Isla Espíritu Santo

Isla Espíritu Santo sits a short boat ride off La Paz, and it is one of those places that makes you recalibrate what an uninhabited island can look like. No hotels, no permanent structures beyond a few ranger stations, just eight miles of volcanic coastline carved into coves with red and ochre cliffs, white sand beaches accessible only by water, and a interior of cardón cactus and desert scrub that UNESCO recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2005 for the Sea of Cortez’s extraordinary marine biodiversity. I went out on a day trip expecting a nice beach outing and came back rearranging my sense of what Baja’s islands offer.

The sea lion colony at Los Islotes, a rocky outcrop at the island’s northern tip, is the reason most people come. Several hundred sea lions haul out on the rocks, and the younger ones — curious, acrobatic, entirely unbothered by snorkelers — will approach and spin around you in the water with an energy that borders on playful mischief. I had one pup grab gently at my fin, let go, and circle back for another pass, clearly enjoying itself far more than I was managing to process in the moment. The adult males, considerably larger and more territorial, mostly stayed on the rocks barking, which is exactly where you want them to stay.

Kayaking the island’s coves is the other way to experience it, and I spent two days paddling between beaches with names like Playa Bonanza and Ensenada Grande, camping on sand that had no other footprints, watching frigatebirds circle overhead and the occasional mobula ray leap clear of the water offshore for no reason anyone has ever fully explained. The light on the cliffs changes hour by hour, red at dawn, nearly gold by midday, and by evening the whole coastline goes the deep rust color that gives the island its otherworldly photographs.

When to go: October through June for calm seas and the sea lion pupping season, which peaks around June and July when the pups are most playful. Summer brings hurricane risk and uncomfortable heat for camping.