travel diaries: puerto vallarta, mexico
I am so excited to share about our trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico! We had a week to travel in January and wanted to return to Mexico for a second time with our kids. We visited Merida in 2024, in the Yucatan state, and had an amazing time. Our kids asked for warm weather, a cool town, good food and beaches, and after looking at flights, our best options were Cartagena and Puerto Vallarta (PV). When we found out it would be whale season during our trip, we were sold on PV!
Puerto Vallarta is in the Mexican state of Jalisco on the beautiful Bay of Banderas, which leads to the Pacific Ocean. We picked an apartment rental in the Conchas Chinas neighborhood, which looked to be about 10 minutes to the downtown area by Uber. Our Airbnb hosts had a concierge who reached out to us about add-on services during our stay: private transfer upon arrival, basic grocery delivery, and departure transfer were our picks. Anything that makes arrival or departure smoother is a total win for me!
Traveling with kids is a lesson in JOMO, the joy of missing out. My priority is making sure the kids aren’t exhausted and that everyone is having a great time, and sometimes that comes at the expense of sites. That’s ok!
There’s a couple things we didn’t get to do that I’d love to do on a future trip, here’s my list of items we missed:
San Sebastián del Oeste: beautiful mountain town with a history related to its silver mines
Turtle release
Whale watching
Art walk on Friday nights
Performances on malecon on Sunday nights
Day 1: Travel
Our Travel Day motto is “just arrive and survive,” and that’s what we did.
Summary - woke up at 1 am to get to DC area airport and catch our first 6 am flight. Caught our connection in Detroit. Arrived, got private transfer to condo. Husband lost debit card. Saw the beach.
We woke up at 1am to get to the DC airport to make our connecting flight in Detroit with a very short layover. We originally booked Aeromexico but they changed our route really dramatically—like a 2-hour layover in Mexico City became an overnight 8-hour layover. We called Chase customer service (since that’s where we booked our flight) and got on a Delta flight through Detroit at no added cost. We made the connection BARELY by running.
Upon arrvival in PV, we passed through passport control and customs quick and got our luggage. We then were inundated by drivers from resorts picking up passengers, so I was happy we arranged private transfer! My husband grabbed some cash in pesos at the airport and we found our driver.
I thought everything was going smoothly until 20 minutes into the drive, my husband announced he left his debit card in the airport ATM. With 3 exhausted kiddos after a long day of travel, it was easier to just cancel the card instead of dealing with the hassle of trying to get it back. Luckily, we arrived at the condo and are greeted by the building staff and shown around. We popped open a cold bubbly water thanks to our pre-arrival grocery order and headed down to the beach and pool. We were blown away by the beauty. We grabbed dinner at a tiny palapa, but my bookend kids don’t like ceviche so we also ate some ramen at the condo.
Day 2: settle in, find tacos
Since my friend was meeting us on her tandem trip, we made plans to meet downtown at the Saturday Olas Altas market. We were able to catch the bus, which is a steal at 10 pesos per person and a fun experience for the kids. We got off in the main tourist area of PV, the so called “romantic zone.” PV is incredibly LGBT-friendly, and some may also call this area, the “gayborhood.” We met my friend at the very crowded market and then walked along the famous boardwalk, the Malecon. We went back to condo for quiet time before hanging out by the pool and beach in evening. We then had dinner at the rooftop restaurant and caught a mariachi band and a wedding! We had tacos for dinner, so we met our goal!
Day 3: explore new beach and cooking class
We heard amazing things about the beaches accessible by boat—Colomitas, Las Animas and Yelapa—so this was definitely on our list. We wanted to see Bocas, which seemed like a cool laid-back town, so we took an Uber from our hotel. I messaged Emmanuel Robles of Rumsey Tours the night before to arrange our day.
Emmanuel took us to the Los Arcos sea cave formations, which are so beautiful and cool! We hopped out to snorkel, but visibility wasn’t great. Next, he took us down the shore to Las Animas. Since it was early, we had a lot of space, and the kids loved the more gentle waves. We got some smoothies and then had an amazing seafood lunch. We loved the pescado zarandeado, shrimp, and fresh tortillas. Then our boat came back to pick us up, right on time!
Once we got back to shore, we had to figure out a way back to the condo. I had no cell signal and couldn’t order an Uber, so we walked up to the main road and caught a bus right back!
We all really needed a nap after that long day. Later that evening, a private chef arrived for our cooking class! We worked with Wendy Galeana and her brother, Antonio, and I couldn’t recommend them more! Wait, what you get a private chef? Yes! And hear me out. We put aside $350-$500 on a trip and reach out to (usually women-owned) private chefs ahead of our trip. I say “cook us anything and deliver or cook as many dinners as this covers.” We usually end up getting 2-3 amazing dinners, and it really adds to our experience.
Chef Wendy came over and taught us about food from the state of Veracruz, a spot that we wanted to learn about! We made sopes with blue and yellow maize, and my toddler ate 4 avocados of guacamole. For dinner, she served a beautiful fish with a Veracruzana sauce and tesmole soup with corn dumplings. Dessert was a special Mexican dessert, jaramillo, originally discovered as an accident in colonial times.
Day 4: explore a new area
We arranged a day tour with OBI tours to see two towns up the coast in the Nayarit state: Sayulita and San Pancho. It was about 1.5 hours each way. Our tour guide, Liz, wife of the founder of the family-owned business, was amazing. She shared so much about the history of PV and provided insights into the local experience. Our favorite was a road-side stop on the way where we got to try jackfruit, freshly made local candies, and a delicious drink called tuba, made from coconut with nuts. So refreshing!
First up was San Pancho, and it was super cute! It had tons of cafes, restaurants, and vendors. We grabbed some magnets for the kids and new swim shorts for my 8-year old, who didn’t try on his swim suit before we left. On another trip, I’d want to explore that town more!
Next up, we went to Sayulita. We did a taco tour around the town, trying Al pastor from Tal Ivan tacos and shrimp and fish from a sidewalk vendor who had been making these tacos for 20 years. The winner of best taco? Surprise, it was a huge shrimp and cheese empanada.
We had a great tour and would really recommend OBI for any tours in PV!
Day 5: botanical garden
The botanical gardens were AWESOME. They are about 40 minutes south of PV, deep in the mountains/jungle. We had 9 am tickets, which I would really recommend to avoid crowds and bugs (don’t forget your bug spray!). The complementary hibiscus tea was super tasty and the store was great. We loved the cacti and orchids the best, but it was totally beautiful to walk around. The real highlight was lunch and a tiny friendly hummingbird, named Panchito, who came to our take a drink from a tiny feeder.
This was a really special experience and I can’t recommend it more.
For dinner, Chef Wendy came back. We had empanadas as an appetizer, an incredible “Mexican salad” with cotija cheese based ranch dressing (this woman is a genius), yummy cocktails courtesy of Antonio. The entree was a beautiful skirt steak with mole sauce with a risotto including huitlacoche. What is that? Considered the truffle of Mexico, it’s a fungus that grows on corn. It’s a flavor bomb of corn-mushroom deliciousness. Incredible! For dinner, she served fresh churros with ice cream and dulce de leche.
Day 6: food tour
We booked a food tour in Pitallal, an independent local town that has gradually become part of the PV sprawl. Our tour guide, Alci, was originally from Acalpulco and had lived in PV for over 20 years. He knew the family story of every vendor and chef we met, which really added to our experience.
Our stops included.,.
Meeting a local fish monger
Trying asada tacos at Tacos La Dieta (to steal a friends joke, “taco diet? My kind of diet!”)
Exploring a tortilleria, where tortillas are made fresh daily
Enjoying carnitas tacos at Taco’s Neto
Tasting shrimp tacos and fish ceviche at Pichi’s
Enjoying old fashioned goat birria at Robles
Behind the scenes at the best tamale stop in PV! Tia Anita’s
Wonderful paleteria with frozen treats made from local ingredients at Villasenor Paleteria
I didn’t want to leave! I took a bag of tamales and headed to my spa appointment with my friend at the Hyatt Ziva in the Hotel Zone Sur. Our treatments were great and no one minded my bag of tamales!
Although we were barely hungry, we always have room for chef Wendy dinners. She treated us to homemade gorditas, a big seafood platter with amazing fresh octopus and shrimp and Mexican flan! I think our toddler ate twice his body weight in guacamole on this trip.
Day 7: heading home
On Friday morning, we enjoyed some final beach and pool time before taking our private transfer back to the airport. Luckily, our trip home was less eventful than the trip there (and no more lost credit cards!).
Special shoutout to Alex and Hanz at the Orchid for being the best hosts and so kind to our family. I can’t recommend this building enough! You can book at their hotel with this link.
Planning a trip to Puerto Vallarta? Check out our Destination Guide (coming soon in February 2026) and our TikTok for more clips of our travels. Email hello@travel-fam.com to see how we can help you plan your very own trip to this underrated destination!