Mismaloya is a cove, a river mouth and a village about nine miles south of downtown Puerto Vallarta, reached by a single two-lane road between the mountains and the water. It is close enough to town to be convenient and far enough to still feel like its own place.
Mismaloya sits where a river comes down out of the Sierra Madre and meets Banderas Bay. The beach is a working one: pangas pulled up on the sand, fishermen, a handful of palapa restaurants, and the jungle rising steeply behind. The hillsides above the cove are where most of the residential building has happened, which is why so many houses here look out over the water rather than onto it.
The South Shore as a whole is the stretch of coastline that first drew outside attention to Puerto Vallarta, and Mismaloya is where that story starts.
Just offshore sit five granite islets, arched and tunnelled by the sea, roughly twelve kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta. They are close enough to the city to be visible from downtown on a clear day.
The area was first protected in 1975, declared a refuge for the protection of marine flora and fauna after years of reef damage and overfishing, and was upgraded to a national marine park in 1984. The largest islet measures about 250 metres by 160 metres, and a rocky wall on its western side runs roughly 250 metres, which is what makes the site a serious dive as well as a casual snorkel.
People swim, dive, snorkel, kayak and paddleboard here. Bioluminescent plankton turn up in the water at night. Boats run out from Mismaloya and from the marina in town.
In the early 1960s John Huston brought a film production to Mismaloya to shoot Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana. The film was released in 1964 and starred Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner. The press that followed the production, and the attention that came with Burton and Elizabeth Taylor being in town, is widely credited with turning a quiet fishing port into an international destination.
Sixty years on, the association has not worn off. Mismaloya is still the place people point to when they explain how Puerto Vallarta happened.
Humpback whales return to Banderas Bay every winter to calve and breed. The regulated season opens in early December and runs through the end of March, sometimes stretching into April. January and February are generally the strongest months for the behaviour people come to see: breaching, tail slapping, whole pods moving through the bay.
From a hillside above the cove, this is a season you watch rather than book.
Highway 200, the coastal road toward Barra de Navidad, is the only way in and out. It is two lanes, it winds, and it is part of why Mismaloya has stayed contained rather than sprawling. Traffic is the variable that matters most in any drive time quoted here.
Continue south and the road climbs into the Cabo Corrientes hills. The Vallarta Botanical Garden sits at the Km 24 marker, about 24 kilometres from Old Town Puerto Vallarta, roughly a thirty-five minute drive. Further along are the jungle river valleys, the swimming holes, and the small inland villages that the South Shore day trips are built around.
| Malecón & Zona Romántica | ~9 mi / 14 km · about 15–20 min |
| Marina Vallarta | ~12 mi / 19 km · about 20–25 min |
| Puerto Vallarta Airport (PVR) | ~13 mi / 21 km · about 35–40 min |
| Vallarta Botanical Garden | Highway 200, Km 24 · about 24 km from Old Town |
Drive times are approximate and vary considerably with traffic on Highway 200. Confirm anything that matters to a decision.
Mismaloya sits inside Mexico's coastal zone, where foreign buyers hold title through a fideicomiso: a bank trust that carries full rights of use, sale and inheritance, normally alongside an escritura. It is the standard structure for coastal property in Mexico and it is well understood by the notaries and banks that handle transactions in Jalisco.
What tends to distinguish properties here is elevation and outlook. Because the residential building sits on the hillsides above the cove, the difference between a good position and an ordinary one is mostly about what is in front of the house and whether anything can later be built in that view.
A six-level estate above the cove in Lomas de Mismaloya. Six bedrooms and eight baths in the main residence, a separate three-bedroom service residence, on a gated lot of 1,054.76 m². Offered furnished.
Mismaloya is a cove and village on Puerto Vallarta's South Shore, in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, roughly nine miles south of downtown Puerto Vallarta along Highway 200.
Los Arcos is a group of five granite islets in Banderas Bay off Mismaloya, about 12 kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta. The area was protected as a refuge for marine flora and fauna in 1975 and designated a national marine park in 1984. It is used for swimming, diving, snorkelling, kayaking and paddleboarding.
Humpback whales return to Banderas Bay each winter. The regulated season opens in early December and runs through the end of March, sometimes into April, with January and February generally the strongest months.
John Huston filmed The Night of the Iguana at Mismaloya. The film was released in 1964 and starred Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner. The production is widely credited with bringing international attention to Puerto Vallarta.
Highway 200, the coastal road running south from Puerto Vallarta toward Barra de Navidad, is the only road in. The drive from downtown Puerto Vallarta takes roughly twenty minutes depending on traffic.
Yes. Property in Mexico's coastal zone is held by foreign buyers through a fideicomiso, a bank trust that carries full rights of use, sale and inheritance, usually alongside an escritura. Team Ross at Coldwell Banker La Costa guides buyers through the process.
Sources for the figures on this page: Los Arcos National Marine Park designation dates, islet dimensions and permitted activities from Wikipedia; Mismaloya location and film history from puertovallarta.net; whale season dates from puertovallarta.net; Vallarta Botanical Garden location from vbgardens.org. Photographs on this page show the surrounding area, not the property.
