Surf, travel, and life on the Pacific.
The first thing you notice at our Mandla casitas in Nicaragua is the sound. Not the ocean. That comes later, once you have been listening for a few minutes. The first thing you notice is the absence of everything else. No traffic. No neighbors. No road noise. Just the wind moving through the palms, the […]
Read moreThe best group retreats happen at venues that disappear. The architecture, the staff, the schedule, and the setting all step back so that the group’s purpose, whatever it may be, moves to the front. At Mandla, we love hosting private group retreats on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. That is harder to find than it sounds. Most […]
Read moreLeón does not announce itself. You drive in past concrete-block houses and tin-roofed workshops, turn a corner near the central plaza, and find yourself standing in front of one of the most important Baroque cathedrals in the Americas: UNESCO-listed, dazzlingly white, with a roof you can walk on. A day trip to León, Nicaragua, can […]
Read moreThere are not many places in the world where you can hike to the rim of an active volcano in the morning, slide down it on a wooden board at highway speeds, and be back at the ocean for sunset. Cerro Negro volcano boarding is a popular but somewhat underrated activity while visiting Nicaragua. Cerro […]
Read moreThere are three things that tend to stick with people after their first week surfing El Tránsito, Nicaragua. The first is how rarely the wind is wrong. Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua sit east of the country’s Pacific coastline, and the wind generated by their basins blows steadily toward the ocean, offshore, for more than […]
Read moreMost guests who start by asking, “Is Nicaragua safe to visit?” arrive a few weeks later, spend a peaceful week on the coast, and leave saying something along the lines of: I had no idea it would feel this easy. The honest picture of Nicaragua in 2026 is more nuanced than that of most travel […]
Read moreWhat is the best time to visit Nicaragua’s Pacific coast? The short answer is that there is no bad time to come. The Pacific coast of Nicaragua sits close enough to the equator that the temperature is steady year-round: air in the mid-eighties, water in the high seventies to mid-eighties, and offshore wind blowing more […]
Read moreThe drive from Managua’s Augusto C. Sandino International Airport (MGA) to El Tránsito is one of the easiest airport-to-coast transfers in Central America. The road is paved almost the entire way; only the final stretch into the village turns to dirt. The distance is short, and within ninety minutes of clearing immigration, you can be […]
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