A huge country, Mexico is a holiday destination with many different attractions - cultural, historic, gorgeous landscapes - which warrants more than one visit.
Instead of trying to cram all the highlights in one go, we recommend you concentrate on one or two areas, and, if you love the seaside, wind down at a favoured spot on the thousands of kilometres of beaches lining the coast. Of course, Mexico’s sunny tropical shores also constitute a worthwhile holiday destination in themselves…
The Pacific coast is backed by rolling hills covered in vegetation varying from arid desert to Mediterranean-style scrub and luxuriant forest. Tumbling down to the shoreline, these cliffs and hills harbour many horseshoe coves and beaches of white to ochre sands. In normal weather conditions the Pacific Ocean is more agitated than the Caribbean, will rolling waves much beloved by surfers.
Along the vast length of the Pacific coast there are areas which are highly commercialised and developed (perhaps over-developed) for tourism. Among these are the areas in and around Acapulco, Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta.
However, intimate and exclusive properties, both luxurious hotels and simple palapas, lie within the privacy of their own extensive grounds on less developed stretches of coast.
In the south east, directly west of Mexico City and within easy reach of the colonial cities of Guadalajara, Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende there are luxury hotels around Manzanillo and south east to Zihatanejo.
The Oaxaca shoreline is particularly spectacular, with stretches of virgin beaches. Where tourism is developed, as at Huatulco or Puerto Escondido, it is a more muted affair than in the flashier resorts to the north and west, with less noise and pollution. It's an increasingly popular beach destination to combine with a visit to Oaxaca.
Baja California, the peninsula of rugged desert snaking south parallel to the Pacific coast, is a popular destination for American sunseekers (there is a plethora of condominiums around Cabo near the tip), and lovers of outdoor activities such as whale spotting and kayaking. It has some lovely secluded romantic hotels as well as those catering for the top-end mass market.
Pacific coast: Posada Real
Pacific coast: The Tides Zihuataneco
Baja California: Esperanza
Baja California: Casa Natalia
| |  Puerto Escondido, Pacific coast
 The beach at Huatulco
 Kayaking in Baja California
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