Mexico is one of my favorite golf travel destinations and is full of top shelf luxury hotels with great food and standout golf courses. But the problem is that the vast majority of top Mexican golf resorts have just one course, and one course does not a true golf destination make. That’s why when friends ask me for the perfect golf trip south of the border, it’s hard to beat Punta Mita, and in this case, one of the best golf resorts in Mexico is a great trip for non-golfers.

Punta Mita is a double threat vacation destination, as opposed to many of the very best multi-course golf resorts in the U.S., places like Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley and Streamsong, which are full of top-rated golf courses but have little else that would interest, for example, my wife. But she absolutely loved Punta Mita, and we both left eagerly awaiting a return visit. We have had the pleasure of experiencing it a few times over the recent decades, most recently just a couple of months ago, and I can confidently say it is better than ever, thanks to notable new additions.

Golf Courses

First the golf. On the most recent Golf Digest ranking of the Top 20 courses in Mexico, you will find many standout resorts such as Mayakoba, the best choice on the east coast, in the wonderful Riviera Maya outside Cancun. Mayakoba is a longtime favorite of mine that also has a lot more than just golf. But while the El Camaleon course at Mayakoba is excellent (and one of the very few that has hosted both the PGA and LIV Tours) there is just the one eighteen for three major resort hotels and the homeowners. Like Punta Mita, Mayakoba is a very complete vacation package which I covered in detail recently here at Forbes.

Also on the list are several upscale Los Cabos resorts, such as the Solmar Hotel & Resort (formerly known as Rancho San Lucas) and Quivira, both of which have just a single course and no top tier global luxury brand lodging. The One & Only Palmilla comes closest with 27-holes and an exceptional resort, but several of the marquee courses on the Golf Digest list are totally private with no resort access at all, including the Cove Club at Cabo del Sol, Querencia and Chileno Bay. There are only three multi-course entries in all of Mexico, and one of them, Vista Vallarta, has no lodging, while the other, Diamante, has only rental homes and no hotels.

Punta Mita on the other hand, has it all, and in spades. Both courses are Jack Nicklaus Signature designs, both make the Top 20 in Mexico, including private clubs, and thanks to a unique design quirk of the Pacifico course, Punta Mita Golf Club has the most golf of any place on the list (not counting short courses). That design quirk is now one of the most famous holes on earth, the “Tail of the Whale,” also known as Hole 3B. Nicklaus spied an offshore atoll during construction and thought it would make a spectacular par-3 green but there was no chance to connect it with land. But they went out and built a green anyway. At low tide, it can be accessed via a special chauffeured amphibious golf court along a sandbar running out to it, so when the conditions are right, golfers tee off to one of the few “island green” holes on the planet that is an actual island, then get driven over to putt out.

But for many visitors, just hitting the green is the highlight of a round, and you will regularly see golfers attempt it even when the cart is not in service, happy to leave their five-dollar ball on the putting surface if they succeed.

Jason Scott Deegan is the editor in charge of all travel coverage for NBC’s Golfpass.com site, the leading course review and tee-time booking platform in the country (NBC also owns the Golf Channel). I have known Deegan a long time and respect his informed opinion, as he has reviewed and photographed more than 1,100 top courses worldwide. He wrote, “Pacifico golf course rules the land and sea at Punta Mita in the Riviera Nayarit, Mexico. Even with eight holes on the ocean, the ‘Tail of the Whale’ hole steals the show on the Pacifico Course…The ridiculously gorgeous extra par-3, called 3B, put Punta Mita on the map in 1999.” The course starts dramatically and then returns to the sea for the finale with another stunning coastal par-3 at seventeen and a closer right along the rocky coast.

But the crazy thing is that the other Nicklaus Signature course here, Bahia, is rated even higher, and is more challenging with a lot of elevation change, exposed rock and intimidating bunkers and waste areas. The back nine overlooks the ocean with dramatic vistas, and from both courses in the fall and winter it is fairly routine to glimpse whales breaching and spouting offshore. I don’t know many golfers who would not enjoy playing each of these a couple of times, and there is certainly enough golf variety for a weeklong trip, along with a first-rate practice facility, clubhouse and full-modern golf academy.

Gourmet Golf

There is one extra special reason to visit the golf courses at Punta Mita, and it occurs every late fall. The American Express Punta Mita Gourmet & Golf Classic is an annual weekend “fun” golf tournament and culinary festival that draws famous name chefs (this year brought in Charles Phan of San Francisco’s famed Slanted Door, Hawaiian celebrity chef Sam Choy, and many others). The event, with big sponsors including Delta Airlines, features two-person teams, men, women or co-ed, lots of prizes and extras, with a round on each course and lots of parties and special gourmet dinners around the resort.

Many “one-time” visitors have been lured back year after year by this great event, and if you love golf, food and fun, it is worth looking into attending. 2024 was the thirteenth annual edition, and dates for 2025 have just been announced, December 4-7, 2025.

Luxury Lodging

Punta Mita is large, planned community in the style of the big Hawaiian resorts (and Greek, read my story on the world’s latest mega golf and luxury resort, Greece’s Costa Navarino, here at Forbes) with multiple hotels, residential communities, beach clubs, shopping area, restaurants, sporting facilities and the golf, all inside the main gates, on more than1,500-acres of gorgeous tropical peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, with nealry ten miles of coastline, outside of Puerto Vallarta.

I most recently stayed at the Forbes 5-Star (2025 Awards) Four Seasons Punta Mita, which is a wonderful beachfront resort with “regular” rooms in luxurious low-rise casitas terraced into the hillside, all with outdoor living areas, many overlooking the Pacific, and an option for units with private plunge pools on the patio, a great place to watch whales from.

A step up from these are a variety of two-bedroom suites with private plunge pools, three and four bedroom ocean residences with private pools, and four and five bedroom luxury ocean villas with vast outdoor living spaces and private infinity pools. Then there are four- and five-bedroom beach homes with direct access to Manzanillas Beach, an ideal location. Finally, the ultimate is the 7-bedroom Casa Tesoro, a clifftop mansion with direct access to a private beach, movie theater, multi-level infinity pool and even its own speakeasy. In a unique combination Casa Tesoro can be combined with a takeover of the adjacent Naviva, a separate Four Seasons ultra-luxury boutique resort (more below).

The Four Seasons has gorgeous grounds and multiple beaches and pools, including adult-only, plus a wide assortment of dining and drinking options. Perhaps the most popular is the beachfront Bahia by star chef Richard Sandoval, where you can enjoy the fine cuisine with your toes in the sand. There is also a great bar hidden along the hotel’s lazy river pool, which is a big hit with kids, but adults will love the bar. There are a slew of offered special private dining experiences at various standout outdoor spots, and other private culinary experiences such as guided Mexican wine tasting, tequila tasting and cooking classes.

The Four Seasons offers guests a daily slate of complimentary and small fee activities, such as yoga classes and turtle rescue programs. There is also a large spa, Apuane, which just earned a Forbes 4-Star rating, and well-equipped fitness scenter. The resort is also home base to an outpost of TropicSurf, the world’s leading luxury surfing academy, an independent vendor that has partnerships with luxury hotels from the Maldives to Fiji and here at the Four Seasons Punta Mita. I’ve experienced and written on TropicSurf elsewhere and they do an exceptional job.

The other main hotel option is the Forbes 4-Star St. Regis, a slightly smaller property with about two-thirds the lodging of the Four Seasons. But it is very much a full-service resort, with most lodging in airy casitas, some with private plunge pools, larger suites, some with whirlpools, and one- and two-bedroom beachfront villas.

The St. Regis also sits on a gorgeous beach and has a very extensive free form pool complex with several levels and lots of choices for seating. There is another lavish Forbes 4-Star spa, fitness center with daily classes and about half a dozen bars and restaurants.

Punta Mita is a major residential and second-home community, and addition to the two large resorts, there is an on-site home rental program with a broad array of options.

The Resort

All rental and resort guests have access to the extensive Punta Mita activities such as the golf courses (managed by Four Seasons) and the marina with a full complement of watersports, including sport fishing, sunset cruises, scuba diving, whale watching, sea kayaking, surfing, paddle boarding, sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, swimming with dolphins and more.

There are also tennis and pickleball courts, and several beach club restaurants associated with the residential communities within Punta Mita that hotel guests can dine at outside of the Four Seasons and St. Regis. Punta Mita has its own village, a town center with shops and additional eateries. There are walking, running and biking paths through the peninsula and even a modern hospital. You can stay here for two weeks and not run out of things to do or places to eat, and homeowners I chatted with had visited for years and still had not gotten to all of the bars and restaurants on their to-do lists.

All of the above would easily make Punta Mita a top choice for your next luxury golf or beach or epicurean vacation, with many different lodging, dining and activity options at varied price points, and as I said, one of the best golf resorts in Mexico is a great trip for non-golfers. But there’s one more very special component that was recently added and might well be the best of all.

Punta Mita’s Secret Ultra-Luxury Boutique Hotel

The newest addition to Punta Mita is Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort, and a property like no other. While Four Seasons has many very varied and distinctive resorts, from the former Papal residence turned stunning urban resort in Florence to the architecturally jaw-dropping Sayan in Bali, the brand has not done much in terms of boutique lodging, with the exception of the Golden Triangle Tented Camp in Thailand. But adult-only Naviva is in its own category, an experiment that is elevated in a way that can be fairly described with the quickly becoming overused term “ultra-luxury.”

For starters, Naviva is all-inclusive, something not normally part of the Four Seasons’ lingo, and hardly ever found at top global luxury brands that tend to delight in excessive charges for extras, from self-parking to morning coffee to water. Guests used to running up big bar bills and doling out for overpriced breakfasts at top luxury resorts will be amazed by the premium open bar offerings and customized chef-cooked food on demand at Naviva.

Want to do yoga? Call the fitness center and an instructor will join you at the outdoor platform overlong the Pacific. Want to go fishing? Call the concierge and a guide will come meet you. Feel like a paddleboard or hiking tour? Naviva has its own trail network, private beach and your guide might well be Naviva’s colorful General Manager. In search of a spiritual journey? Naviva has its own temazcal, a traditional sweat lodge dating back to Mesoamerican cultures where guests tend to have transformative out of body experiences. The free form pool complex is a great place to escape and relax, with multiple private areas, and it’s hardly ever crowded since there are so few rooms—and each has its own pool as well.

With its semi-private facilities, intimate size, custom gourmet cuisine and all-inclusive setup with little held back—even spa treatments (limited) are covered, unheard of in the industry—Naviva wowed me in a way that only a tiny handful of outstanding luxury boutique resorts have, and most of these are top tier African safari lodges you cannot find on other continents. The individual oversized lodging and resort scale also echo these best-in-class operators like Singita, Royal Malawane, Great Plains Conservation and &Beyond. The only place I have seen in the U.S. that can really compare is Vermont’s famed Forbes 5-Star Twin Farms, which like Naviva, is sort of a fantasy adult summer camp (expect year-round) where your every wish is their command, and decision making comes down to what you want to do, eat or drink next. Or maybe doing nothing.

There are just 15 accommodations, none smaller than 1,250-sqaure feet, all in private tented villas with plunge pools, indoor and outdoor showers, jetted tubs and so on. Rooms even come equipped with niceties like his and her straw hats and handwoven beach bags, and all of these are yours to keep. There is a handcrafted wooden trunk of artisanal mezcal in each room, and more varieties at the bar, along with a curated slate of Mexican wines, which they will he be happy to lead you through in a guided tasting. There are no “transactions” since you cannot really pay for anything, and for instance, the main kitchen is open not just visually, but for impromptu cooking classes or jumping in hands on to help make your meal. It’s sort of like being the houseguest of the bad guy in a James Bond movie, without a bad guy.

Naviva has an escapist, Eden-esque feel, with a very high degree of eco-consciousness and was built to fit the landscape in highly sustainable style from indigenous materials. It is a true tropical paradise, on its own nearly 50-acres, with its private beach abutting the largest home at the “regular” Four Seasons, Casa Tesoro, which can be combined with the15 units here for a takeover. But in a bold sales move that clearly puts the leisure customer first, Naviva does not allow partial buyouts, as they don’t want vacationers feeling like they got dropped in the middle of a convention, so whether you have a corporate outing or 50^th birthday celebration, it’s an all or nothing takeover proposition.

Naviva is so different from any other Four Seasons or just about any other resort that it is hard to even wrap your head around. Guests have full access to the many other amenities of the larger Punta Mita resort, but with the main exception of activities like golf, surfing and scuba diving, few bother leaving, since the food is exceptional and customized—maybe your own catch of the day—and it has its own spa, hiking trails, fitness center, beach, watersports and so on. There are many special themed weekends that add complimentary activities such as a whale weekend with guest marine biologist and field trips, culinary weekends with guest chefs, artists in residence teaching classes, immersion wine weekends and more. Yoga, sound baths and meditation are always included, as is instruction in Mexican boxing, guided snorkeling, fitness classes, and the resort even roasts its own coffee, a process you can participate in.

Naviva only opened at the very end of 2022 and at just over two, is still a relatively new and undiscovered property (though it has quickly spawned a loyal legion of frequent repeat guests) but it has garnered amazing reviews. Industry publication TravelAge West wrote, “I’ve stayed in five-star properties before, but Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita, Mexico, may be my all-time favorite.” Conde Nast Traveler magazine put it on the “Hot List,” and my friend Chad Clark, one of the top luxury travel advisors in America, whose Phoenix agency is a member of the prestigious Virtuoso travel consortium and who created the Chad Clark Certified program of luxury experiences, put Naviva in his top ten hotels worldwide of any size almost as soon as it opened. Clark ranks it in the company of greats such as Morocco’s Royal Mansour and Tahiti’s The Brando, and it was he who told me I had to go check it out. He was right, and I will be covering Naviva on its own in more detail in the future, it is that special.

Oh, and the price is actually a great deal compared to what many luxury hotels are now charging for just a room that comes with absolutely nothing. Compared to a ski trip to Vail, Aspen or Deer Valley, Naviva is a bargain, and you will never be cold.