Field Report No. 26 · Friends trip
Zihuatanejo Guerrero, Mexico
A friends trip to the Pacific we mostly spent inside one unreal cliffside house: private chef, three pools, and humpback whales offshore.
Field Report
No. 26
Friends trip
Zihuatanejo Guerrero, Mexico
Worth the flight.
- Coordinates
- 17.6386° N, 101.5514° W
- Traveled
- Winter
- Kid-readiness
- This was a friends trip, a house full of grown-ups. No kid logistics to report on this one.
- Where we stayed
- Casa Garrobo, a cliffside villa above Playa Las Gatas: palapa roofs, open air, three pools stepped down the rock toward the ocean. Private chef and bartender the whole stay. It's the kind of house you don't leave, so we mostly didn't.
- The non-negotiable
- Sunset on the deck with a drink in your hand. And if you're there December through March, get out on the water for the whales.
- What we'd skip
- Don't overbook it. This is a slow town and a slower house. We kept making plans and kept ending up back at the pool. Lean into that.
- Best season
- Winter. December through March the humpbacks are everywhere, the weather's dry and warm, and the light at sunset is unreal.
- Points & hacking
- The flight is the sleeper here. Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo (ZIH) is cheap and easy out of Texas, less than you'd guess for the Pacific, and it's twenty-five minutes from the gate to the water.
17.6386° N, 101.5514° W
Zihuatanejo was a friends trip, and an easy one. A cheap flight down to the Pacific, a cool little town that nobody’s paved over yet, and a house we mostly never left.
We showed up with plans and spent most of the week at the house. No regrets.
The house is the trip
Casa Garrobo is the whole story, and the reason the trip barely had an itinerary. We had a private chef the entire stay and a bartender who had our order down by the second night. You wake up over the water, eat like kings, and watch the sun drop into the Pacific from a deck that hangs off the rocks. It’s the kind of place that quietly talks you out of your plans, and we let it.
When we did leave
The one thing to book is the sunset sail. We went out on the catamaran with Picante: a couple of hours around the bay at golden hour, open bar, light dinner. December through March you’re out there with the humpbacks. We had them surface close enough to stop every conversation on the boat. Easily the best afternoon we spent off the property.
Another day we took a water taxi from the town pier over to Playa Las Gatas, the calm little cove you snorkel from, and spent it in the water. I also tried to spearfish straight off the rocks below the house. Crawled down, got in, came up with a couple of fish and a leg full of sea urchin spines I spent the night pulling out. Worth it, barely.
The crew split up from there. A few went out on a sportfishing charter and came back with a sailfish, which tracks: Ixtapa-Zihua is some of the best sailfish water in the world. Others golfed; there are two courses ten minutes up the coast in Ixtapa, Marina Ixtapa and Palma Real.
For food, we ate fresh seafood with our feet in the sand at La Perla on Playa La Ropa, and there’s easy eating all down that beach and at the palapas over on Las Gatas. Downtown Zihua is worth a slow wander, the fishing-pier walk especially.
The verdict
Cheap to get to, easy to be in, and one of those houses you’ll be telling people about for years. We’d go back for the whales alone.
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