Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita

Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita was the peninsula's original luxury resort, opened in 1999 on a private, double-gated headland between the Sierra Madre and the Pacific on Bahía de Banderas. Around a hundred and seventy-seven red-tiled Mexican-casita rooms and suites give onto two private beaches and an infinity pool, from around sixty square metres up through oceanfront plunge-pool casitas to one-bedroom plunge-pool suites, with thirty-one private villas of up to five to seven bedrooms beyond, each with private pools, gourmet kitchens, dedicated staff and golf carts. Two Jack Nicklaus courses thread the peninsula — Pacífico, with its famous Tail of the Whale island green reached by amphibious cart, and Bahía — making it a golfer's prize, while the Apuane Spa works treatments over the bay and twenty-four-hour pool access keeps the days flexible. Dining runs to a Pan-Asian and sushi venue and beachfront Mexican on the bay, with surfing, diving, trips to the Marietas Islands reserve, tequila blending and seasonal whale-watching filling the rest. Puerto Vallarta is around forty-five to sixty minutes away, on a room-only base — a family and multi-generational stay as much as a couple's or golfer's, on its own Pacific peninsula.