"This Hidden Central American Surf Town Is Known as 'Bitcoin Beach'-Here's How to Visit," reads a fresh Travel + Leisure headline, which might leave a strapped but itinerant surfer with Central American habits or aspirations feeling just a little more squeezed in these increasingly precious times. El Salvador's El Zonte is no secret on the international surfing circuit, but to see it featured in T+L's margins suggests something else altogether.
The celebrity clientele says a lot about how far this once-sleepy village has come. El Zonte first attracted local and international surfers in the 1990s, drawn to the consistent waves and tight knit community. (The town was largely spared from lingering violence of a civil war between the military and left-leaning guerrillas that ended in 1992.) And despite El Salvador's struggling economy-the country, which is about the size of New Jersey, has one of the highest poverty rates in Latin America-