Marina Vallarta

Modern, quiet and handy for the airport — the calm end of Puerto Vallarta.

By Sam Med · Last updated October 2026

The lighthouse and waterfront at Marina Vallarta. Photo: Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels.

North of the Hotel Zone, next to the airport and the cruise terminal, Marina Vallarta is a modern, planned district built around a yacht marina and an 18-hole golf course. It's the quietest and most orderly part of Puerto Vallarta.

What it's like

Hotels here are modern, the streets are calm, and everything feels greener, newer and more contained than the older parts of the city. The centrepiece is the Marina Vallarta boardwalk (malecón de la marina), a horseshoe-shaped walkway of roughly a kilometre around the yacht basin, lined with waterfront restaurants, bars and small shops looking out over moored private yachts, catamarans and sport-fishing boats. It's flat, paved and pram-friendly — a completely different walk from the cobbled streets of Old Town.

El Faro: the small lighthouse at the marina entrance has a circular bar at the top with views over the bay. It's the landmark most people come for.
Best time: late afternoon into the evening, when the heat drops and the restaurants fill — a pleasant, low-key place to eat and stroll, with none of the crush of the main Malecón downtown.
Quiet by day: mornings are near-deserted — pleasant for a walk, less so for atmosphere.
Getting there: any northbound coastal bus, or 20–30 minutes by taxi from Old Town. See getting around.

Worth knowing

The marina itself: built from the late 1980s, it is the oldest marina on Banderas Bay. Today it has 354 berths for boats of up to about 160 feet, a fuel dock in the entrance channel and round-the-clock operation. Many of the bay's boat tours and fishing charters leave from here; see boat tours and fishing.
Thursday art market: in season, the boardwalk hosts the Art & Market Marina Vallarta every Thursday from 6 to 10 pm, with more than 200 stalls. The 2025–26 season ran from late October to mid-May; check the dates for this winter.
Golf: the Marina Vallarta Golf Club is an 18-hole, par-71 course designed by Joe Finger and opened in 1989.
The whale sculpture: the eight-metre bronze of a humpback and her calf at the district's entrance, on the main road, dates from 2001.
El Salado estuary: just inland, a protected mangrove reserve of about 200 hectares with a visitor centre on Av. Francisco Medina Ascencio. It has been open on weekday mornings and Saturday mornings; check before you go.
Cruise terminal: the city's cruise port sits between the marina and the airport, with three berths for cruise ships, so on busy days the district fills with passengers. See our cruise port guide.

Who it suits

Short stays & early flights — the airport is 5–10 minutes away, the shortest transfer in the city.
Cruise passengers — right by the terminal, which is walking distance or a very short ride.
Early-morning trips on the water — many boat tours and sport-fishing charters depart from the marina, so you may well end up here at dawn even if you're staying elsewhere.
Golfers — the course is on your doorstep.
Anyone wanting calm — it's the least hectic base in the city, and the calmest of the main areas at night.
Self-catering — supermarkets nearby make longer condo stays easy.

The beach

Be realistic here: Marina Vallarta's beach is the weakest of the three main areas — narrower and less scenic than the Hotel Zone's wide sand, and with none of the atmosphere of Los Muertos. If beach quality is your first priority, base yourself elsewhere and visit the marina for dinner. The strip in front of the hotels is Playa El Salado; hotels front most of it, but there are public access points, one at the end of Paseo Bocanegra.

The trade-off

It's the least characterful of the three main areas and the furthest from Old Town, 20–30 minutes away. If your trip is about the city's food, beaches and atmosphere, you'll be spending on taxis every evening.

Great for convenience, less so for immersion: Marina Vallarta is an excellent base for a short stay, an early departure or a cruise stopover — and a slightly dull one for a week's holiday if you came to experience Puerto Vallarta itself.

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