Puerto Vallarta Review

There's a "perfect" beach in Mexico for every kind of beach bum, and every Mexican beach resort has its own distinctive flair and its own strong and weak points. Picking the "perfect" beach for your trip is simply a matter of knowing your own priorities and matching them up to the right beach vibe. Maybe Puerto Vallarta is the beach you want...

Puerto Vallarta is one of Mexico's most popular beach destinations, and its formula for success has always been the charm and tradition of its core downtown area. Sunsets from the hillside restaurants are spectacular, and the rugged Pacific coast is rich in scenic opportunities and water sport attractions. But the biggest pleasure in Vallarta is to walk through its downtown area. An early evening stroll along the Malecon seawall is romantic, exciting, and fascinating. A day spent browsing the myriad boutique shops of its bustling downtown streets will delight any sophisticated shopper. And if I wanted a more earthy (and cheap) shopping experience, I'd merely stroll over to the Mercado --- a sprawling megalopolis of cheap T-shirts, tacky souvenirs, and the occasional steal of a deal on a genuinely good quality piece of folk art.

Downtown Vallarta has an incredible range of restaurants --- especially in the "Restaurant Gulch" area that's near the Olas Altas beach, south of the Rio Cuale. There's traditional Mexican food there, and of course, plenty of seafood restaurants, but there's also a smorgasbord of international dining options, with everything from Brazilian churrascaria restaurants to the classic cuisines of Europe. Best of all, dining in downtown Vallarta is easy on the budget. For 50 pesos (US$5) a person, we ate in one very casual, very friendly outdoor restaurant in a busy part of downtown --- big rotisserie chicken with meat so tender it practically fell off the bones, served with tortillas and all the accoutrements. You can have a fun lunch in Vallarta for a family of four for $20....just try that in most other resort areas!

Of course the scenery is spectacular. The city is set on a hillside, and some of the cobblestone streets suddenly turn into steep staircases, or wend themselves around unexpected circles. Bright pink bouganvilleas seem to cascade down from every balcony and garden. The cathedral is a beautiful landmark, and if you're lucky enough to visit Vallarta in early December, it's also host to one of Mexico's most colorful Virgen of Guadalupe celebrations, with nightly parades through the town and lively fiestas in the town square. Of course the seascapes are spectacular --- especially with the nightly fireworks of sunset to paint the sky.

Puerto Vallarta has a lot of beaches and a lot of water sports and activities, though the beaches are nowhere near as nice as those in Cancun or Playa del Carmen. The fishing is spectacular though, and Vallarta has a very lively beach scene. In the downtown area, I like the funky attitude of Playa los Muertos in Olas Altas. There's usually fewer gringos here, so the prices are cheaper and you don't have bad 70s pop hits for background music, plus there's one of the Vallarta area's better range of choices for water activities like parasailing or jet skiing. Olas Altas is also where you can pick up the boats to snorkling and dive spots, or out to remote beaches like Yelapa. Olas Altas won't appeal to people who like all-inclusive mega-resorts, so it has that going for it too.

None of the major hotels or resorts are located in the downtown area, and the lodging choices that you do find downtown tend to be very cool and very distinctive (or remarkably affordable, which is almost as good). This is an area where you find small luxury properties and boutique inns with personal service. One of the most famous of these is Casa Kimberly --- an upscale bed and breakfast inn that was formerly two homes: the one owned by Elizabeth Taylor and the one owned by Richard Burton. The bedrooms are connected by an arched bridge over the street (naturally covered in cascading pink bouganvilleas) --- an indisputably romantic place to be! There's a lot of privately owned (and privately rented very high end luxury villas downtown, most well beyond my meager budget. I can experience that lifestyle by staying in a place called Casa Isabel --- it's a wonderful place to stay, and usually cheaper than any chain hotel in town, but with very personal service, very distinctive, very well-appointed rooms, and wonderful perks like the ability to invite a few friends over for barbecue and chilly brewskis up on the deck. Can't do that at the Holiday Inn!!

Yep, the older, downtown parts of Puerto Vallarta are what truly defines the mood, vibe, and character of the town and the resort area. It's a wonderfully moody, beautiful, affordable, distinctive place with its individual character. The big resorts out on the hotel strip, the marina, or even Nuevo Vallarta don't have anyof that character, but it's only a 40 cent bus ride downtown, and the REAL Puerto Vallarta will open up to you.