| | |  Travel & Outdoors | December 2008 
Getaway Gay On the Cheap: San Francisco's Favorite Foreign Gay Escape On Sale
 Ed Walsh - SF Gay Travel Examiner
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| | Staff of the lesbian-owned Apaches bar | 
| | A room at Blue Seas Resort and Spa | 
| | Pool at the Hotel Mercurio | 
| | Pool at the San Franciscan Hotel and Gym | 
| | The Vallarta Cora Hotel | 
| | Alejandro Lamas, bartender at the Plasma bar | 
| | Club Manana by day | 
| | Carmen Porras, Owner, El Arrayan (Photos by Ed Walsh) | |
Psst. Don’t tell anybody, but the Bay Area’s most popular foreign gay destination is on sale.
Puerto Vallarta is thirty percent off. You can thank the weak peso. And thanks to competition from Mexicana Airlines, combined with lower fuel prices, airfares are also way down.
Mexicana began nonstop service between SFO and Puerto Vallarta in December. I had the pleasure of taking one of their flights recently and the coach-class service was a notch above coach class on other airlines. Their meals are still free and they also have free booze and soft drinks even in coach class.
Now to the prices. You can easily find a roundtrip fare to Puerto Vallarta from SFO for less than $350. And you will be pleasantly surprised by the prices once you get to PV. Since the summer, the value of the Mexican peso has plummeted. During my visit in July, I was getting a little less than 10 pesos per dollar. But in December, I got more than 13 per dollar. That means that prices in Mexico are 30-percent off.
Gay Puerto Vallarta
Puerto Vallarta is by far Mexico’s most popular gay resort destination and it is not showing any signs of slowing down. A study by the San Francisco gay marketing company, Community Marketing, found that Puerto Vallarta was second only to London as the most popular foreign destination for gays from the US. But you would get little argument that Puerto Vallarta has London beat by a wide margin for those of us living on the West Coast. The flight down south to the resort town on Mexico’s West Coast is a about three and a half hours.
The newest kid on the block in PV is the Blue Seas Resort and Spa. It opened this fall just north of the traditional but unofficial gay beach, the Blue Chairs Beach. The resort is right on the beach and it has effectively expanded the gay section of Los Muertos Beach. The resort is first-class all the way. Winter rates start at $158.
If you are on a more limited budget, you can’t beat the Hotel Mercurio. Its high season winter rates start at $94. Hotel Mercurio is perfectly situated just a short 5 minute walk from the beach and easily walkable to all the gay nightclubs in Puerto Vallarta.
For a touch of home, check out the San Franciscan Resort and Gym. It’s owned by one-time San Francisco resident David Rhodes. Rates start at $130 plus a 5-percent resort fee. Rhodes recently opened a comedy club in his resort.
The Vallarta Cora hotel, also known as party central, is for men only. Its rates start at $95. You can hang out there 3pm-midnight for its expanded happy hour for just $5.
The upscale Club Manana and the mainstay, Paco’s Ranch, continue to be the most popular gay nightclubs in town. The Blue Sunset Rooftop Bar overlooking the Blue Chairs Beach is a must-stop at sunset.
The variety of places to eat in Puerto Vallarta is endless. You can eat from a street vendor for a couple of bucks or you can sample from a number of the city’s upscale eateries for a lot less than you would pay in the Bay Area.
For authentic gourmet Mexican food, check out El Arrayan, It is a favorite of San Franciscan Gary Beck, who is a part-time Puerto Vallarta resident and has literally wrote the book on Puerto Vallarta’s restaurants. Beck’s Best is a great honest guide. He takes no free meals and calls them like he sees them. It can be ordered through cafepress.com/vallartaguide
For more info: Puerto Vallarta has one of the best gay guides you will find anywhere: GayGuideVallarta.com. It is a must for any gay visitor to the city. The guide’s maps are invaluable.
Bay Area resident Bruce Whipperman is the author of Moon Book’s excellent book on the city that also includes the Nayarit and Jalisco Coasts. You can find Moon Puerto Vallarta in bookstores and online. It includes a lot of valuable information for gay travelers.
Ed Walsh has written regularly for the LGBT press since 1998. His travels have taken him from Australia to Iceland and just about everywhere in between. Check out his multimedia blog on Puerto Vallarta HERE. |
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