Planning Your Next Vacation? Making a Dream a Reality Visit Playa Viva (Juluchuca, Mexico)

Set on a private beach on the western coast of Mexico, Playa Viva is a charming eco-friendly resort with its own Aztec archeological site and wildlife sanctuary.

It consists of 12 thatched-roof villas, including a lovely treehouse, all built with sustainable materials and appointed with private porches for alfresco dining and lounging.

Each individually designed casita comes with unobstructed ocean views, private bathrooms, and breezy, rustic-inspired decor.

The rate includes all meals, plus morning yoga classes, but guests can also enjoy massages on the beach, hiking, diving, and some of the best surf on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

Take everything that annoys you about mass tourism on the Mexican coasts and put it out of your mind. Whatever your mental image, Playa Viva is more or less the opposite of that.

A mere eight casitas, for starters, is about as far as it gets from mass tourism in the first place.

And this location, on protected land a half-hour outside of Zihuatanejo, has a long, long way to go before it could be considered developed, much less overdeveloped.

The accommodations are perhaps more reminiscent of something you’d expect to find in Bali, or at least St. Lucia: these thatched-roof villas are open to the air, their walls absent in order to maximize the sea views.

It’s all very low-tech, and it’s no surprise that Playa Viva is about as green as they come, its low-impact approach perfectly suited to the hotel’s low-key charms.

This means morning yoga, spa services, and meditation classes, as well as a wide variety of outdoor explorations, on land and on the water.

For a bit more human contact you’ll have to venture as far as Zihua, if not farther — there are any number of resorts elsewhere on this coast where a party atmosphere is easy to come by, but Playa Viva is where you go to get away from all that.

Playa Viva consists of 12 thatched-roof villas, including a lovely treehouse, all built with sustainable materials and appointed with private porches for alfresco dining and lounging. Each individually designed casita comes with unobstructed ocean views, private bathrooms, and breezy, rustic-inspired decor.

The rate includes all meals, plus morning yoga classes, but guests can also enjoy massages on the beach, hiking, diving, and some of the best surf on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

Treehouse is located in palm trees as living “piers” raised 6 feet above the ground. The room is outfitted with a King Bed, private bathroom, ocean view and small lounge area with in-floor hammock.

Who doesn’t want to stay in a treehouse by the ocean? King bed in the “perch” can divide into two singles, plus there is an additional day bed located in the “bathhouse.”