I turned the holidays into a solo skillcation

Spending the holidays alone may be intimidating for people, but it can actually be fun and rewarding.

Having lived away from my family for many years, I don’t always get the chance to fly home for the holidays to spend time with them, but sometimes staying behind in Los Angeles isn’t all that fun either as my friends all spend Christmas with their respective families. One such year, I decided to take a solo trip instead, taking advantage of the time off work.

As scuba diving is one of my favorite activities and I had been meaning to get my PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification, the holiday week seems like the perfect opportunity to level up. It turned my holiday into something productive and going on these dives also meant meeting other people on these boats. I wanted the PADI Advanced certification since my next big dive trip requires it.

I searched for a destination that wouldn’t cost too much to travel to during this peak season, both in terms of flights from Los Angeles and hotel prices. I settled on Cabo and booked a hotel near San José del Cabo, which I much prefer over the party vibes in Cabo San Lucas, redeeming some points for a room at Hilton Cabo Azul.

The resort is a beachfront resort and has a few pools to hang out in. The beach wasn’t really swimmable but I enjoy walking on the beach, especially when the horses are walking by.

I booked my advance scuba course with Dive Ninja, which was recommended by PADI for its sustainability efforts and is the first PADI Eco Center in all of Mexico. I rented a car from the resort instead of from the airport after reading numerous negative reviews about the airport rental companies.

I met quite a few people on the two days I spent on my diving course with Dive Ninja. There’s the woman who was taking the course along with me while her husband relaxes at their resort, my dive master who moved to Cabo from Italy, and a group of four from Seattle who were so experienced that their dive guide said they were better than him. Of course, even though the dives for the course focused on completing certain tasks, we still got treated to some underwater life encounters. This eagle ray was circling us as we were figuring out our compass navigation.

After finishing my course, I also booked a day trip to go diving in Cabo Pulmo. My friend had gone and told me that the final portion of the drive there is rough, so I booked one that included round trip transfer instead of driving myself. There were three other young people on that trip who all happened to be graduate students.

The hardest part is certainly Christmas day. The dive shops aren’t open so I couldn’t do my scuba course that day or book another dive. Many restaurants are also either closed or offering a Christmas set menu that weren’t particularly appealing. Thankfully I did find some local restaurants that were open, spent the afternoon doing some writing by the pool, and walked around to see the Christmas lights in San Jose del Cabo.

I also drove to Todos Santos for one day, since I’d been curious about this Pueblo Magico. I walked around town and had an early dinner at Hotel Villa Santa Cruz. The restaurant is set under this cool nest structure and right next to it is the hotel’s garden where they grow many of the vegetables and herbs use

d in the food and drinks. It doesn’t get more local than that.

I watched the sunrise and drove back to my hotel in Cabo. While I took a solo trip, I didn’t spend all my time alone in Cabo as I got to meet people along the way. Plus, I managed to work on a skill and got the advanced certification I’d been meaning to get for a while. Skillcations like these are certainly productive yet still fun.