For shoppers, Rosarito is really Mexico made easy. There are only two traffic lights in the entire city, and almost everything of interest is walkable for visitors. You can shop in a real mercado on the main street for arts and crafts, leathers and silver or roam more than a miracle mile of pottery, Guadalajara-cement statues, fountains, curios and rug and blanket weavers in an interesting mix of roadside shops just south of town.

Rosarito's main street is also, by far, the best place in Baja California to buy hand-crafted Mexican furniture. Southwestern, pigskin, wrought-iron, hacienda-style, willow, hand-carved and hand-painted furniture, plus custom pieces, are all made locally and can be shipped.

More than 500 stores, shops and stalls carry the best of Mexico's fine arts, crafts, clothing and leather goods, along with the best of the world's imports at great duty-free savings. Best of all, it's all so browsably easy here. (You can even bargain on the beach.) And, in many places, you can actually watch the artisans at work.