Puerto Rico's surf town — where Atlantic and Caribbean swells collide at the island's westernmost tip
Rincón is a small municipality on Puerto Rico's far western tip that became famous when it hosted the 1968 World Surfing Championships — the event that put Caribbean surfing on the global map. The town produces waves from gentle beginner rollers to hollow expert-only reef breaks. Outside surf season, Rincón transforms into a whale-watching hub as humpback whales migrate through the Mona Passage.
The 1968 World Surfing Championships at Rincón's Tres Palmas beach introduced this sleepy sugarcane farming town to the global surf community. Puerto Ricans and mainland Americans arrived steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, building a surf culture distinct from both the island's mainstream beach resorts and its historic colonial cities.