I’ve never been much of a beach vacation kinda guy - I’ll take mountains and forests any day - but I’m glad to be back in Puerto Vallarta for a few weeks. We made our first trip here 14 years ago, when my grandmother first decided to spend her winters on the west coast of Mexico, and we’ve come to visit her almost every year since. It’s a touristy city, but it has the feel of a real town, with a distinct local culture and a vibrant community of Mexican nationals and northern expats. Every year we meet someone new - usually from the American Midwest or Canadian Prairie Provinces - who came here on vacation years ago and then never went home.

There’s a lot to explore here, and despite a dozen years of poking around Banderas Bay, we always find something new. Our favorites include watching humpback whales, hiking from Boca de Tomatlan to Las Animas beach, and some overnight trips to the towns of Sayulita and Tequila. This year we’re considering a sailboat trip out to the Islas Marietas and Playa Escondita (we’ve been there before, but it’s been a while!) and a daytrip to San Sebastian del Oeste, a 17th-century mining town in the Sierra Madres.

And we always seem to manage some shooting time, of course. The Pacific coast of Mexico is an amazing place for art in general, and you can see some of my landscape work on my other photography website. We’ve also done a couple of saucy beach boudoir shoots, including a set on Playa Malpaso that was published in DEZIRE Magazine, and a fantastic nude shoot at a hacienda in Gringo Gulch. It had killer views of Puerto Vallarta’s Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe church. You can see a few shots from that session in the gallery below, but I’ve got a lot that I haven’t even sorted yet. (Why is it that I’m always behind on editing?)

If you find yourself in the Puerto Vallarta area in January or February and think you might like a shoot, drop me a line! I always like to work with clients while I’m traveling.