The last few days in Guadalajara were rainy, grey and cold. I had planned to stay there longer, but the weather made me change my plans. Instead of spending more time inland, I’d head straight to the coast. My first stop would be Sayulita, a small surfer town on the Pacific, and then I would visit San Pancho, a few miles further north, even smaller than the already tiny Sayulita, but a few of my friends had spent a winter there a few years back and loved it.
I couldn’t have made a better decision than traveling to the coast. I started my journey on a rainy morning in Guadalajara (it was pouring down the second day in a row) and a couple of hours into the bus ride, the rain stopped and the scenery began to look a lot more tropical. Four hours after hopping on that bus, I was let out on the side of the road right next to a guy selling coconuts fresh off a palm tree. The air felt sticky and hot. This was the climate I felt right at home in.
By Dani – Full Story at Globetrotter Girls
Guadalajara Gay Travel Resources
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Not long after our two weeks in Colombia together, I was reunited with my favorite travel buddy, Miss G, in Mexico. It was her first time in the country, and it was my job to give her the best introduction to Mexico possible – a mix of culture, food, and scenery.
I didn’t have to think long about where I’d take her: the Yucatan Peninsula/the state of Quintana Roo. This part of Mexico, a peninsula in the southeast that stretches along the Caribbean coastline all the way down to Belize, is my favorite part of the country, a region that I could return to over and over again.
I knew I could give her a great taste of Mexico here, with abundant Mayan culture at historic sites like Chichen Itza, Tulum and Uxmal; beautiful Spanish-colonial towns like Valladolid, Campeche and Izamal; dreamy beaches in Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Mahahual; dozens of cenotes – natural freshwater sinkholes – for something completely unique; swimming with turtles and flamingo watching for wildlife, and plenty of taco stops along the way.
When I mapped out my Mexico trip and tried to decide which city to fly into, it basically came down to one decision: Flying straight to the coast or visit a new city first. And as much as I was ready for some beach time, my curiosity to explore another Mexican city won. And Guadalajara won for three reasons: It is known to be cultural and artsy, it is relatively close to the Pacific coast, and it is only 70 kilometers from Tequila.
A travel writer I follow on Snapchat had just gone there and her snaps from Tequila looked so gorgeous that I wanted to see the agave fields for myself, and visit a couple of tequila distilleries – even though I am not a big tequila fan (I have a margarita every now and again, but straight up tequila wouldn’t necessarily be my drink of choice).
And so I found myself on a bus to Tequila on my very last day in Guadalajara, excited for agave fields and for an education about Mexico’s national spirit, one that, admittedly, I knew very little about. While the day trip didn’t exactly turn on the way I was hoping for (rain instead of blue skies, too many hours spent on a bus, bad planning), I immediately fell in love with the little village of Tequila. I could feel that we weren’t far anymore when agave fields started to line the street on both sides, with their distinctive green-bluish leaves.
When it rains, it pours, they say, and that couldn’t hold truer for the past couple of weeks. And I don’t only mean that because it is pouring as I type this – I haven’t seen that much rain since leaving Seattle, but Guadalajara got so much rain today that the streets were flooding – but, as so many of us, I’ve been struggling with the events of this week. That combined with a string of bad news since the beginning of the month has put me in a slump which I’m trying to get out of.
Coming to Mexico was certainly a good decision and is helping me getting my mojo back: As soon as I walked out of the terminal building last week and saw the familiar OXXO convenience store across the street, I felt like I was coming home. And there aren’t many places that make me feel this way. The familiarity of Mexico has also helped me ease into solo travel again, which I haven’t done in a while now, and the weather has been perfect for most of the week – after my depressingly wet and cold October this was much needed.
Guadalajara, which I picked as the starting point for my current Mexico trip, was an excellent choice. I’d never been to Mexico’s second largest city, and it was time to fix that.
The first mistake I made when I visited Isla Mujeres? I only stayed for a day. That was in 2010, during my first trip to the Yucatan peninsula, when I lived in Playa del Carmen for a month. I fell in love with the little island off the coast of Cancun immediately.
The second mistake I made? I waited nearly six years to return to Isla Mujeres, even though I was raving about it to everyone who was planning a trip to the Yucatan and asked me for advice on where to go, and despite the fact that I returned to the Yucatan in 2012. It is still beyond me why I didn’t plan in time for a little island getaway back then, but I guess after two months of living on a remote Caribbean beach I wasn’t craving more beach time.
When I planned my Yucatan road trip this year, I made sure that we would spend some time on Isla Mujeres.
There isn’t much to do on this tiny island, which is only 1.3 miles (7 kilometers) long and 2,130 feet (650 meters) wide. As I recall, there weren’t even cars on the island then, only golf carts, but this time around there were a few cars as well. However, golf carts are still definitely outnumbering cars on Isla Mujeres, and most tourists rent those for the day instead of scooters.
Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay:
Experience ultimate luxury in our large, 5,000 sf villa in the Conchas Chinas Hills. This new, five bedroom, five and a half bathroom villa is in the upscale Amapas area, where you’ll find some of the most beautiful vacation rental homes in Puerto Vallarta.
Villa Encantada is in the middle of a vibrant, tropical jungle, and has panoramic Banderas Bay views. It’s also a great place to watch the sun set from the wide pool deck. When the days are hot, you can cool down in our gorgeous turquoise blue pool, or relax with a drink at the outdoor bar under the shade of the palapa.
Villa Encantada is a great place for families or a group of friends, with 5 elegant bedroom suites, each with private bath, wide balconies, a large sitting room, and a complete staff that make this house a tropical paradise.
Villa Encantada is close to downtown Puerto Vallarta in the Amapas/Conchas Chinas hills. We offer an open air paradise where you can enjoy the warm ocean breeze and the tropical evenings.
The villa is filled with colorful, vibrant art, and the wide open spaces complement the house’s decoration, making this a fantastic vacation destination.
The home was just completed in 2006, and was designed by Arturo Ramos, a well-known PV architect. Three of the guest rooms have kingsized beds, one has a queen bed, and one has two queen beds.
The entire villa has beautiful, warm hardwood doors and windows, and the bedrooms all have a/c. The pool and spa are both solar heated, reducing electricity use and carbon output.
The villa also has satellite TV, telephones (with free calls to tyhe United States), and housecleaning, cooking, and house staff services six days a week. There’s also a fully equipped kitchen, Barbeque, movies, games and high speed wifi access.
For the perfect vacation in gay Puerto Vallarta, stay at Villa Encantada.
The Mexican cuisine is so varied and heaps of fun to discover. Cancun cuisine in the Yucatán Peninsula has strong influences from the Spanish and the Aztecs, but its origins can be traced some 9,000 years back to the Mayans. This ancient empire migrated here and brought with them traditions like open fire cooking in ceramic pots and ingredients like batata (sweet potato), beans, corn, chilies, avocados and tomatoes. Bean paste on corn tortillas? That’ll be a Mayan creation.
Cancún cuisine has plenty of foodie experiences to explore with a variety of excellent restaurants. Here’s the famous and best food of Cancún we’ve stumbled on.
#1 TRADITIONAL TASTES
If you’re heading out to Central America and are after a true taste of Mexico, Cancun certainly has some of the best spots to suit all budgets. La Destileria is the best place to sample some of the traditional flavours and despite the stereotype of Mexico food being meat heavy, vegetarians are well accommodated here. La Destileria has local musicians who play from table to table and serve up a mean Kiwi Margharita.
The first thing that almost everyone asks when they hear you’ve just got back from Mexico is, “Was it safe?” Apparently so, seeing as we’re still standing! Our standard answer is, “Yes of course.” We then try to resist the urge to show them the Facebook album named ‘Gay Guadalajara’ – because then the next question is usually, “Guadala-where-a?”
Unless your geography is better than most, you may well be asking yourself the same thing. Guadalajara is Mexico’s second largest city, with 4.5 million inhabitants – second only to mega-metropolis Mexico City, at 20 million – and it’s also the capital of the state of Jalisco, which lies mid way up the country’s Pacific coast.
Not your usual holiday destination? Perhaps not for Brits – but tourism from North America is big business to Mexico. Many head for coastal resorts, including Puerto Vallarta, where gay and lesbian tourists have been flocking for decades. But Jalisco’s main city also attracts its fair share of visitors.
Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay:
I visited Isla Mujeres in 2010 on a day trip while I was living in Playa del Carmen, and even though it was a (too!) short visit, I was smitten with the tiny Caribbean island immediately. Crystal clear water, powdery sand beaches, palm trees softly swaying in the wind. It was a glorious day. And yet it took me nearly six years to return to Isla Mujeres, the Isle of Women.
I decided to spend my last weekend in Mexico on the island, and I don’t think I could’ve chosen a more perfect place to end my Mexico trip with a bang, but it also made saying goodbye even more bittersweet. I know that I’ll be back in Mexico (hopefully rather sooner than later), but I was definitely not ready for this trip to end, especially after our fabulous road trip.
As the last stop for our road trip, the island was perfect! It is tiny enough to be explored in a golf kart in half a day, so we didn’t feel like we missed out on anything when we spent most of the weekend on the beach, sitting in a swing bar with a cool beer or searching for the best palm tree to spread out our beach towels under.