A day trip on the road between Bucerías and Punta Mita takes you past white-sand beaches, fishing villages, and waterfront palapa restaurants. A few miles north of Bucerías the Punta Mita highway splits left (west) and passes over Highway 200. Drivers, mark your mileage (or reset your odometer).

Within a mile (2 km), look downhill on the left and you’ll see the formerly drowsy, now developing, little town of Cruz de Huanacaxtle above a small fishing harbor. Although the town has stores, a good café, a few lodgings, and a protected boat and yacht anchorage, it lacks a decent beach.

At around mile 2 (3 km) you'll come to a stretch of fine golden-white sand, Playa Manzanillo.

A little farther along the road, around mile 5 (8 km) you'll find Playa Destiladeras.

For a treat, stop in at the friendly family-run Restaurant Amapas (Mile 8/Km 13, 9 a.m.–sunset daily). Homesteaded when the Punta Mita road was a mere path through the jungle, Restaurant Amapas still retains a country flavor.

Ducks waddle around the yard, javelina (wild pigs) snort in their pen, and candles flicker during the evening twilight as the elderly owner recalls her now-deceased husband hunting food for the table: “We ate deer, javelina, ducks, coatimundi, rattlesnake, iguana…whatever we could catch.” Although local hunters supply much of the game, she and her daughter-in-law do all the cooking, and their many loyal customers still enjoy the same wild fare.