Retiring to Vallarta: The World's Best Beach City Suzan Haskins & Dan Prescher - Huffington Post
go to original July 13, 2016

On the Trail of the Iguana - John Huston's behind-the-scenes look at the making of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana in 1964. (These clips include great footage of Puerto Vallarta at the time of its "discovery" by the outside world.) See part two below

In 1963, Elizabeth Taylor followed Richard Burton to a sleepy little port on Mexico’s west coast where he was starring, along with Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner, in a John Huston-directed film called Night of the Iguana.

For his movie set, John Huston chose Mismaloya, a small village just south of Puerto Vallarta in the Mexican state of Jalisco, for its resemblance to a crumbling coastal village of the 1940s. Elizabeth Taylor took up residence in nearby Puerto Vallarta, which in the 1960s already had a small community of both Mexican and expat artists and writers, drawn by the weather, natural beauty, and relative isolation.

As the spotlight of celebrity shone on the stars and their love affair, the Mexican government soon realized the tourist gem it had on its hands. Fast forward through the construction of an international airport and land reforms that encouraged private ownership and development, and Puerto Vallarta has today grown into one of the most vibrant and modern vacation and residential destinations in Mexico.

Development stretches north and south all around the crescent-shaped Bay of Banderas, the largest bay in Mexico and the eighth-largest in the world. The Sierra Madre mountains provide a stunning backdrop as they drop right to the water’s edge in some spot, resplendent in all their green-jungle glory.

If you’re thinking of retiring overseas or buying a vacation home or just getting away from the winter doldrums back home—and you’re looking for a culturally rich seaside city, with absolutely gorgeous beaches, there’s no better place than Puerto Vallarta. In fact, there are few cities in the world where you’ll find this combination.

(It’s a bonus that there are more than three dozen direct ... and relatively short ... flights and charters from Puerto Vallarta to destinations in the U.S. and Canada.)

For these reasons ... the stunning beauty, excellent flight connections, an extraordinary culinary scene, modern shopping, and great infrastructure ... you’ll find a good number of English-speaking expats here. They say they don’t lack for anything, especially fun activities...

Read the rest at Huffington Post.