’re streaming Netflix in the A/C without a hiccup. Two months of heat for ten months of perfect weather? We’ll take that trade all day long.
If you’re tired of locking every door, traffic apps, and that high-level stress most American cities run on, Puerto Peñasco is the off switch you didn’t know existed. I sell real estate and build houses here, so if you want the straight scoop on life in Rocky Point, contact me by checking out www.rockypointrealestate911.com or call any AMPI-certified agent in town.
Puerto Peñasco isn’t perfect, but it’s home and arguably one of the best places on earth to plant your flag and stay forever.
About the author: Joseph Sanchez is an AMPI-certified real estate agent with RE/MAX Legacy, developer of Viviente at Sandy Beach, president of Rocky Point Home Builders, and a U.S. Combat Veteran. He resides here in Puerto Peñasco with his wife and three children and is originally from Chicago. For more information, visit www.rockypointrealestate911.com on the internet or email rockypointrealestate911@gmail.com.
Caption: Pictured is Team Sanchez, who has lived in Puerto Peñasco full-time since 2010.
