The Areas: Where to Live in the Banderas Bay
Where to live in Banderas Bay is not one question but ten. The bay runs about forty kilometres, from the peninsula in the north down to the south shore, and it crosses a state line on the way.
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Two towns fifteen minutes apart can want completely different things from you. One needs a car and the other does not. One is silent at nine in the evening and the other is only getting started. One empties in September and the other barely notices.
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What follows is written from living here rather than from listings. Where a place is not covered, it is because Doug and Charlotte have not spent enough time in it to say anything useful, and a guess would be worth less than a gap.
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How to Use this Page
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Read Narrowing It Down first if you have not. It sets out the eight things that actually decide this, and the write-ups below make a great deal more sense once you know which of those eight matter to you.
Most people arrive with two or three names already in their head. The useful exercise is finding out which of them survives contact with what living there is like.
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The Ten, North to South
Each one gets three or four lines here and a full write-up of its own. The short version names the trade, because the trade is what decides it.
Where to live in Banderas Bay:
the ten, north to south
Nayarit, north shore
Punta Mita
Out on a peninsula at the north tip. Gated, private and quiet, with golf, the large hotels and beach clubs that are genuinely world class. A surf beach, so watch the waves if you plan to swim. The trade is isolation and the drive. Privacy is how the place is built, which is why it is beautiful and why the ordinary things are outside the gates rather than inside them. It is also the longest airport run on the bay.
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
A working fishing village with a serious yacht marina attached, and the best market on the bay on a Sunday. Small, walkable once you are in it, and going about its own business rather than running a season for visitors. Two honest costs. The nearest large grocery store is in BucerÃas, and the high season airport run is long enough to change your plans.
BucerÃas
A real town rather than a development, pressed into a narrow strip between the beach and the highway. Walkable, dense, busy and loud. The best place on the north shore if you want to leave the house and be somewhere, and a flat beach that is easy to get onto. The density is the whole thing. It is why you can walk everywhere and it is why it is noisy, and those are the same fact. Ask about the water before you sign anything.
Nuevo Vallarta
Planned from scratch. Wide, green, spread out and mostly gated, with golf, canals and long boulevards. A long flat beach you can walk for an hour. Home for Doug and Charlotte, in El Tigre. You want a car for errands, though the bike and walking paths are excellent and a lot of people get around on a golf cart. There are very few public ways onto the beach, so the question to ask is what the membership includes and whether beach access is in it.
Jalisco, the city and south
Marina Vallarta
Built around a working marina next to the city, with a golf course on one side and the airport on the other. The easiest address on the bay to live in without a car, and the airport is a twenty minute walk. The only place here that has a yacht marina and golf inside the same walkable area. The trade is the beach, which is awkward to reach unless you are in a building that sits on it.
Hotel Zone
Modern towers on a long beach, halfway between downtown and the marina. The strongest beach position of anywhere on this page: many buildings sit on the sand or a few steps from it. It is also the one area here that answers the question the others leave open, which is who looks after the place while you are gone. In a managed tower the building largely handles it, and the monthly fee is what pays for that.
Versalles
Inland, between the Hotel Zone and downtown. A neighbourhood before it is a destination, with the best concentration of restaurants and cafes in the city and most of the new condo building. Not on the beach and it does not pretend to be. It is also the one place on this page whose September looks much like its February, because the people who use it live here.
Centro
The historic core. The Malecón, the church, the plazas, and most of the buildings people picture when they picture Puerto Vallarta. As walkable as the bay gets, and a working Mexican city underneath the visitors. The honest surprise is that you live beside the ocean here and not beside a beach. Parking is difficult and the noise comes from more directions than anywhere else, church bells included.
Zona Romántica
Old Vallarta south of the river, and where the bay socialises. The most walkable place here along with Centro, with Los Muertos a short walk and a long-established LGBTQ+ community at the heart of it. The loudest address on the page, and late rather than busy by day. Three questions decide a building here: is there a lift, what are the walls like, and where does a car go.
The south shore
The coast running south from Zona Romántica, where the mountains come down to the water. Hillside villas and ocean-view condos in the jungle, small beaches between rocky stretches, and whales in the bay in season, from the balcony. The views are why people come and the hill is what they cost. Count the steps from where the car stops to the front door, and think about what that staircase is like at seventy-eight rather than at sixty-two.
The facts that really are comparable
Most of what decides this is fit rather than quality, which is why there are no ratings below and no scores. Nothing here says one place is better than another, because none of them is. These are the plain facts, side by side, so you can see which entries are worth reading.
Area
Car
Airport in February
The water
Walking
Noise
September
Punta Mita (Nay.)
Yes, or a car service
~2 hours
Surf, access via club
Beaches yes, errands no
Quietest here
Closes up
La Cruz (Nay.)
For the weekly shop
1.5 to 2 hours
More wave than calm
Within the village
Quiet
Keeps its life
BucerÃas (Nay.)
No
~30 minutes
Flat, easy access
Everywhere
Loud
Town carries on
Nuevo Vallarta (Nay.)
Yes, for errands
20 to 45 min
Long and flat
Golf cart/bike
Very quiet
Empties
Marina Vallarta (Jal.)
No
20 min walk
Awkward to reach
Everywhere within
Busy by day
Crews stay
Hotel Zone (Jal.)
Often
10 to 15 min
Straight to sand
Nearby, restricted
Traffic noise
Quiet inside
Versalles (Jal.)
Beyond hood
15 to 20 min
Short ride to beach
Within hood
Day development
Barely changes
Centro (Jal.)
No
20 to 30 min
Ocean vs beach
Everywhere
High everywhere
City carries on
Zona Romántica (Jal.)
No
25 to 35 min
Short walk to beach
Everywhere
Highest, late
Quieter
The south shore (Jal.)
Yes, daily
30 to 60 min
Small beaches
Least walkable
Quietest south
Very quiet
Ten areas, because these are the ones Doug and Charlotte have spent real time in.
One note on the south shore row. That is the only area here that cannot be given a single airport figure, because the name covers a long stretch of coast. From the Conchas Chinas end, budget thirty to forty minutes in February. From Garza Blanca, forty to fifty. From Mismaloya, forty-five to sixty. A twenty to thirty minute spread inside one name, which is wider than the gap between the Hotel Zone and Centro.