Puerto Vallarta Is #1 For Pacific Beach Life
If it’s a Pacific coast lifestyle you’re in the market for overseas, Mexico offers many good options, including the destination that qualifies as my top recommendation for a fully appointed Pacific coast lifestyle that’s also turnkey-ready right now:
Puerto Vallarta
Puerto Vallarta is neither the cheapest retirement choice in the world nor the cheapest option within Mexico. You aren’t likely to find it a bargain compared with the cost of living Stateside… unless you compare it (as you should) with the cost of living in top Pacific coast locales north of the Rio Grande. Puerto Vallarta could be called a bargain compared with the cost of living in Newport Beach, for example.
In Puerto Vallarta, though, a budget-friendly cost of living is not the point.
This isn’t developing-world living. This stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coastline has already been developed to a high level. Life here can be not only comfortable, but also easy and even luxury.
This is a place to come to enjoy a world-class Pacific coast lifestyle.
Note that I didn’t say world-class Pacific coast. You can find that many places, including in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, for example. What you don’t find in those places is the same standard of lifestyle to support the views.
Generally speaking, Pacific coast destinations in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama are still emerging… places where, sure, someday, maybe, there will exist international-standard amenities. This is for sure the case all along Nicaragua’s beautiful Pacific coast… and it’s true, as well, though increasingly less so, along the Pacific coasts of Costa Rica and Panama, where, in both cases, truly international-standard development and infrastructure are only today beginning to appear on the scene.
In Puerto Vallarta, you aren’t buying for someday. In Puerto Vallarta, you have the opportunity to buy a world-class lifestyle in a region with world-class beaches and ocean views that is supported, right now, by world-class golf courses, marinas, roadways, restaurants, and shopping.
This is a lifestyle that is available only on a limited basis worldwide, a lifestyle that is truly (not metaphorically) comparable to the best you could enjoy in southern California… if you could afford it.
And my point is that this enviable lifestyle, some might even call it a lifestyle of the rich and famous, is not some property developer’s vision or speculator’s dream.
I was first in P.V. more than 20 years ago. Back then, developing this coast into a world-class destination was the talk of so many developers and speculators.
I returned recently, two decades later, to find that this region is one place in the world where the developers and the speculators have actually succeeded in creating something competitive on a global scale.
The Pacific coast in and around Puerto Vallarta has been invested in, over decades, not only by developers and speculators, but also, importantly, by the Mexican government. The government has supported private investment in this region over time, most recently focusing its attention here on the stretch of coast running for about 100 miles north from Nuevo Vallarta.
As a result, this isn’t a place to plan for a fully appointed retirement at the beach someday. This isn’t a place to invest based on the pretty watercolor drawings of a savvy marketing group.
This is one of the best places I can think of to embrace a fully appointed Pacific beach retirement lifestyle right now.
And the best part is that, here in P.V., not only can you plug into a fully developed retirement lifestyle… built, furnished, landscaped, and within minutes of the fairway or the yacht club if those pastimes interest you… but, unlike in southern California, you can also afford it.
No, probably not on a Social Security-only retirement income. But if your retirement budget is a bit bigger, and you’ve dreamt your whole life of retiring with a view of the crashing Pacific, I’d say this could be your number-one right-now choice.
Kathleen Peddicord
