Living it Up on Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit

All photos by Josh Meister Photo.

Mexico has never felt foreign to us. We’ve spent some time in different parts of the country over the years, and we’ve always been comfortable, at home in a way that we haven’t felt in many other places in the world. It seemed like the perfect place to wrap up our year of travel – we could ease back into familiarity without quitting the rest of the world cold turkey.

After weekending in Mexico City, our next (and only other, as it turned out) destination was Riviera Nayarit. There’s a lot of spots to visit on the west coast, and the Riviera Nayarit actually stretches almost 200 miles from San Blas in the north all the way down to Nuevo Vallarta, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We had zeroed in on one area in particular, about an hour north of PV. We wound up spending just over a month here, exploring the local towns as much as we could, and ultimately purchasing land (more on that to come in a later blog post)!

SAYULITA

Sayulita is the most well-known small town in this section. It’s been gaining in popularity over the last five to 10 years, and it’s no longer the sleepy beach bum place it once was. The main playa is often packed full, and for good reason – there’s masses of surfers to gaze at, tons of beachfront restaurants and bars, and plenty of activities to keep people entertained.

The town itself is lively and adorably charming, its beach-entry street primped with colorful plastic papel picado flags waving in the breeze for perfect selfies below and street performers entertaining al fresco diners for a buck (or some pesos) every night.

Old VW bugs in adorable colors dot the area, and you’ll find vendors everywhere selling cute Mexican-ified stuffed animals, dreamcatchers of every size, beaded skulls, and the cheerful pom-poms that adorn golf carts and doorways throughout the town.

A slew of vendors set up shop at the Hippie Market that surrounds the local baseball field every day. If you’re looking for higher-end shopping, they’ve got it covered too. Manyana has beautiful clothing, Révolucion del Sueño sells overpriced but adorable home goods and jewelry, and there’s about a gagillion other stores.

To avoid the crowds at the principal beach, there’s options. One day we walked north on the very long beach past a small water inlet to find a much more open patch of sand. Other days we headed to one of the other seafronts in the area. Playa Los Muertos (Beach of the Dead) isn’t a far walk and has a prime location nestled on the coast in between (but, importantly, isolated from!) the hills of a colorful cemetery.

There’s also several other hidden beaches that require a bit of a hike, but are well worth it when you find yourself pretty much alone on a gorgeous stretch of white sand. Our favorite spot involved a 30-min walk/hike west over some dusty roads to a completely isolated locals beach. Of the three times we made the trek, we only really had company once.

Food and drink outposts abound since this is a bit of a party spot. We tried to avoid the super popular spots and found lots of favorites. In the main section of town, a go-to for both lunch and dinner is Burrito Republic, run by Antonio, a surly anti-establishment guy that will share his homemade tequila with you if he deems you deserving. La Rustica has delicious pizza, Choco Banana has mouth-watering breakfasts, including a tasty little sandwich called the Miss Piggy, and the “chicken lady” cart has outstanding grilled poultry and rice for a steal. La Cava is by far the best low-key bar for cocktails and raicilla, a product of the agave plant similar to tequila and mezcal, a bit of an alcoholic bastard child if you will.

A little outside of the plaza, Traphiche Brewery quietly churns out gourmet food with excellent Colima craft beer. Further afield, Tropical House is always a winner for breakfast. If you’re looking to sample the best churros in the world (probably), cross the bridge heading away from town at night and stop in front of the entrance to the Hippie Market on the left. A local guy has a mobile churro cart set up there, and they are absolutely one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

SAN PANCHO

San Pancho (officially mapped out as San Francisco, but that’s confusing, right?), 10 minutes north of Sayulita, is a bit more chill. It’s also a surf town with plenty of tourists, lots of restaurants, bars, and goings-on, but on a smaller scale. It’s also (drumroll, please) our soon-to-be new home – yay!!!

The beach here is considerably more quiet, and there’s a bit more of a community feel happening. After just a few days bumming around San Pancho, we’d find ourselves stopping to say hello to local business people as we walked down the street. Almost every night, we’d head to the beach for outstanding sunset viewing and wave to familiar faces. Everyone is friendly and happy to be living in this little paradise.

The plaza is tucked back away from the main street and hosts a local farmers market every Tuesday from October through May with food vendors, artisans, and local musicians. The restaurants in San Pancho are also fantastic. We quickly made ourselves regulars at El Gallo for breakfast and lunch, Grill Dogs for yummy sausages served out of a converted VW bus, and Ivan’s where you munch street tacos at communal tables while sipping on horchata or the wine you BYOB’d. The paleteria was also a daily routine (a habit we CANNOT continue when we’re living there 🙄) as were visits to La Cerveceria to visit Wally who partnered with a brewery in Guadalajara to make some brews specifically for his local craft beer bar. See, paradise, right? If you happen to make it to town (come visit us please!), you’ll also want to try out the gourmet tacos at Barracuda and the creative Mexican cuisine at Mexotik.

While we were falling in love with this area, some friends came to visit from Atlanta, and we decided to give surfing a try. Josh was the only one of the four of us that had ever even touched a board before. We signed up for a lesson with Nativa, the friendliest surf shop in town, and hopped in their van with a few other people for transport to La Lancha beach, about 20 minutes south. It’s a great spot for beginners because it’s situated so that it doesn’t typically get the big waves that the beaches in San Pancho and Sayulita can. We spent about 20 minutes getting an on-the-sand intro and practicing our moves, and then we were in the water with a couple of instructors. Even though I consider myself athletic, I also consider myself incredibly uncoordinated with terrible balance and had very little hope that I would be able to stand. One at a time, our instructor positioned us, waited for a wave, gave us a push, and told us to stand. And I stood! In fact, I stood and rode in five waves in a row! I was a natural! I was a phenom! I was probably going to go pro! Until the instructor said “No more pushing – now you’re going to have to do it on your own.” Heh. Then there was no more standing or riding or surfing, just falling and getting clobbered. Josh had more success, riding in quite a few on his own. Our friends did pretty well too. We all decided surfing is awesome, and we want to learn to do it well. Goals.

What we think makes San Pancho really special is the different communities that have embraced it. For example, the polo fields. We still don’t quite understand why they’re there, but from what we gathered, a fancy shmancy polo club came in and set up camp. Even though this location supposedly only hosts four match weekends a year, there happened to be one while we were there, so we got to check out the horses in action! There was a lot of upscale schmoozing and we felt a bit out of our league, but had a great time cheering, pretending to be hoity-toity, and stomping the field at halftime.

Even though it seems cool, if we’re being honest, polo is probably not our scene. So we’re a lot more excited about a nonprofit in town called Entreamigos (Among Friends). EA has taken over a former warehouse space towards the entrance to San Pancho and created a community and educational center for locals including a sponsorship program, tutoring, a library, and a recycling center. It’s a pretty amazing organization, with which we can’t wait to get involved. If you’re interested in donating or, even better, sponsoring a child’s education, you can contribute here.

All images TM & © 2017 Josh Meister Photo and Shari Margolin (unless otherwise stated). Please don’t steal or “borrow” – just be cool, be cool.