Staycation in Mexico: Where the Show Went and Where to Stay

Somebody is watching a television programme about rental houses, on a Tuesday, with the sound low. It is called Staycation, the host walks through other people's kitchens and opens the doors onto the terrace, and three of its episodes were shot in Mexico: Cabo San Lucas, Tulum and Punta Mita. Tens of thousands of people a year type the name of that show into Google, and some of them land here.

So here is the honest version. We had nothing to do with the series and none of the houses on it are ours. What we do have is houses on the same three coasts, and a view about what the camera leaves out — which, on a show about rental properties, turns out to be almost everything that matters.

What the show is

Staycation is a travel series built around vacation rentals, hosted by Robert Parks-Valletta. It streams on Tubi, Prime Video, Apple TV, Pluto TV and Plex, and The Destination Channel carries the full run. Its Mexico episodes went to Cabo San Lucas, Tulum and Punta Mita, and it went back to Cabo more than once.

If you are looking for the episodes rather than for a house, search by destination name on whichever service you use. The platforms number the seasons differently from each other, which is why there are no episode numbers on this page.

What a twenty-minute episode gives you is the architecture. What it cannot give you is the staff, the week, or the reason you would pick one coast over another. That is the part we can do.

Los Cabos: the desert, and the thing nobody mentions

On screen, Cabo is infinity pools and granite. In a week, Cabo is golf and fishing, and the two questions that decide whether it works for your group are which course and which boat.

The thing the camera will not tell you is that much of this coastline is not for swimming. The Los Cabos Tourism Board's own Blue Flag list names five beaches you can actually swim at — Chileno, Santa María, Palmilla, El Médano and Acapulquito — and every one of them is on the Sea of Cortés side. We go through which beaches you can swim at separately, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you book this coast. With children under about eight, we would send you somewhere else and say so on the phone.

For everyone else, the houses here are very good. Casa Bellamar out on the East Cape has eight bedrooms, sleeps fifteen, and its listing specifies a private chef for up to ten hours a day and a butler for ten — along with a swim-up pool bar down on the beach and a tennis court lit for the evening. Casa Captiva at Palmilla is smaller and closer in: six bedrooms, twelve people, a villa manager, a butler, a chef and a bartender, a heated infinity pool, and beachfront access to the Sea of Cortés.

Tulum and the coast above it

On screen, Tulum is linen and candles. In a week, Tulum is water — flat, warm, shallow a long way out — and the cenotes behind it, and a drive to the walled city at seven in the morning before the gate opens.

What the camera will not tell you is that the beach road is an industry and the good houses are mostly off it. Ours are twenty minutes north, on bays with reefs in front of them. Villa Dulce Vida at Akumal has six bedrooms and sleeps sixteen, and its own listing says what the brochures usually will not: beachfront on Akumal Bay with direct ocean access, and turtle snorkelling straight off the sand. The chef there is an extra, which is normal on this coast and worth knowing. Cenote del Mar on Tankah Bay is the other shape of the answer — eight bedrooms, sixteen people, and an in-house chef team seven days a week, twelve hours a day.

If you are going, read the guide rather than the episode.

Punta Mita: the quietest of the three

On screen, Punta Mita is the one that looks the most expensive. In a week, it is the one where the least happens, on purpose.

There is no nightlife to speak of, a beach-club evening and a jazz festival aside, and you leave the gate to find the town. That is not a complaint; it is who it is for. A group that wants to be looked after and then left alone will have a better week here than anywhere else in Mexico, and it is forty-five to sixty minutes from the airport.

The staffing is the thing the camera cannot photograph. Casa Koko — nine bedrooms, twenty people — lists a house manager, a concierge and a butler for ten hours each, a chef with a sous-chef and a kitchen assistant from nine to nine, a housekeeping team of four, four waiters, and one dinner during the stay designed by the chef Daniela Soto-Innes. Casa Todos Juntos at Bolongo is the lighter version: eight bedrooms, eighteen people, a chef for breakfast, and its own beach access below the pool.

Butler is a word we only use where a house employs one. Both of these do.

The other staycation

There is a second meaning of the word, and in Mexico it is the commoner one.

For a family in Guadalajara or Mexico City, a staycation is not a week at home. It is the Friday flight to the coast: a short hop, no passport, a house for four nights, back on Sunday evening or stay through the week while the office pretends not to notice. Casa Karma above Puerto Vallarta — eight bedrooms, sixteen people, Chef Javier in the kitchen — is as straightforward to take for four nights as for ten.

It is the same house either way, and the same chef gets up at the same hour. That is the part the programme never gets to.

Where to start

If the episodes made you want the peninsula with nothing on it, start with our fully staffed houses in Punta Mita.