🇲🇽 Mexico · Pacific Coast
Acapulco is a name with a legend of its own. Through the 20th century it was the great mecca of Mexican tourism and the favorite resort of Hollywood and the international jet set: film stars, tycoons and politicians came to bathe in its horseshoe-shaped bay, one of the most beautiful on the Pacific. That golden age left an indelible mark on the city, a mix of retro glamour, huge beaches and intense nightlife.
But Acapulco is far older than its fame as a beach resort. For 250 years it was the port where the Manila Galleon —the 'Nao de China'— docked, the ship that linked Mexico with the Philippines and brought back the riches of Asia. You can feel that past at San Diego Fort, the star-shaped fortress that defended the port from pirates. And its most spectacular symbol is the La Quebrada cliff divers, who for decades have thrown themselves off a 35-meter cliff into the narrow waters of the Pacific, timing the exact wave so as not to smash into the rocks.
This guide covers Acapulco with a practical, honest eye: what to see in its three zones (Tradicional, Dorado and Diamante), how to take in the cliff diving show, which beaches to choose, where to feel its history, how to get around and what to keep in mind about safety and the recovery after Hurricane Otis in 2023. A destination with soul, history and a natural beauty that is still intact.
Acapulco has a pre-Hispanic past tied to the peoples of the Guerrero coast, but its great historical role came with the colonial era. After the conquest, the Spanish turned its deep, sheltered bay into the main Pacific port of New Spain. From 1565, and for 250 years (until 1815), Acapulco was the arrival point of the Manila Galleon, or 'Nao de China', which crossed the ocean from the Philippines loaded with silks, porcelain and spices; the navigator Andrés de Urdaneta had discovered in 1565 the 'tornaviaje', the return route that made the voyage home possible. The wealth of that trade drew English and Dutch pirates, and to defend against them San Diego Fort was built, a star-shaped fortress. During the War of Independence, the fort was the scene of a long siege by the forces of José María Morelos. In the 20th century, Acapulco was reborn as a beach resort: from the 1940s and 1950s it became the glamorous destination of the movies and the international jet set, with its La Quebrada cliff divers as its emblem. In October 2023, Hurricane Otis (category 5) hit the city hard, and it has been recovering ever since. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The state of the southern Pacific, between the Sierra Madre and the sea: home of the silver of Taxco and of the Manila galleon at Acapulco, scene of the Congress of Chilpancingo of 1813 and of the 'Sentimientos de la Nación', a state that bears the name of the insurgent Vicente Guerrero and the land of the Afro-Mexican culture of the Costa Chica.
Read the history of Guerrero →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Acapulco was a colonial port or a glamorous beach resort, the region was inhabited by Indigenous peoples of the Guerrero coast, an area of great cultural and linguistic diversity. Communities of different origins lived from fishing, farming, gathering and coastal trade, making the most of one of the deepest and most sheltered bays on the whole Pacific side of Mesoamerica.
The name 'Acapulco' comes from Nahuatl and is usually read as 'place of the big reeds' or 'where the reeds were destroyed' (from 'ácatl', reed or cane, and elements indicating place or destruction). The toponym reflects the area's original landscape, with its reed beds and tropical vegetation. The bay, with its horseshoe shape and deep water, was an exceptional geographical feature that would soon catch the eye of the Spanish conquistadors.
That privileged geography —a deep bay, sheltered from the swell and easy to defend— would be precisely the reason for its historical destiny. Where the original peoples saw a good place to fish and take shelter, the Spanish saw the ideal natural port to connect New Spain with the other side of the Pacific, opening one of the most extraordinary trading chapters in world history.
Acapulco's great historical moment began in 1565, when the navigator and friar Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the 'tornaviaje': the sailing route that allowed ships to return from the Philippines to the Americas by crossing the Pacific from west to east, riding the currents and the northerly winds. Until then, ships could reach Asia but did not know how to get back. Urdaneta's tornaviaje made regular trade possible and turned Acapulco into a key piece of the Spanish empire.
From that year and for 250 years, until 1815, the Manila Galleon —known in Mexico as the 'Nao de China'— crossed the ocean linking Manila with Acapulco. These enormous ships, licensed by the Spanish Crown for trade between its colonies, brought Mexico silks, porcelain, ivories, spices, fans and luxury goods from Asia, which were distributed from Acapulco across the Americas and sent on to Europe via Veracruz. In exchange, Mexican silver sailed east. It was one of the longest and richest trade routes in history.
The galleon's arrival gave rise to the famous Acapulco Fair, during which the small port filled with merchants from all over New Spain who came to buy the Asian goods. For a few weeks, Acapulco became one of the busiest trading centers in the world. The rest of the year, by contrast, it went back to its quiet life as a remote port, waiting for the next nao. This trans-Pacific trade made Acapulco a doorway between Asia and the Americas for two and a half centuries.
The immense wealth passing through Acapulco made the port a coveted target for Spain's enemies. Through the 16th and 17th centuries, English and Dutch privateers and pirates —among them Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish— stalked the Mexican Pacific coast in search of the galleon and attacked ports and ships. Acapulco needed protection.
To defend the port and its treasure, the Spanish Crown ordered the building of San Diego Fort, a fortress with the characteristic star-shaped plan (pentagonal, with bastions), erected at the start of the 17th century. After being damaged by an earthquake, it was rebuilt in the 18th century. From its walls, the cannon watched the mouth of the bay and guarded the Asian goods and the silver. The fort is today the city's most important historic monument and houses the Acapulco Historical Museum.
During the War of Independence, at the start of the 19th century, San Diego Fort took center stage again. The insurgent forces commanded by José María Morelos laid siege to the fortress, held by the royalists, in a long blockade that is part of the epic of independence. The collapse of the galleon trade in those very years (the last nao sailed around 1815) also marked the end of the golden age of colonial Acapulco. The port then entered a long decline that would last almost a century.
After a century of relative neglect following the end of the galleon trade, Acapulco was reborn in the 20th century with an entirely new calling: tourism. From the 1930s and, above all, the 1940s and 1950s, the city turned into Mexico's great beach resort and one of the most glamorous destinations in the world. Building the highway from Mexico City brought the bay closer to the capital, and hotels, restaurants and nightclubs flourished along the coast.
Acapulco became the favorite stage of the international jet set. Hollywood stars —from Elizabeth Taylor to Frank Sinatra—, tycoons, artists and politicians came to the bay to enjoy the sun, the sea and the nightlife. The port appeared in films, in magazines and in the imagination of half the planet as a byword for luxury, romance and fun. It was the golden age of 'Acapulco Tradicional' and 'Acapulco Dorado', with its fashionable beaches at Caleta and the young Costera.
That era also gave birth to the show that would become the city's emblem: the La Quebrada cliff divers. From a cliff some 35 meters above a narrow Pacific inlet, brave young men began throwing themselves into the void, timing to the second the exact moment of the wave so as not to smash into the rocks. The tradition, kept up over generations, is still today one of Acapulco's great draws, a symbol of its daring and its singular spirit.
From the 1980s and 1990s on, Acapulco kept growing and diversifying. While the 'Acapulco Dorado' of the Costera Miguel Alemán kept its pulse of hotels and nightlife, a new luxury area was developed to the southeast: 'Acapulco Diamante', toward Punta Diamante, Revolcadero and Puerto Marqués, with high-end resorts, homes and golf courses. The city consolidated as a destination with three faces —Tradicional, Dorado and Diamante— able to offer everything from colonial history to contemporary luxury.
The port, however, also faced challenges in recent decades: competition from other beach destinations, security problems tied to the dynamics of the state of Guerrero, and the difficulty of maintaining its infrastructure. Even so, Acapulco remained a destination much loved by Mexicans, especially those from the capital, and a national tourism emblem with its natural beauty intact.
In October 2023, Acapulco lived through one of the hardest episodes in its recent history: Hurricane Otis, which made landfall as a category 5 after an explosive and unprecedented intensification, hit the city with devastating winds. It caused serious damage to hotels, infrastructure, homes and services, and even historic buildings such as San Diego Fort were affected. Since then, Acapulco has embarked on a process of reconstruction and gradual reopening. The bay, the sunsets, the cliff divers and the history of the port are all still there, while the city works to recover its place as one of the great destinations of the Mexican Pacific.