Much of what the world pictures as Mexican is from Jalisco: mariachi, tequila, the charro on horseback, the wide-brimmed hat. The state treats that inheritance as a working culture rather than a museum piece.
Guadalajara is the second city and the least touristed of Mexico's great ones — a colonial centre of enormous plazas, Orozco's murals burning across the ceiling of the Hospicio Cabañas, and the mariachi trade still conducted in Plaza de los Mariachis. Tlaquepaque and Tonalá, now swallowed by the city, remain the craft towns.
Tequila is a real town an hour out, surrounded by the blue agave fields that are themselves a UNESCO site, with distilleries from industrial to artisanal open to visitors.
On the coast, Puerto Vallarta is the established resort — old town, a long malecón, and the Sierra Madre dropping into the bay behind it. South of it the Costalegre empties out towards Barra de Navidad; north, the bay villages of Yelapa and Las Ánimas are reachable only by boat.
Inland, Lake Chapala — Mexico's largest — has drawn North American retirees to Ajijic for decades, and the mountain town of Tapalpa is the weekend escape from Guadalajara.
