“Never a Bad Day.” That is Puerto Vallarta’s promotional slogan, which is more than hype. It’s a mindset, especially in the Zona Romantica, a bustling part of the city that caters heavily to visitors while also remaining a place where locals live and work. Staying in the Zona Romantica and exploring the area is a cultural baptism, somewhere between a Methodist sprinkling and a Baptist immersion.

Puerto Vallarta was a Pacific Coast fishing village that evolved into a major metropolis (population 4,800 in 1950 and 588,000 today) and resort destination. High-end properties abound, but even visitors who choose insular resorts schedule walks and food tours in the Zona Romantica and adjacent neighborhoods such as El Centro and 5 de Diciembre. The city’s LGBTQ+ welcomeness adds another dimension.

Hotels overlooking Banderas Bay and medium-rise condos allow visitors a home base for long-term exploration. They offer an experience far different from Cancun, Key West, or 30A. From those accommodations, you can enjoy sand – and spectacular sunsets – and also wander cobblestone streets to ease into sidewalk taco stands, watch a fishmonger expertly filet marlin or red snapper, smell the leather in a working cobbler’s shop, chat with a server (sometimes with Google translator’s help) in an open-air breakfast joint where $10 buys more than you can eat, laugh with an ambling pastry vendor, trade smiles with a fruit seller sorting limes destined for your mojito or chance upon a mural of Elizabeth Taylor – more on Liz in a moment.

Puerto Vallarta is hugely popular with Canadians, many of whom follow the lead of humpback whales to spend the entire winter, and Americans, particularly those from the western U.S. It is fertile territory for exploring Mexican culture firsthand. Here are five great ways to soak it all in.

Stroll the Malecón

The show never ends on the Malecón, a 1.25-mile-long seaside promenade. On one side is Banderas Bay, with squadrons of pelicans overhead, jet skis through the waves, and cruise ships gliding in and out of port. Opposite that beauty is an eye-popping conglomeration of restaurants, bars (two-for-one margaritas everywhere), handicraft and souvenir shops, vendors, and tour agents. In the middle are buskers, walkers, gawkers, joggers, cyclists, public statuary that amuses and confuses, and a team of acrobats called the Voladores de Papantla, who stage a dizzying spectacle off a 100-foot-tall pole. Fireworks from a faux pirate ship brighten every evening. It’s all a visual blast.

Go to the mountaintop

Mountains rise from the ocean south of town.  Jungle canopy tours and ATV rides appeal to some visitors, but others gravitate to the Vallarta Botanical Gardens, 64 acres of tranquility 1,300 feet up a mountainside. Attractions include an orchid conservatory with 300 of Mexico’s 1,000 orchid varieties, 50 butterfly species, and 200 bird species. Hummingbirds are abundant from May through November. A trail system and a wadable river add more diversions, as does the open-air two-level Hacienda de Oro restaurant.

Thar she blows!

Massive Banderas Bay, boasting 65 miles of coastline and 500 square miles of water, is the winter home for humpback whales that come south to birth babies and mate for more. Perhaps 700 of the massive mammals, up to 40 tons and 60 feet long, spout, roll, and sometimes leap from the water. It is common to see them from the Malecón. Whale watching excursions are popular, and anglers on charter trips often see whales. Also in the bay are dolphins, sea turtles, rays, shrimp, tuna, mahi, and pulpo (octopus), which is excellent in tacos or grilled as an entrée.

Hit the beach

Beaches, of course, are a magnet. Playa Los Muertos is in the Romantic Zone and is lined with restaurants, some of which have your feet in the sand, and the waves might roll under your table. Dozens more beaches are around the bay, and several are small and less crowded than those in the main city. Nearby examples include Conchas Chinas Beach, just a quick taxi ride away; Mismaloya Beach, famous for its Night of the Iguana ties; and Yelapa Beach, easily reached by a short boat ride.

Nashvillian TOM ADKINSON is a Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel Writers and author of 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die. He enjoys Puerto Vallarta every January, strolling the beaches and enjoying the sunsets with a margarita in hand!

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The Zuiderdam is 935 feet long, carries up to 2,364 passengers, and has a crew of 817. Its itineraries stretch from Norway to Baja California. The Ladona is 105 feet long, the width of the Zuiderdam, accommodates 17 passengers, and has a crew of five, including the chef. It rarely gets more than 100 miles from Rockland.

Trips on the Zuiderdam and legions of other cruise ships are exercises in luxury, complete with stage shows, casinos, white tablecloth restaurants, and spas. The Ladona and just a handful of similar vessels offer true overnight sailing experiences and a taste of life from another era. Their only spa treatments are sea-spray facials, an ancillary benefit of zipping along in a brisk wind and a slight chop on Penobscot Bay.

The Ladona is part of the Maine Windjammer Association, a fleet of nine boats offering trips of three to eight days out of Rockland and Camden. There is a relaxing pattern to their trips, even though they are somewhat unpredictable. The boats go where the winds and tides permit, sailing in the daytime, pausing in tiny villages for walkabouts, and easing into quiet harbors as the sun slides toward the horizon.

The nine boats keep the heritage of coastal sailing alive. In a delightful turn of events, they have turned their windjammer identification from a pejorative into a romantic term that attracts passengers from around the world. However, just a few people at a time can enjoy the experience – the highest-capacity windjammer is the 30-passenger Heritage.

Before the age of steam and diesel, windjammers by the hundreds flourished. They were workhorse vessels that became obsolete. Crews on the ships with engines looked down their noses at their hard-working, more weather-dependent brethren and condescendingly called them windjammers. Still, their vessels were nowhere nearly as picturesque as were the white-sailed schooners.

Each Maine windjammer has a story to tell. The two oldest, the Stephen Taber and the Lewis R. French, filled their sails for the first time in 1871. They and others were working boats, transporting timber, granite, and fish. Another three were purpose-built for overnight windjamming. The youngest, the Heritage, built in 1983, is already into its fifth decade. The Ladona was the racing yacht of a wealthy industrialist, and its biography includes World War II service patrolling the East Coast for German U-boats.

The experience they all deliver sprang from the dream and business plan of one man, Frank Swift, in the 1930s, according to J.R. Braugh, co-owner of the Ladona, and who has skippered seven other Maine windjammers. Swift’s formula was sailing where the winds blow, exploring coastal villages on foot, finding quiet anchorages at night, having a lobster bake on a deserted beach, and enjoying the sea, good company, and all that nature offers.

Sleeping quarters are, shall we say, cozy, but no one is aboard a windjammer to sit inside. The windjammer experience Frank Swift wanted everyone to have is outside, soaking up the rays, watching for harbor seals, porpoises, and bald eagles, telling stories, and waiting for the chef to announce the next meal’s menu.

Chef Anna Miller on the Ladona works magic in a kitchen smaller than a college dormitory room, noting that her skill comes from a culinary degree and two Italian grandmothers. With only a kerosene stove and oven, she bakes every day (molasses-flavored “Newfie” bread, dinner rolls, anadama, beer bread spiced with jalapeños, fruit pies, cobblers, and a key lime pie with a brûlée top).

Lunches often feature hearty dishes such as artichoke soup with duck confit or chicken escarole and white bean soup. After the evening’s anchorage is found, a happy hour with cheeses, charcuterie, and fruit precedes dinner with entrees such as pork ribs with Maine blueberry barbecue sauce, clam pot pie, and Sambal chicken. Fresh vegetables come from local farmers. No one leaves the table hungry, and no one ends a windjammer cruise without stories to tell.

What to know: mainewindjammerfleet.com has details on all nine schooners. The sailing calendar is from late May to October. Dress is super-casual, important because luggage space is minimal. Swimwear is advisable in the warmest months. You can help raise the sails, but there’s no requirement to pitch in.

Nashvillian TOM ADKINSON is a Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel Writers and author of 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die. His own watercraft is a solo canoe.

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The leader raises a glass, gathers the staff facilitating the function, and honors them by wishing them “Happiness! Good health! Friendship! Long life! Skål!” The Scandinavian word Skål translates to cheers or good health in English and is equivalent to a toast, and this ritual occurs at Skål gatherings in 85 nations worldwide. Wherever the toast is offered, members repeat the four parts as the leaders say them, but the Nashville group adds its own touch. “Skål, y’all!” they shout.

The Skål Club of Nashville, which is celebrating its 50th year in 2025, is part of Skål International, an organization of travel and tourism professionals founded in Paris between the two world wars to promote international friendships in the hospitality industry. A stand-alone Skål club in Paris was begun in 1932, and only two years later, the idea had spread to five countries, enough that an international organization coalesced. Eleven clubs were founders. The Skål Club of Nashville is among today’s total of 300 clubs and 12,500 members globally.

“Skål is a way to link you up locally, nationally, and internationally. It is the only hospitality organization of its type that is international,” said JoAnne Ford, a Williamson County resident who has worked in the tourism industry for more than 35 years.

Ford owned a travel agency during that career, was president of the Skål Club of Nashville, and was an officer in a Skål entity representing all clubs in the United States. Involvement in Skål took her to South Africa, Cancun, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C.

“Skål takes you outside your own little sphere of contacts. You get to interact with people in other aspects of hospitality. That’s its beauty, even on the local level. Over the years, our Nashville-area members have included travel agents, hotel general managers, airline marketing executives, restaurant leaders, car rental agency owners, and more. There are companies you might not think of as hospitality, but they are,” she said.

Jeff Crabiel, president of the Skål Club of Nashville, reinforces that broad range of qualifying employment. Crabiel’s own perspective comes from his job as chief hospitality officer of Castlerock Asset Management. Its portfolio includes Westin Nashville, the Bobby Hotel, and Oak Steakhouse.

“Hospitality is big and broad, and one of our goals with Skål in Nashville is to enhance the industry as a whole. We want to increase our membership and always extend a hand of welcome. We also want to foster hospitality newcomers and prospective hospitality industry employees,” Crabiel said.

Financial support of Tennessee ProStart is one way the Skål Club of Nashville promotes its industry. Tennessee ProStart supports high school culinary instruction through various programs, including an annual culinary and management competition. The culinary competition challenges teams to create a three-course meal in 60 minutes, using only two butane burners and with no access to running water or electricity. Teams in the management competition must propose a restaurant concept and defend it to a panel of industry judges. A team from Nolensville High School won the 2025 management competition, and a culinary team from the same school placed second.

On a broader level, Skål International is an affiliated member of the World Tourism Organization and a supporter of the Sustainable Tourism-Eliminating Poverty Initiative. That initiative works on development projects in several countries to create jobs and enhance local economies.

“I feel good about being in an organization such as Skål,” said Franklin resident Pam Inman, whose career has included being chief operating officer of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, chief executive officer of the National Tour Association, president/CEO of the Tennessee and Nashville hotel and lodging associations and assistant commissioner of Tennessee Tourist Development and Tennessee State Parks.

“Skål has connected me with people in tourism I wasn’t around every day. I call it the Rotary Club of tourism. I was in the Skal Club in Washington, D.C., while I was away from Nashville for 16 years. Now that I’ve returned, the Skål Club of Nashville has gotten me back in touch with Nashville. I want the Nashville club to connect more and more people in a powerfully important industry,” Inman said.

For information about the Skål Club of Nashville, visit NashvilleSkal.com. Interested in joining? We invite you to attend an upcoming Skål luncheon, held on the third Thursday of every month, to meet other hospitality professionals – RSVP on the website.

Nashvillian Tom Adkinson is a past president of the Skål Club of Nashville. He is a Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel writers and author of 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, published by Reedy Press.

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