Cycling from Playa Sunzal to Zacatecoluca in El Salvador

By Dave Briggs · Published 2010-03-18 · Last updated 2026-07-18

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On this day of my Pan American bike tour, I cycled from Playa Sunzal to Zacatecoluca in El Salvador. Here's my bikepacking blog post from the day.

An early start cycling

(Blog post written March 18 2010 when cycling from Alaska to Argentina)

After a quick stroll on the beach, I set off at just gone 07.00. The cycling was fairly simple, apart from where the road detoured around a collapsed bridge.

El Salvador is constantly hit by natural disasters, and cleaning up is an ongoing process for some of the infrastructure.

Towards the end of my cycling day, the combination of hills and heat became a little tiring, but I still made it to the town of Zacatecoluca at just gone 12.00.

Hotel Royal King was just on the left as I approached the town, so I went in to check it out. They wanted 17 dollars for the room, with the added bonus that there was also a swimming pool.

This would normally be out of my price range, but Carmen had kindly donated some more money, with the explicit instructions that it should be spent on a place like this.

So that's what I did ! I have to say, that an afternoon swim is an ideal way to cool down after a days cycling!

Read more about cycling from Alaska to Argentina

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Dave Briggs
Dave is a UK travel writer living in Athens since 2015. With 20 years of firsthand travel experience and over 80,000 km of bicycle touring across six continents, he's been blogging at Dave's Travel Pages since 2005. Every guide is based on places he's actually been.

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