Troncones, Mexico

Trip date: February 2022

Some of my vacations are filled with museums, fancy cocktail bars, and Michelin starred restaurants. Others are epic road trips traversing through foreign countries. And some are just for soaking up the sun and lounging in a pool. Let me introduce you to Troncones, Mexico.

Located just 20 miles north of Zihuatanejo, Troncones is a sleepy, 2-road village with some amazing luxury villas for rent in the Mexican state of Guerrero on the west coast. I had never been, but friends of mine were returning to Casa en las Rocas to celebrate a big birthday and I was excited to be invited!

Seven of us had rescheduled the trip 3 times because of Covid, combine that with the cold, wet Seattle winter and you had a group very ready for a sunshine holiday! There are no direct flights from Seattle to Zihuatanejo airport so we had a VERY early flight to LAX and then short layover before continuing on. Most of us had purchased first class seats and the others paid $25 to get into the Alaska lounge at LAX, a discounted price because it was a Saturday. 

The villa manager had arranged a van to pick us up for the 40 minute drive to Troncones. Casa en las Rocas is a 7-room private villa, which sits on a gorgeous property complete with private beach and infinity pool. There is a small staff of 3 who take care of all the housekeeping, did some of our grocery shopping, and live on the property. The rooms are mostly separate/free standing with views of the sea and the common area is a kitchen/living room/dining room open-air palapa.

I had a gorgeous room with a king bed, outside seating area, and huge outdoor shower. It's really a pretty incredible property!

As I mentioned, this was a chill-out and warm-up trip for me; most days I just spent floating in the pool reading my book and keeping an eye on the horizon for whales. The staff made delicious breakfasts daily and in the afternoons would make us nachos and margaritas. 

We had a birthday party for Gail on our first night, and I had the staff arrange both a cake and a pinata. They also cooked dinner and cleaned everything up. One night we had them do a big grilled lobster & prawn dinner for us. It was fantastic! They also made a bunch of side dishes and I mixed up martinis for those who like them. 

In town we had good dinners at La Mexicana (which had great live music) and at Restaurante Costa Brava which is on the beach. One night we went to a really pretty restaurant called Present Moment which is also a yoga retreat. The space is gorgeous but the food was pretty dull. However a few of us stopped in for a drink during the day and that was excellent!

We also had good drinks at Indigo and at a really cute outdoor bar complete with swings called Other Drinks. We generally walked into town either along the beach or the road and then sometimes called a taxi to go back at night as the street didn't have street lights for most of the way.

One day we all headed to Zihuatanejo to go on a snorkel & whale watch cruise. We had the villa manager arrange for a private boat for us and at least in my mind this would be a small yacht or the like. But at the marina we found our boat was a fishing boat, and a pretty bare bones one a that. Very different then what we should have had for the price we paid but we all had a great time snorkeling and the crew was very nice. 

We didn't see any whales but we did see dolphins and there was plenty of beer on board and sunny skies to keep us entertained. The captain took us to a very touristy island for lunch but none of us were feeling it, so we had him take us back to the marina. Gail found us the lovely Bistro del Mar which is inside of the equally lovely Hotel Aura del Mar. 

Lunch was fantastic and right on the pretty beach. I had been to Zihua back in 1999 and it was crazy to see how much it has grown. But being down on the beach and away from the main town is still very tranquil.

Everyone was on a bit of a different schedule; I stayed for 6 nights which was a good amount of time for me considering the low key nature of the trip. I thought the villa was fantastic but would really only consider it 6 rooms for adults. The 7th room is a little apartment that would be great for kids but is too basic if everyone is splitting the accommodations equally.

The manager arranged a taxi to the airport for me since the others were leaving on different days. It cost 1000 pesos in cash. The staff works on tips so I left my share of pesos with the others to pay when they checked out. The town only had one ATM so we had gone the day before to pull out what we needed.

If you are looking for some vitamin D and want a beautiful, low key spot for a small group I'd totally recommend Casa en las Rocas and Troncones! 

All photos from Troncones here.