🇲🇽 Mexico · Pacific Coast
Ixtapa is the modern, planned face of the most famous tourist pairing on Guerrero's Costa Grande. While Zihuatanejo, a few kilometers away, keeps its soul as a fishing town, Ixtapa was designed from scratch in the 1970s as a large-format beach destination: a long seafront avenue flanked by multi-story hotels, all of them looking out over the wide, golden Playa El Palmar.
It's the ideal option for anyone after the comfort of a resort facing a wide beach: water sports, two internationally designed golf courses, a marina, restaurants, nightlife and nature close by. Its great natural draw is Isla Ixtapa, a wildlife-reserve islet a short boat ride away, with sheltered beaches perfect for snorkeling and for spending the day among colorful fish. And the huge advantage of Ixtapa is being able to pair it with the genuine charm of Zihuatanejo, right next door.
This guide goes through Ixtapa with a practical eye: what to see and do on the hotel strip and at Playa El Palmar, how to cross to Isla Ixtapa, where to play golf, snorkel or surf, how to get in from the airport or Mexico City, how to move between Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo by combi, how many days to stay and how to put together a trip that combines the best of both worlds: the comfort of the resort and the authenticity of the town. A comfortable, sunny, family-friendly destination on the Mexican Pacific.
Ixtapa is one of Mexico's great planned tourist destinations. In the late 1960s, the Bank of Mexico created a special fund to develop new resort centers on the country's coasts, and the first two chosen were Cancún and Ixtapa. The project, headed by Fonatur, the National Tourism Development Fund, picked a strip of coconut palms and mangroves next to the traditional fishing town of Zihuatanejo. Construction began around 1970 and formal operation started in 1974: big hotels went up in a row facing Playa El Palmar, along with urban infrastructure, a marina and golf courses, bringing to life a destination designed for international tourism. The name 'Ixtapa' comes from Nahuatl and relates to salt ('place of the salt' or 'on the salt'). Nearby Isla Ixtapa was folded in as a wildlife reserve and a natural attraction. Since then, Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo have worked as a complementary pair: the modern resort center and the genuine town, one of the most successful models on the Mexican Pacific. The full story 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.
Before it became one of the best-known tourist destinations on the Mexican Pacific, the place where Ixtapa now stands was a rough strip of coconut plantations, estuaries and mangroves beside the sea. There were no hotels and no avenues: just palms, coastal lagoons and abundant wildlife —birds, iguanas and crocodiles— in a setting of great natural beauty but practically unpopulated.
Life in the region revolved around the nearby fishing town of Zihuatanejo, a few kilometers away, sitting on a calm, sheltered bay. There, for centuries, the communities had lived off fishing and the sea, in a quiet enclave well off the main circuits. The Ixtapa area, by contrast, was barely more than rural country, used for growing coconuts and little else.
The name 'Ixtapa' itself carries an ancient root: it comes from Nahuatl and is usually linked to salt ('iztatl'), with readings like 'place of the salt' or 'on the salt', perhaps a reference to salt flats or to the presence of the sea. Onto that landscape of coconut palms and mangroves, in the early 1970s, the Mexican state would project a radical transformation.
In the late 1960s, the Mexican government decided to push tourism as an engine of economic development through an untried strategy: creating tourist centers planned from scratch in places with potential but no infrastructure. In 1968, the Bank of Mexico set up a special fund to develop new tourist destinations on the country's coasts, identifying the most promising sites after feasibility studies.
The first two destinations chosen for this pioneering program were Cancún, on the Caribbean, and Ixtapa, on the Pacific. Managing these projects fell to Fonatur, the National Tourism Development Fund, the agency charged with planning, financing and building the new tourist poles. For the first time, Mexico wasn't waiting for tourism to grow on its own; it was designing complete resort cities to modern urban-planning criteria.
For Ixtapa, the choice landed on the strip of coconut palms and mangroves beside Zihuatanejo. Construction began around 1970. The plan called for an orderly hotel zone facing the beach, urban infrastructure (streets, water, power, drainage), a marina, golf courses and services designed for international tourism. It was an ambitious project that would change the face of this part of Guerrero's Costa Grande for good.
Through the first years of the 1970s, on the old coconut-grove site, a completely new tourist city took shape. Along Playa El Palmar —a long strip of golden sand about 4.5 kilometers long, open to the Pacific— the hotel zone went up, with big modern hotels lined up facing the sea. Avenues were laid out, the area was fitted with services and infrastructure, and the first tourist facilities were built.
Ixtapa formally began operating in 1974, presenting itself to the world as a large-format beach destination, comfortable and planned, in contrast with the traditional town of Zihuatanejo. Over time the hotels were joined by two 18-hole golf courses designed by international golf names —Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Robert von Hagge—, Marina Ixtapa, restaurants, shops and residential areas. Together they turned Ixtapa into a leading tourist pole on the Pacific.
One key element of the project was making the most of the surrounding nature. Nearby Isla Ixtapa (Isla Grande) was folded in as a wildlife reserve and a natural attraction, with its sheltered beaches ideal for snorkeling. The estuaries and mangroves of Playa Linda, with their birdlife and crocodiles, also became part of the offering. So from the start Ixtapa combined resort infrastructure with the appeal of an exceptional natural setting.
The development of Ixtapa didn't erase its neighbor Zihuatanejo; it gave rise to a singular and very successful tourism formula: the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo pairing. A few kilometers apart, two destinations of opposite and complementary character live side by side. On one side, Ixtapa: modern, planned, with its big hotels, its golf and its marina, built for the comfort of international tourism. On the other, Zihuatanejo: the genuine fishing town, with its sheltered bay, its waterfront promenade, its market and its traditional beaches.
That duality became the area's great draw. A visitor can stay at a resort facing the broad Playa El Palmar and, a few minutes away by combi or taxi, sink into the small-town atmosphere of Zihuatanejo, eat fresh fish on its promenade, wander its little downtown streets or take a boat over to Playa Las Gatas. Combining resort infrastructure with the authenticity of the town offers the best of both worlds.
Over the decades, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo settled in as one of the best-loved beach destinations on the Mexican Pacific, with its international airport, its hotels and its natural setting. The success of the model —a planned destination next to a traditional town— has been cited as an example of how tourist development can coexist with preserving local identity, though not without the tensions and challenges that come with growth.
Half a century after it was born, Ixtapa is a fully established destination on the Mexican Pacific. Its hotel zone facing Playa El Palmar concentrates resorts of various categories, many of them all-inclusive, taking in families and couples drawn by the sun, the golden sand and the ease of the services. The hotel avenue, the restaurants and Marina Ixtapa make for an orderly, comfortable destination.
Beyond the main beach, Ixtapa stands out for its mix of sport and nature. Its two internationally designed golf courses, ringed by palms and lagoons, have made it a reference point for golf on the Pacific coast. Isla Ixtapa, with its calm-water beaches and its marine life, remains one of the essential outings, ideal for snorkeling. And deep-sea sport fishing —sailfish, dorado, marlin— keeps its prestige, shared with Zihuatanejo.
The destination holds on to the logic it was conceived with: offering the comfort of the resort in an exceptional natural setting, with the bonus of having the genuine charm of Zihuatanejo right there. That double identity —modern Ixtapa and traditional Zihuatanejo— is still, today, the best calling card of one of the most appealing corners of Guerrero's Costa Grande.