How Riviera Nayarit Became Mexico’s New Gold Coast
This stretch of coastline has seen a host of stylish new resorts spring up over the past few years—here’s why.
Reported by Vogue.
Mexico has long had a coastline problem — not a shortage of them, but a surplus of hype concentrated in all the wrong places. Tulum peaked. Cabo got crowded. But quietly, deliberately, the stretch of Pacific coast known as Riviera Nayarit has been accumulating the kind of infrastructure and clientele that signals a destination arriving at full force. According to Vogue, the $535 million expansion currently underway at Puerto Vallarta Airport's Terminal 2 will double passenger capacity by 2027 — which is the kind of stat that means book your trip before everyone else figures it out.
The region still suffers from a branding identity crisis. Developers can't agree on what to call it — Riviera Nayarit, Punta Mita, Mandarina — which has, accidentally, kept it off the mass-tourism radar. What's taken up residence instead: a constellation of properties so aggressively luxurious they border on surreal. One&Only Mandarina puts guests in jungle villas on 80-foot stilts with Pacific views and a butler situation that goes beyond singular. Rosewood Mandarina, which opened last May, leans into heritage — local Cora artisan textiles, Octavio Paz on the nightstand, a spa that incorporates postpartum bodywork traditions into their massage offerings. The 134 villas span three distinct ecosystems: mountains, beach, flatlands. You get around by retro bicycle.
The Ultra-Private End of the Spectrum
Then there's Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort — 15 bungalows, 30-person maximum capacity, an eight-to-one staff-to-guest ratio, and a no-televisions, no-check-in, no-menu, no-right-angles philosophy dreamed up by regional VP John O'Sullivan, who started his hospitality career at 12 carving potato eyes at an Irish pub. O'Sullivan describes the property in almost meditative terms, and given that guests submit their hopes and food allergies in pre-arrival phone calls with no set time limit, the vibe tracks. Dua Lipa reportedly moved through One&Only Mandarina like a regular guest. That tells you something about the general manager Nicolas Cejas's "not a look-at-me kind of place" pitch — and about who finds that description appealing.
The newest entry is Siari, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve that opened in late 2025, with 86 units designed to defer to the landscape — wood, stone, leather wallpapers embossed with local botanicals, and one of the largest spas in the entire Ritz-Carlton portfolio. "This area is the gold coast of Mexico right now," says Royer Segura, Siari's director of sales and marketing. He's not wrong, and he's not the only one saying it. The globetrotters who used to evangelize Tulum have found their next obsession, and they're not being loud about it — which is, of course, exactly the point.
Riviera Nayarit is what happens when a destination gets everything right before the algorithm catches up — go now, while the water is still yours.
Read the original at Vogue.
