Baja Rising

Laid back Los Cabos lays on the luxury

Los Cabos may not be the first destination that comes to mind when discussing meetings and business destinations, but it is quickly earning its place in the sun as an emerging star for events, business and bleisure.

The once-quiet fishing coast at the bottom of the Baja Peninsula is amassing a fair amount of fair-priced international airlift from key cities in North America, and now Europe. In addition a burgeoning empire of the top names in luxury hospitality is building upon a pristine coastline that, until recently, offered only redolent fishing villages on a calm sea.

To clear up any confusion over nomenclature and geography, Los Cabos encompasses the region of southern Baja some 1,000 miles south of San Diego. The region takes in Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo and all resort beachfront area and infrastructure in between, along a good 20-mile stretch of coastlines that abut the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortez.

Cabos San Lucas is the town at the bottom of the arm that offers the nightlife, cafes, bars, shopping and tour opportunities that were once a prime magnet for tourism and more or less what put Los Cabos area on the map over the past three decades. Although Cabos San Lucas counts less than 100,000 residents, the region of Los Cabos tallies more than three times that number.

Resorts line the golden corridors fanning out from Cabos San Lucas on their own little islands of sand and surf along the Pacific Coast and the Sea of Cortez, all connected now by fast highways on what, not long ago, were soft dirt roads.