San Juan del Sur

Port city near famous surf breaks. It’s a bit of a dingy party city, with not much to do outside of drink and go out to eat. It’s pretty boisterous with loud traffic, music, barking dogs and partying. Lots of travelers pass through for a few days and lots of expats call SJDS home. Rainy season was very humid and buggy this year (‘25). The power goes out but cell phone towers still work. When the power goes out, some buildings lose their water supply, too. Some buildings have back-up generators and solar power. It’s worth asking your accommodation how about their electricity/gas/water situation.

Affordable and excellent for surfing, San Juan del Sur is a small village by the beach, rustic but affordable prices, have a bunch of restaurants, bars, hostels and some coworking and coliving spaces.
San Juan is more like a fisherman port village so not many waves to surf there and the beach is a little bit dirty, however there are 3 beaches nearby that are excellent for surfing and clean, if you are a beginner or intermediate surfer: Playa Maderas, Remanso and Playa Hermosa, however you will need a transport to get there (takes around 30 min) and the road are not so good, still under construction.
San Juan del Sur as whole Nicaragua has some constant power outages, usually more at night and just for some minutes, the internet is so so in the most places, but you can find colivings with high speed internet, power generator or batteries that can handle for some hours.
I felt safe most of the times, although walking around at night alone is not recommended. Locals are really nice, and if you speak Spanish it's even better to connect.
Hostels take a significant part of the fun, some of them organize sunset parties at the beach and there is the famous Sunday Funday which is like a pool party in different hostels.
Besides San Juan del Sur, you can visit Popoyo for more surfing, Ometepe island for nature and volcanos and I also heard nice things about Granada.
If you like rustic places, affordable, with surfing, beautiful nature, I really recommend.