Sayulita
Located one hour from Puerto Vallarta
"Surfers Paradise"
Sayulita is located about an hour from Puerto Vallarta.
It is a good place to get away from the busy city. The surfing in Sayulita is excellent and it has a great small town environment.
The picturesque fishing village of Sayulita Mexico offers visitors and residents incredible beaches, lush jungles and a taste of rural Mexico. Located on the Pacific coast of Nayarit, Mexico, this pueblo is slowly gaining popularity as a vacation/second home destination with plenty of North Americans. With cobblestone streets hosting dogs, chickens and playing children, Sayulita is a half-century away from nearby Puerto Vallarta and it's huge resorts, discos and parasailing. Sayulita's location is ideal, only 60 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta airport and 3 hours from Guadalajara.
Surfing Sayulita
From the far southern longboard breaks of Punta Mita to the beach-breaking tubes at San Pancho to the boat-accessed reefs of Chacala, the state of Nayarit delivers consistent, warm-water surf for all levels. It is renowned as one of the best surf coasts on the planet. Sayulita offers a great right break for beginners and longboard riders, and a speedy left break for rippers. Nayarit's waves are smaller in the summer months -- the area's off season -- but even 3-foot waves can provide 20-second rides.
The swells swell in the winter, when waves can reach triple overhead heights. The winter is when the humpback whales crest in Sayulita's small bay, delivering a buoyant exp
erience for surfers waiting for that perfect wave. Sayulita abounds with surfboard rentals ranging from $15 to $25 a day, depending on the quality of board.
Punta Mita offers six slowly peeling breaks perfect for lazy-day longboarding. The beach-pounding breaks at San Francisco -- known locally as San Pancho -- and Lo de Marco are much less crowded but demand a bit more skill.
Some surfers hire a panga boat in Sayulita ($45 for a quick session to $150 for all-day hunting) to ferry them to distant reef breaks and more remote waves along the Nayarit coast.
Paddle softly around the Sayulita local surfers, and definitely don't drop in on them. Sayulita beginners are better off learning the art in the early-morning hours before the aggressive, talented and tourist-weary local surfers take over the break. For a show, watch the locals put on a display of surfing prowess. Some of those young rippers are international surf stars, and their skills are unrivaled.