Ixtapa or Zihuatanejo? Which One You Stay In

The fishing boats come back into Zihuatanejo Bay mid-morning, and from the terrace at Puerto Mio you watch the whole thing happen below you: the boats in, the gulls, somebody on the pier sorting what came up. Fifteen minutes up the road, in Ixtapa, a watering truck is going along a boulevard past a golf course. Both of those are the same holiday destination, and that is the thing nobody explains before you book.

They are the Pacific's odd couple. Ixtapa was planned — hotels, marinas, a golf course, wide roads laid out at once. Zihuatanejo is a centuries-old fishing village wrapped around a working bay that got famous and stayed itself. Between them, fifteen minutes of road and beaches for most moods.

Which one you want

Zihuatanejo if the town is the point. You walk to dinner, the bay is a working bay, and the evenings are informal. The sand people come for is Playa La Ropa, a short drive or a boat ride from the village.

Ixtapa if the week is about golf, the marina and a beach you walk straight onto from an ordered strip, with the village as the evening you drive to.

For most groups the walkable evening wins, and Ixtapa is a drive for the golf. A group organised around a tee time has the opposite answer, and it is worth being honest with yourself about which you are before you choose a house.

The two houses

We hold two, one on each side, which makes the choice unusually clean.

Villa Rigoletti stands at Puerto Mio, on the headland that closes the western side of Zihuatanejo Bay, a few minutes' walk from the village. Six bedrooms sleep twelve. It is built in the traditional manner and detailed with care — adobe walls, wooden staircases, bamboo railings, a palapa roof over the main terrace, a tropical garden that flowers through most of the year. From almost every room the bay lies below, with the boats working in the morning and the town lighting up at night.

A chef, a butler and a maid are included in the stay, and the same team does the market shopping and the cooking, so a week here needs very little planning once the group has arrived. Massage can be arranged at the house.

Casa del Sol is the Ixtapa side. Four bedrooms sleep ten, above the water, and the house was designed around its outlook rather than around its rooms. The plan is open, so the garden and the sea air run through the living spaces instead of stopping at a wall, and the ocean is in view from every part of the house. It is generous and low, built to stay cool without relying on machinery, and the planting around it has been left to grow. The living and dining areas take the whole group at once and open straight onto the terrace. A cook is on the staff, along with a doorkeeper and cleaning personnel, so the group can eat at the house as often as it likes.

The marina, the golf and the Ixtapa beaches are a few minutes away; the village and Playa La Ropa are fifteen.

The airport is close, which is the quiet advantage

Zihuatanejo's airport is twenty minutes from Casa del Sol and twenty-five from Villa Rigoletti. After a long flight that is the difference between arriving and still travelling, and it is one of the better arguments for this coast over places that look similar on a map.

The day to start with

The boat across to Isla Ixtapa — a protected island reserve with calm water to swim in, optional snorkelling, and lunch on the sand. It is 4.9 from 8 reviews on GetYourGuide. It is a small number of reviews and we say so, but it is the characteristic day here: short crossing, sheltered water, nothing to organise.

The other two things worth a morning are the turtle release on a beach north of town and the Xihuacán ruins and their museum inland. Both are on our Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo page.

When to come

It is a year-round stay, and we do not write any month off. Tell the advisor your dates and what the week is for, and you will get a straight answer about that week.

Who it suits

A group of ten or twelve who want a Mexican town rather than a resort corridor, with a bay in front and a golf course fifteen minutes away if somebody in the party wants one. It suits families, because the village is walkable. It suits a milestone birthday that wants a house with a terrace and a view of something working.

It suits you less if you want the scale of Vallarta or Cabo — the range of restaurants here is a village's range, and a fortnight would stretch it.

How long

Five nights. Two for the bay and the village, one for Isla Ixtapa, one for golf or the ruins, and one where nobody decides anything.