A charming city located on the Banderas Bay, Puerto Vallarta hasn’t gone unnoticed by world travelers. It’s slowly expanded and acclimated to the approximate three million visitors received every year.

Resorts have sprung up and unfortunate tourist traps for docked cruise passengers do exist, but at the core of it all lies a hidden, authentic Mexican experience with a contemporary twist.

Classic Old Town

Playwright Tennessee Williams wrote The Night of the Iguana, a tale that takes place in an idyllic Mexican town, in Acapulco. When the time came to shoot the movie version, filmmakers returned to Acapulco and found its original character had been drastically altered by tourism.

Instead, Director John Huston and company moved to the untouched seaside town of

Puerto Vallarta. Star Richard Burton’s torrid romance with actress Elizabeth Taylor at their home, Casa Kimberly, became stuff of legend. And then the sleepy town of Puerto Vallarta had its awakening.

The steep cobblestone streets of Puerto Vallarta’s downtown neighborhood, known as El Centro, are now covered in quaint homes and boutique hotels.

At the bottom of the hilly landscape is an artsy boardwalk known as the Malecón. Though it is bustling with tourists and catcalling vendors, the Malecón is filled with fantastical sculptures created by noted artists from the state of Jalisco, making it a must-see location.

In a city where tourism employs roughly 50 percent of all residents, El Centro and the Malecón radiate a special aura. They are a mix of a classic old town and a newly thriving community that has enough spunk to attract more than foreign tourists. After all, 49 percent of all travelers who visited Puerto Vallarta in 2008 came from other parts of Mexico. READ MORE