“It’s like a year-round Burning Man in paradise,” says one of Hotel El Ganzo‘s partners, describing the 69-room beachfront property in San José del Cabo that has steadily become one of Mexico’s most unique hospitality experiments, complete with an Artist-in-Residence program, underground recording studio, and Mexico’s coolest nightclub just across the water.
This past New Year’s Eve, the hotel was set to install a neon piece by artist Olivia Steele in front of the property. From her Public Displays of Awareness collection, it featured one of Hunter S. Thompson’s most iconic lines: “Buy the ticket. Take the ride.” The installation honored Thompson’s self-styled“gonzo” journalism, a philosophy that gave El Ganzo its name: a Spanish-inflected mashup of “ganso” (goose) and “gonzo.”
The independently owned Hotel El Ganzo opened in 2012 as the vision of Pablo Sanchez Navarro, a young Mexican entrepreneur who wanted to create something radically different from the golf resorts and all-inclusive luxury-brand behemoths that dominate Los Cabos. His inspiration, as he described it, was to build a modern-day Florence on the edge of Baja California—”but on shrooms,” he added. “Kind of like Burning Man meets pre-Medici Italy.”
“El Ganzo was done under the premise of constructing an area, a place… a hotel or a structure that could become an epicenter for the cultural arts,” Sanchez Navarro later explained. “We are trying to create this Renaissance community, a community where really, people feel inspired, and where people want to come and get inspired.” Of course, there would be partying, sometimes at Hunter S. Thompson levels—but that wasn’t its raison d’être.
Sanchez Navarro, who grew up in an extremely wealthy family with extensive landholdings throughout Baja, deliberately chose a location on a private marina—the only one in Baja Sur—where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez—adjacent to an estuary that is home to over 300 species of birds. The hotel was painted entirely white, a deliberate blank canvas for artists to transform. At its foundation was a professional recording studio where musicians could create in exchange for residency.
When Pablo died in 2017, his brother Santiago took up the project, moving from Mexico City to continue the vision. In 2019, he brought in David Rodriguez to help operate and expand the property. After years as a venture capitalist investing in climate technology startups, he began exploring “culture as a tool to impact and create change in the world….[And] I keep coming back to that, I keep doing this, because I’m really interested in the inquiry of how you can move culture through hospitality and the cultural arts,” Rodriguez says.
The hotel, a self-described “Pirate Utopia,” became Latin America’s first B Corporation-certified hotel, meeting rigorous standards for social and environmental responsibility. “We knew that as soon as we did this, all the other hotels would have to do it because they’d need the certification as well,” Rodriguez explains. Through El Ganzo Centro Comunitario, the affiliated nonprofit supports 300 local families with educational programs, a community kitchen, art and music classes, and a community garden.
Perhaps the most visible expression of El Ganzo’s philosophy is Crania, an otherworldly nightlife venue that opened next to the hotel in collaboration with Maxa, a Mexico City-based Burning Man “camp.” Maxa describes itself as a “community of wanderers, dreamers, healers, artists, and storytellers who value friendship as the only currency—participation, gifting, and connection rather than commercial exchange.”
Crania was built on the site of what was supposed to have been a new Caesar’s Palace hotel, from materials that would otherwise have been discarded: old port equipment, cranes, concrete draggers, and garbage trucks. “Instead of building a new concrete structure, we used all the old equipment,” Rodriguez says, “and we built an imaginary world as a way to restore the land and reclaim it.” The venue has hosted performances by the likes of Khruangbin, Rufus du Sol, Diplo, Dixon, and Polo & Pan.
For the past five years, El Ganzo and Crania’s New Year’s celebration has evolved into a four-day gathering. “New Year’s has always been sacred ground for El Ganzo and Crania,” Rodriguez says. “It’s the moment each year when we intentionally gather our community—old friends, new faces, and kindred spirits—to celebrate, connect, and welcome what’s next together.”
The 2025 edition was co-hosted by multiple destination event / experience hosts and producers including Maxa, PlayAlchemist, The Portal, Bisous, and Aha Baja. “In 2021, we opened this experience to the Maxa community as partners, and over the past five years we’ve co-created something genuinely special,” Rodriguez says. “This year, we’ve expanded even further, inviting in additional communities to weave together more extraordinary humans, to co-create a vibe, to design immersive activations, to share world-class music and performances.”
The hotel’s Artist-in-Residence program established by Pablo continues to transform the property. Every room displays a plaque crediting the artist who created its murals and installations. “We’re not giving them direction,” Rodriguez explains. “You can do whatever you want. Stay in the hotel, be our guests. That’s our gift to you. In exchange, create. Feel inspired. What does the ocean say to you? What does Baja say?” Then there’s the underground recording studio—El Ganzo Records—which has hosted artists including Anderson .Paak and The Whitest Boy Alive. Musicians stay at the hotel in exchange for performances and recording sessions that become part of “El Ganzo Sessions,” playing throughout the property.
Most recently El Ganzo has decided to elevate its culinary offerings, and in summer 2025 brought in acclaimed chef José Luis Hinostroza as Chef Partner. Born and raised between San Diego and Mexico, Hinostroza trained at Alinea in Chicago, El Celler de Can Roca in Spain, and Noma in Copenhagen before joining the Noma Tulum pop-up. As founder of Arca Tulum restaurant—recognized by the Michelin Guide and the World’s 50 Best extended rankings—Hinostroza brings “an ingredient-driven approach that fuses Mexican tradition with global technique.” He is now reimagining the menus at El Ganzo, which he calls “disruptive, imperfect and charming.”
El Ganzo’s Spa is focused on holistic, low-key experiences, and includes thermal elements like sauna, steam, soaking pools, and cold plunge, alongside massage and body treatments that “blend contemporary techniques with regional, pre-Hispanic influences.” The spa is integrated into El Ganzo’s broader wellness and creative programming—yoga, meditation, sound journeys, and community gatherings.
El Ganzo positions itself explicitly as “not a luxury brand” but “an experience.” “We don’t want to create another brand hotel,” Rodriguez says. “We want to flip it on its head. We want to go community first, arts first, put the artists as creators and the community as creators.” The property is located in San José del Cabo, near the airport but worlds away from the bachelor party atmosphere of Cabo San Lucas.
Hunter S. Thompson’s influence runs deep, an honor to both the writer, and Pablo, who’s statue stands in front of the hotel, forever scanning the horizon. “Gonzo wasn’t just a style of writing. It was a way of showing up,” Rodriguez notes. “Total immersion. No spectators. You becomes part of the story—inseparable from it.” At El Ganzo, it seems, the destination is the journey.
