Plunging Peso Means Bargains in Puerto Vallarta Ed Walsh - The Bay Area Reporter
go to original August 28, 2015

Puerto Vallarta's Blue Chairs beach is in front of the famous hotel of the same name. Photo: Ed Walsh

Attention travel bargain hunters: Now is a great time to visit Mexico's most popular gay destination, Puerto Vallarta.

Just last week, the Mexican peso plunged to its all time lowest level, sinking to nearly 17 pesos per dollar. That means you can live it up at some of the city's finest restaurants and bars on the cheap. For example, a gourmet dinner at the fabulous Taste restaurant at the luxury gay resort Casa Cupula will set you back less than $18. At the down-home gay Frida's Kitchen, you can get a cheeseburger and fries for $3.50. Beers at Bar Frida are about $1.20. A quick bite at a street food stand will run less than a dollar. The very favorable exchange rate means everything from taxi rides to spa treatments are on sale for anyone with dollars.

Weather wise, early fall is a great time to visit Puerto Vallarta. You will still enjoy bargain low-season hotel rates with drier, sunny weather. Puerto Vallarta's rainy season extends through September, but things dry out in October. The beach town gets about 15 inches of rain in September, but October rainfall is only about four inches and the precipitation average drops to less than an inch in November and December.

The city's hotel rates inch up as it gets closer to Thanksgiving but you can still find bargain rates from now through October. For example, you can get a room at the budget gay Hotel Mercurio for $56 (including taxes and a delicious hot breakfast). The rate bumps up to $101 in the winter. Puerto Vallarta's newest gay men's boutique hotel, Pinata PV, is offering fall rates starting at $99 (including tax) with the sixth night free. Winter rates go up to about $135. That is a bargain considering the quality of that property.

You can live it up in style without busting your budget at the upscale Casa Cupula over the fall. A room in October that includes use of a great gym and sauna in an upscale resort setting is $141 (including tax); that rate kicks up about $40 more for the winter. And if you can book a room by the end of this month for travel until the end of September, the fourth night is free.

Puerto Vallarta's biggest gay event is held over our Thanksgiving weekend. White Party Puerto Vallarta, a.k.a. Latin Fever 2015 runs November 27-30. By the way, the city celebrates Pride in the spring, over our Memorial Day weekend. That event is especially welcome in Puerto Vallarta because late May is traditionally a slow time of year for the resort town.

But don't wait for an event to go. If you can travel now through the early fall, you will be greeted with lower hotel rates, fewer crowds, and warmer ocean water. The hills will also be a lush green and the rivers flowing after a summer of rain.

For the uninitiated, Puerto Vallarta is on Mexico's west coast, a three hour, 40 minute flight from San Francisco International. United and Alaska airlines fly there nonstop and Virgin America will begin its seasonal service in mid-October.

Puerto Vallarta is about a four-hour drive from Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara. Incidentally, a new highway between the two cities is set to open in 2017 that will reduce the Guadalajara-Puerto Vallarta drive time to two and a half hours, making it that much easier to combine the two cities in one trip. Mexico City is more than a 10-hour drive away.

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