Costalegre, Pacific coast beaches in Jalisco, Mexico

Costalegre is a 330 km series of beaches, capes and bays along the Pacific coast of Jalisco, between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo. Its shoreline mixes light tan sand, as at the photographed crescent backed by a dark stone breakwater, with low dark rocks and developed stretches behind the beach.

Spanish shipbuilders used Bahía de Navidad for construction and repairs and as a departure point for the Philippines from the mid-16th century. The Jalisco government began grouping these Pacific beaches, capes and bays under the name Costalegre in the 1990s. In 2015 Hurricane Patricia, the strongest cyclone measured in the Western Hemisphere with winds up to 320 km/h, made landfall at Cuixmala.

The name Costalegre, "Coast of Joy", was adopted by the Jalisco state government in the 1990s to market the beaches between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo as one destination. The Huichols are the main indigenous group of the region, and communal ejido land, which covered about 70% of Costalegre after 1917, still supports cattle raising, fishing and farming alongside tourism.

Costalegre stretches about 330 km along the Pacific between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, and Mexican Federal Highway 200 links its coastal towns. Until Chalacatepec International Airport finished in March 2024, travellers flew into Puerto Vallarta (PVR) or Manzanillo (MZO). Officials sometimes close beaches entirely to visitors and residents to limit pollution and wildlife disturbance, so check locally before setting out.

The Costalegre name was coined by the Jalisco state government in the 1990s, when it began promoting the scattered beaches between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo as one destination. The region stretches about 330 km along the Pacific coast. In 2015 Hurricane Patricia, the strongest cyclone measured in the Western Hemisphere with winds up to 320 km/h, made landfall at Cuixmala.