The Hidden Beaches South of Puerto Vallarta: Walk In, Boat Out

South of Puerto Vallarta the coast road simply runs out. It ends at Boca de Tomatlán, a fishing village built into the mouth of the Río Horcones about forty minutes down the bay, and everything beyond it – Colomitos, Las Ánimas, Quimixto, Majahuitas, Yelapa – has no road at all. You get there on foot or you get there by boat, and the best day out here uses both.

This is the single most-reviewed thing in our whole inventory: the full-day hike to six hidden beaches with snorkelling has 484 reviews at 4.8 stars, 6 hours, from €32.51. That is a useful fact in itself. But you can also do a version of this walk on your own for the price of a bus ticket, and it is worth knowing which of the two you actually want.

Where the path goes, and how long each leg takes

From the bridge at Boca de Tomatlán the trail runs south along the shoreline, in and out of the jungle, over rock, past a string of houses. It is a real path, not a promenade: roots, loose stone, short scrambles, a few stretches of exposed hillside with no shade.

The distances are short and the times are longer than the distances suggest:

• Boca de Tomatlán to Playa Colomitos – around 40 minutes. A small cove with boulders at both ends. This is the leg most people do.
• Colomitos to Playa Las Ánimas – roughly two kilometres, half an hour to an hour depending on how sure-footed you are.
• Boca de Tomatlán to Las Ánimas in one go – about four kilometres, usually under two hours one way. Las Ánimas has a beach, restaurants and a pier.
• Boca de Tomatlán to Playa Quimixto – roughly 13 kilometres there and back, four to four and a half hours of walking.

Those are the published trail times. Add heat. There is no drinking water on the route and no shop between Boca and Las Ánimas, so what you carry is what you have.

The water taxi is the point

The reason this works as a day rather than a slog is that you never have to walk back. Boca de Tomatlán is the water-taxi hub for the whole south shore, and the boats run to Las Ánimas, Quimixto, Majahuitas, Yelapa and the small beaches in between. Through the middle of the day you can expect one every fifteen or twenty minutes; after about five in the afternoon the gaps get longer, and a boat picked up from Quimixto late can mean half an hour or more on the sand waiting.

Fares are cash, in pesos, paid at the boat. Reported prices run around 100 to 150 pesos for the short hops back from Las Ánimas or Quimixto and roughly double that through to Yelapa. Take more cash than you think – there is no cash machine at the far end of this, and the restaurants at Las Ánimas do not all take cards.

Walk south, boat north. Doing it the other way round means arriving at Boca in the late afternoon with a two-hour walk still ahead of you.

Getting to the start without a tour

Buses marked Boca leave from the corner of Basilio Badillo and Constitución in the Zona Romántica and run down the coast to Mismaloya and on to Boca de Tomatlán. The fare is the city rate of 11 pesos, in force since 1 April 2026, handed to the driver in cash. Published journey times vary wildly between sources, from about twenty minutes to well over an hour; it is a local bus that stops whenever somebody waves at it, so allow the hour and start early.

Early matters more here than the schedule does. The walk is east-facing and largely unshaded in its first hour, and by eleven the rock is hot.

When the guided day is worth the money

If you can walk this for a bus fare, why pay €32.51?

Three honest reasons. The guided day runs as a small group capped at 14 people, which on a narrow path is the difference between a walk and a queue. The boat and bus fares are built into the price, so you are not doing cash arithmetic at every pier. And a guide who knows which cove the swell is hitting on a given morning will change the route; on your own you find out when you arrive.

The listing is specific about what it does not cover: food and drink are not included, and you are told to bring a towel, sunscreen, water, beachwear, closed-toe shoes and cash. Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

It is also specific about who it is not for. The operator lists the trip as not suitable for children under nine, for people with respiratory problems, for people with low fitness levels and for people over 60. That is the operator’s own assessment, not a legal limit, and it tells you something about the terrain – but if any of it applies to you, ask the operator directly rather than assuming you will be fine.

The gentler versions

Not everyone wants four hours on a rock path.

The simplest way onto this coast without walking is simply to take the water taxi from Boca straight to Las Ánimas, eat, swim, and come back. Nothing to book, nothing to carry.

For the snorkelling without the hike, Mismaloya’s snorkelling, cliff-jumping and beach trip runs 2.5 hours from €38.66 and holds 4.9 stars from 44 people – Mismaloya is the next cove north of Boca, the one with the cliffs, and it is on the same bus route.

And if the waterfalls rather than the beaches are what you are after, the four-hour jungle hike and waterfall swim sits level with the coastal walk at 4.8 stars from 196 reviews, but takes half as long, from €27.24.

The whole south-shore family – Yelapa, Las Ánimas and the beaches with no road – runs to 33 trips from €32.51. Snorkelling is 32 from €32.51, and the jungle and waterfall walks are 54 from €24.78, the biggest group on land after the food tours.

One thing people get wrong

“Six hidden beaches” is a count, not a promise of solitude. Colomitos on a Saturday in high season has people on it, and Las Ánimas has restaurants, sunloungers and a pier. What is genuinely quiet is the path between them, and the small unnamed coves you pass where nobody has built anything yet. Come for the walk, and treat the beaches as the places you stop.