One of the reasons that we travel, is to explore new towns and beaches. We are staying in one town for several weeks, so we feel a little guilty that we aren’t on the road every day finding new things. But one of the reasons we are here, is to have a break in the hectic life of traveling, so we are supposed to sit on our Bucerias beach with our margaritas all day and refill our travel aspirations. However, we aren’t really wired that way. We like to explore…. even when we are supposed to be relaxing. So we have been out exploring some of the towns around Bucerias. Most are a few miles down the road – taxis and ubers can get rather expensive, so we mostly travel by bus. Also, the local bus is a fun adventure and a great way to people watch. We go out on highway 200 and wave down a bus that has our intended destination written on the front. Easy and cheap. Here is what we have seen.
PV is the big attraction. Everyone comes to see the Zona Romantica which has a lot of old colonial buildings and old hotels in the old part of Puerto Vallarta. The catholic church (Our Lady of Guadalupe) is famous for its bell tower with its fancy crown on the top. The Malecon (beach boardwalk) is very long and is filled with bronze statues that make a great street art walk. It also has some good art galleries in a neighborhood a few blocks from the beach that show some really interesting and eclectic art. The best trendy restaurants are all in PV, along with the popular places like Senor Frogs. It is also a big party town with many music thumping beach clubs and all night dance clubs. Puerto Vallarta is not cheap; the art and food are sold at gringo prices, although you can always find some deals if you walk a few blocks out of the Zona Romantica.
Puerto Vallarta’s tourism outgrew the town in the 1980’s and they expanded their hotel zone north and eventually across the river into the state of Nayarit. This is the tourist town now known as Nuevo Vallarta. Huge hotels line the beach from the river and go almost all the way to Bucerias. Only 3 more hotel lots are available on the beach and I am sure hotels will fill it up in the next few years. There are many all inclusive hotels, time shares and condos that many people come stay for a week and never leave the grounds. Beaches with rental umbrellas and chairs line the whole beach along with the usual beach activities like jet skis, parasailing and getting towed on a giant banana. The anchor of the strip is Vidanta which has several hotels, a cruise ship, cirque de soleil shows, and have plans for 3 theme parks connected to the hotels by gondolas. Nuevo Vallarta is not our type of place but I am excited to see the “Disney” style theme parks if/when they are complete in a few years.
Last year, we visited Yelapa (south of PV, still on the Bay of Banderas) for a week, but there are a lot of people that do it as a day trip from PV. There are no roads that reach Yelapa so you need to get there via a boat. That also means that there isn’t any traffic in town unless you count the donkeys or 4 wheelers that take supplies from the boat dock throughout the town. It is just a peaceful place and we would recommend staying a few nights instead of a using it is as a day trip. I wrote more about our visit and the town here.
Known to tourists and locals as “La Cruz” because La Cruz de Huanacaxtle is a mouthful. It is just a couple miles from Bucerias and is known for its fish market. Every day you can go visit the market along with other restaurants and locals to buy fresh fish from the fishermen. The long beach from Nuevo to La Cruz doesn’t have place to park a boat so the Marina is popular with the fisherman as well as pleasure boats. Most tourists visit La Cruz only on Sundays to see their famous arts and craft market which goes all the way around the marina on the jetty.
Punta de Mita is a small community with a few high end luxury resorts and some golf course communities with expensive gringo homes. The town itself has a small street with some expensive beach restaurants as well as a small marina. Mexico has a rule that all beaches are public beaches and should be free to use for everyone. But they don’t always make it easy to get to the beach unless you are staying in a fancy hotel. We had a hard time getting access to the beach in this town. This is also true in some places in PV and Nuevo and it can be very frustrating. It feels like Mexico is giving priority for its best to beaches to rich gringos and the locals are left to what is left… Not sure why I would go to Punta De Mita – there are lot of good restaurants in Bucerias that are much cheaper.
Sayulita is a former fishing village that is now a surfing and expat town. It is outside of the Bay of Banderas so it gets some bigger waves that attracted the surfers. Then it attracted a lot of North American expats that came for its land back hippy surfing culture. In fact, the market around the town baseball field is known as the “Hippie Market” because in addition to the normal Mexican souvenir stands, you can find people selling tie die T shirts and handmade items out of VW camper vans. We remembering hearing about it 20-25 years ago as a somewhat hidden gem, a quiet little place to hang out. That is no longer an apt description. The town feels more like an expat town now with the hills all around the town filled with Gringo owned houses and Airbnb’s. There is a nice plaza in the center of town that is filled with the usual restaurants and art and clothing boutiques. The main form of transportation is the golf cart which seems peaceful but in reality it is just as hectic as cars because there is still not many places to park. The beach is great for surfing as well as having a margarita on the beach in a rented umbrella and lounge chair. There is another small beach to the West known as the Playa De Los Muertos which you need to walk through a cemetery before you can find the rental umbrellas to drink your cerveza.
Officially called San Francisco on the map but everyone knows it as San Pancho (Pancho is a common nickname for people called Francisco). This is quickly becoming the next Sayulita. Everybody talks about how cool Sayulita used to be before the Gringos filled it with American style Mexican restaurants and clothing boutiques. San Pancho seems to be on the same path. The town is along one main road that travels from the highway to the beach. Most of the new tourist shops and restaurants are along this road which ends at some beach café palapas pictured above. There is a pond and arroyo to the left which attracts a huge variety of water birds which is why I will keep coming back to this town and we might end up staying here some day instead of Bucerias.
Lo De Marcos is a small village with several RV parks that get filled with Gringos that stay all winter. Not too many boutiques or fancy restaurants here yet, just some great beach cafes where you can eat with your feet in the sand. There is a beginner surfing school at the West end of the beach where the surf is calm so you can learn to ride a wave on a long small wave. This end of the beach is also popular with families because of the more relaxed waves for kids. I like the other end of the beach which has some great wetlands for bird watching.
Rincon de Guayabitos – also known as just “Guayabitos”, is the farthest town we have ventured to as a day trip from Bucerias. It takes 75 minutes to get there but is still just 110 pesos per person by bus (about $6). We love this place! It feels like an authentic Mexican beach town that has yet to be “discovered”. We just spent a day there and I didn’t hear English spoken at all (except by the waitress and bus driver that couldn’t understand my Spanish). We cringe at all the Gringos taking over places like Punta De Mita and Sayulita but Guayabitos appears to still be a Mexican only tourist town (a bit hypocritical, we know!). The waves aren’t big enough for surfing but that means that they are great for people of all ages feeling comfortable to swim. This beach town was filled with motels, bungalows and resorts that attract inland Mexicans looking for a beach vacation. The main street was filled with local restaurants, souvenir shops and places to buy inflatable beach toys. We are tempted to try out this place for a week or so and see if this place will work for us. Of course, we then would be a part of the gringo invasion and maybe we should leave this place to the locals…