Sinaloa feeds much of Mexico — tomatoes, maize, and the largest fishing fleet on the Pacific coast — and it exports banda, the brass-heavy music that is the state's other main product.
Mazatlán is the destination: a nineteenth-century old town restored around its opera house, a 21-kilometre malecón, and a carnival in February that is among the largest in the world. It is a working port as well as a resort, which keeps it honest.
Los Mochis exists mainly as the Pacific end of the Chepe railway into the Copper Canyon, and El Fuerte, a colonial town upriver, is the better place to board it.
Culiacán is the state capital and a serious city. It is also the home of the cartel that bears the state's name, and its security situation can deteriorate quickly and without warning — the shutdowns of 2019 and 2024 closed the city for days. Travellers rarely have reason to go.
Mocorito is a quiet pueblo mágico inland, and Bahía de Topolobampo is the ferry port for La Paz across the Gulf of California.
