Nayarit is small, green and mostly coastal, and the stretch immediately north of Puerto Vallarta has become the most fashionable beach in Mexico.
Sayulita led it — a surf village that filled with boutiques and taco stands and is now busy year-round — with San Pancho next door quieter, and Punta Mita on its headland at the expensive end. The Marietas Islands offshore hold the much-photographed hidden beach inside a bomb crater, visitor numbers now strictly capped.
San Blas further north was a Spanish naval port and is now a birding destination of the first rank — the boat trip up La Tovara through the mangroves is the classic. Bring repellent; the jejenes are famous.
Mexcaltitán is an oval island town in a lagoon, its streets flooding in the wet season, and is claimed by some to be Aztlán — the place the Aztecs set out from.
Inland, Tepic is the capital and the gateway to Huichol (Wixárika) country in the sierra, whose yarn paintings and beadwork are the state's best-known craft.
