Isla Verde” Beach

bal­n­eario-boca-de-can­gre­jos

Isla Verde Beach, Balneario de Carolina

If you’re look­ing for a beau­ti­ful, clean and safe beach right next to the Isla Verde hotel dis­trict then “Bal­n­eario de Car­oli­na”, also known among the locals as “Isla Verde” and “Boca de Can­gre­jos”, is the beach for you.

First of all, it’s close. In fact, you could almost walk there if you were stay­ing at one of the Isla Verde hotels.  But most impor­tant­ly, it’s excel­lent!  In fact, it’s one of Puer­to Rico’s blue flag beach­es, so you’ll know that it’s clean, safe, has plen­ty of life­guards and all the facilities.

If there’s one thing that dis­tin­guish­es this beach from most oth­ers in Puer­to Rico is its size. This place is huge.  It stretch­es out about two miles par­al­lel to the orig­i­nal Luis Muñoz Marín Inter­na­tion­al Air­port run­way, so —yes— you will hear the air­planes every time they land or take off.  That can be annoying.

Oth­er­wise this beach is won­der­ful. The surf is just right, the sand is a won­der­ful light tan col­or and there are plen­ty of trees to pro­tect your­self from the hot Caribbean sun.

Like all oth­er beach­es in Puer­to Rico “Bal­n­eario de Car­oli­na” belongs to the peo­ple of Puer­to Rico.  How­ev­er, the term “bal­n­eario” is reserved only for gov­ern­ment-run beach­es.  Oth­er beach­es through­out the Island might be just as beau­ti­ful, but they have no life­guards, no buoys, no park­ing, no show­ers, no con­ces­sion stands and in some cas­es no shade.  So that lit­tle word “bal­n­eario” makes a world of dif­fer­ence. Oh, and did I men­tion that you’ll pay a $4 per car entrance fee?  But hey, I think it’s more than worth it!!!

Now, Puer­to Ricans love the beach. That’s why the fact that all beach­es in Puer­to Rico belong to the peo­ple is even con­se­crat­ed in the Island’s con­sti­tu­tion.  Seri­ous­ly.  I’m not jok­ing.  On week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days you’ll find them with their bar­be­cues, their music, their ham­mocks and all their bud­dies, soak­ing in the rays and hav­ing fun.  But dur­ing week­days it’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, and you’ll prob­a­bly have the place all to yourself.

Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *