Zihuatanejo, Mexico

ZIHUATANEJO, for all its growth in recent years, has at least retained something of the look and feel of the traditional fishing village it once was – what building there has been is small-scale, low-key and low-rise. This said, it is definitely a resort town: taxi drivers are forever advertising for customers, trinket and tacky T-shirt shops are abundant and as likely as not there'll be a cruise ship moored out in the bay. Despite the proliferation of luxury hotels, though, there are at least a fair number of small, reasonably priced places to stay as well as some inexpensive restaurants. For some, Zihuatanejo is the ideal compromise – quiet by night, yet with the more commercial excitements of Ixtapa nearby. The one real problem is its popularity – with strictly controlled development, rooms can be hard to find in the centre of Zihuatanejo, a region of barely ten small blocks hemmed in by the main roads into town, the yacht marina and the beach.