The wave that built Montanita breaks at a rocky point one kilometer north of the town center, known locally as The Point or The End. It is a point break, meaning the waves wrap around an underwater rock formation in a predictable pattern, creating long rides that experienced surfers can work for hundreds of meters. In the right swell, with a north or west approach and light southerly winds, waves reach three meters in height with tube sections long enough to make the whole thing worth the cost of the board. The rocky bottom demands intermediate skill or better: beginners get hurt on it. Closer to the town center, between the Point and the central beach, the waves break over sand and suit newer surfers, and the two zones have created an unusual local ecology where expert surfers work the Point in the morning and beginners take lessons on the central break while everyone watches from the beach.

The transition from fishing village to international hub happened gradually through the 1990s and 2000s. Surfers arrived first, drawn by word of mouth about the Point. Then backpackers discovered the place. Then Argentines, Americans, Australians, Canadians, Germans, Jamaicans, and Russians showed up and some of them stayed, opening hostels and bars. The layout remained the same small grid of streets parallel and perpendicular to the coastal highway E15, but the grid filled in. By the 2010s, the colorful variety of street vendors, craft artisans, and nightlife venues had given the town a genuinely multicultural atmosphere. Ecuadorians escaping the pace of Guayaquil built vacation homes here. The original fishermen mostly moved on, though some of their descendants still operate boats out of Manglaralto, the quieter neighboring village five minutes south.

Montanita's other reputation is harder to discuss without irony. The town has become known across South America for relaxed attitudes toward marijuana, to the point that local guidebooks explicitly compare it to Amsterdam. The attention has raised the quality of what is available and concentrated cannabis culture into a specific niche of the town's tourism economy. This is not everyone's Montanita, and visitors looking for a quieter beach experience tend to stay in Olon, five minutes north, or Manglaralto to the south. Both villages offer the same Pacific coastline without the party-town intensity. The layout makes it easy: buses and taxis run frequently between the three, and the beach continues uninterrupted along the coast, shifting in character from family-friendly to surf-focused to full-tilt nightlife depending on which kilometer you are walking.

The main nightlife corridor is Calle Tercero, the northernmost cross street, which during busy evenings fills with more than twenty small bars on carts serving fresh juice cocktails at tables for two to four people each. The effect is like a moveable festival in place: every fifty feet a new bar, a new menu, a new crowd. Daiquiris made with tropical fruit dominate the cocktail scene, as do the classic beach-town mixes of rum with mango, pineapple, and passionfruit. Many restaurants transform into bars as the evening progresses, and many bars become nightclubs as midnight approaches, with the transition so smooth that a visitor can eat dinner, have drinks, and dance without moving more than a block. Outside the Calle Tercero corridor, the rest of the town is quieter, though even the residential streets thump with music on weekends.

Montanita takes its breakfast seriously. The local consensus treats a morning bowl of pineapple, banana, and papaya with yogurt and granola as something close to a religious obligation, and restaurants serve it from 8:00 until lunchtime. The fresh fruit culture persists partly because it works: the combination of sugar, fiber, and yogurt is arguably the ideal surface for a hangover. For lunch and dinner, the menu options span vegetarian pizza to seafood spaghetti to the standard Ecuadorian plate of fish, rice, fried bananas, and salad for around two dollars. Ceviche is excellent here because the boats landing the catch at Manglaralto are still working fishermen, and the seafood arrives fresh. Small stalls on the busiest streets serve hamburgers and hot dogs for a dollar fifty, the late-night fuel for a town that runs on reasonably cheap food and expensive good times.