In short… A laid-back, design-forward eco-resort in Juluchuca, near Zihuatanejo, where you’ll experience unhurried sunny days, yoga classes, open-air living and a mile-long empty beach—all while contributing to the regeneration of an ecosystem and its community.
The surroundings… You’ve likely seen Playa Viva’s barrel-shaped beach treehouses on Instagram, looking like some kind of fantastical castaway village, a jungle homestead for the Howells of Gilligan’s Island. This is not the work of a filter or some other editorial sleight of hand. The sight of this fleet of open-air bamboo structures, held up by swaying palms on an empty mile of golden sand and facing the pounding surf under a bluebird sky, so trounced my usual dread of IRL disappointment that it left me wearing an idiot’s grin. Partly out of disbelief that a place of such vivid simplicity, only 45 minutes from Zihuatanejo in Guerrero, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, could even exist in this age of rampant coastal overdevelopment. But also because I’d just come from releasing dozens of squirming, rubbery baby sea turtles into the ocean with my hands, shouting maniacally at them to outrun the seagulls circling hungrily overhead.
Less visible from this spot on the beach, but just as important to Playa Viva’s setting and story, is the aforementioned turtle sanctuary, a teeming estuary, restored lagoon, permaculture farm pumping out coconuts, mangos, cashews, tamarinds and tomatoes, the town of Juluchuca (pop ~650), and 84 square km of surrounding watershed—all of it flourishing in large part owing to Playa Viva’s stewardship.
The backstory… Playa Viva is the anchor of a wildly ambitious project dreamed up by David Leventhal and Sandra Kahn, who ran the popular Casa Viva B&B in the beach town of Troncones up the coast. Roughly 20 years ago, they acquired this former coconut farm on a vast, empty beach. Rather than just build another hotel, however, they were inspired by the growing regenerative movement, a philosophy that goes beyond green (doing less damage) and beyond sustainable (net neutral), instead aiming to leave a place healthier than it was found. They undertook careful surveys of the geology, archaeology and ecology of the entire area, and interviewed elders from local communities. (In the process, they learned that some unnatural mounds on the property were remnants of a small but significant Toltec community that supplied the Aztec kings with conch shells, salt, cacao and cotton.)
Their discoveries—that the ecosystem had been degraded due to palm and cattle farming, that agricultural shifts meant local job opportunities had dwindled—inspired them to create a few core principles to guide their design and operations, including using clean energy/water/waste streams, supercharging biodiversity, and fostering community. “We’re regenerating forward, informed by the past,” David, the affable owner who is often on hand chatting with guests, told me. “How did this place get degraded? How do we bring back the abundance? Our role goes up to the watershed.” Last year, for its “whole systems” approach to hospitality while also regenerating the area through initiatives around water, education, permaculture, fisheries, and ecosystem restoration, Playa Viva was awarded a B Corp score of 110, at the time, the highest of any hotel in the world.
All of these lofty ideas come to life during a stay at Playa Viva, for those who are interested. And it’s hard not to feel at least somewhat engaged, knowing that 2% of your stay supports these projects. You can tour the lush permaculture farm, visit a women’s plant-processing collective that has sparked a local micro-economy, and a community center where local children reconnect with their cultural heritage…or you can just do yoga, drink margaritas, and lie on the beach. No pressure. It’s all good.
The vibe… The motto here is “disconnect to reconnect,” and that’s certainly the feeling you get from all of the open-air pavilions and yoga shalas. There’s usually some kind of yoga retreat going on—during my stay, one group of Alo leggings/James Perse tee-wearing women from LA and an older, co-ed group from Minnesota largely kept to themselves, and I liked that there appeared to be no dominant tribe of guest here. Although the public spaces have wifi, it feels as absurd to try to work here as making a call on a coconut telephone. While not doing yoga, guests are sitting by the pool, walking on the beach (there are boogie and paddle boards, but the water can be rough), lying in a hammock, or absorbing the view from their treehouses—which face west, so sundown is practically ceremonial. The eco-ethos comes through in small participatory touches, like the little chalkboard on a string that you write your name on and hang over your towel on pegs near the pool, and rubbish tote bags hanging on an ocean path by a sign saying, “Going for a walk on the beach? Help us to keep it clean.” But it doesn’t feel preachy—you actively want to help preserve it from the ruin of so many other once-pristine places (Tulum, Bali) that have become so depressing to visit. Which may be part of why 70% of guests to Playa Viva are repeat visitors.
The rooms… There are 19 individual rooms that were built over the years in different styles by three different adventurous architects from Mexico City, the US and The Netherlands. The eco-casitas and palapa rooms are more traditional square structures with decks, while the treehouses—some of them barrel-shaped, some built with wings to look like a school of swimming manta rays—are held aloft by palm trees (not one was cut or moved). I stayed in “The Tower,” a suite built above the restaurant, with a huge private deck and an outdoor pool and shower that offered sweeping views of the ocean. (Tip: if you can’t bear the idea of not having wifi in your room, you can tap a signal up here, and wifi also unofficially reaches rooms 10 and 11 .)
There’s turndown service and all of the high-touch hotel stuff, done their way. I loved the on-pillow greeting, etched with my name on a waxy leaf from the majahua tree. And the room slippers are slides made from woven fronds.
All of the buildings are all 100% off-grid, with solar-heated water and electricity (they’re reluctantly introducing A/C to a couple of them). There’s no plastic on property, of course. And everything is sustainably built, either from bamboo or walls made from local clay mixed with ground seashells, eggshells, and sticks (look closely and you can see flecks in the grout), painted with natural pigments.
Are these accommodations rustic? Yes, they are. But what a treat. You have the eco-analog to everything you could possibly need. You sleep under a mosquito net, though the strong breeze that sweeps the room keeps the bugs away. With few walls (and doors that don’t lock!), you are thrillingly exposed but incredibly safe—such a rare combination in our era of over-precautions—cocooned in the white noise of crashing waves. I slept incredibly well.
The food & drink… All of the meals are included and served out of ceramic pots in a relaxed, buffet-style service in the main pavilion. Roughly a third of the ingredients, from fruit and vegetables to eggs, milk and pork, are produced on the permaculture farm, the rest from the local watershed. Everything I ate was delicious—simple and traditional, but flavorful. Breakfast is a spread of yogurt and bright fruits (passion fruit, tamarind, papaya), with Mexican specialties like chilaquiles and huevos rancheros and mounds of fresh avocado. Lunch one day was fresh ceviche, papaya soup, various salads from the farm, fish quesadillas, and rice and beans. Dinners lean plant-based with the cornucopia from the farm, but they incorporate locally caught fish or chicken. I generally avoid cooking classes at hotels, but a chocolate tamale lesson with chef Marco was more like a crafting class: we crushed roasted local cacao seeds with olive oil to make a chocolate paste, mixed it with “masa” (corn-based dough), raisins, and hibiscus powder, rolled it into tamale wrappers and steamed them upright in a pot. So good.
One nice amenity was the tea bar, open all day, with jars of loose-leaf functional herbal mixes made by the local women’s collective, called things like “stomach love” and “brain food” – little cotton sacs are provided for steeping your pick. And though it may not seem like the kind of place that would have a bar scene, the bar by the beach was always busy at sunset. Be sure to try the basil margarita.
The wellness… Yoga is the core of the offering here, and there are two pavilions, including a soaring bamboo structure shaped like a tortuga (turtle). Guests who are not on a retreat have the opportunity to do yoga every morning. As for spa, outdoor cabanas with fluttering white drapes are lined up beachside, where I had a forceful massage from Zulema, using locally made coconut oil products. Supporting indigenous practices and practitioners is part of Playa Viva’s ethos, and I eagerly submitted to a cacao ceremony led by Lupita, a local shaman. We drank a preparation of warm water and raw cacao and lay on our mats in a guided meditation, accompanied by instrumental music and chanting.
Other activities… Everyone should experience a pre-dawn morning at the turtle nursery (peak hatching season is Oct-Dec, though you’re likely to have some year-round). Here the team incubates turtle eggs that have been carefully exhumed from nests on the beach and transferred to buckets submerged in sand to protect them from predators. Run by members of the community, the nursery has released 500,000 turtles, among them hawksbills, olive ridleys, and endangered leatherbacks. Digging my hands through the flapping mounds of tiny turtles and then releasing them onto the beach near the surf at sunrise unexpectedly put a lump in my throat, as I watched these vulnerable creatures follow their ancestral compass into the tug of crashing waves.
There are plenty of other activities to fill your day if you’re not into yoga. Johnny, Playa Viva’s former bartender (and creator of the basil margarita), became a guide (Playa Viva funded his guide license and van) and he now runs his own expedition service, “Johnny Adventures.” He can take you to the best snorkeling and surfing spots along the coast, to Zihuatanejo for a shopping tour, or a visit to a nearby archeological site, Soledad de Maciel, which has a newly restored Toltec ball field.
And then there are various ways to see Playa Viva’s regenerative projects, if you’re curious. I highly recommend a tour of the permaculture farm and tree nursery, which was led by permaculture designer and educator, Amanda Harris. As we walked the rows of spinach and cilantro and custard apple orchards, she explained how coconut farming, which had arrived in the 1940s, had clogged the estuary and dried up the ecosystem. So they have been planting fast-growing native species—1,000 trees a year—to bring nutrition back to the soil and create shade, and shaping swales for water capture, “planting and harvesting water,” as she put it. This has gradually pulled the environment back into balance, and the newly reformed lagoon has brought the return of bird species that haven’t been seen in such numbers in a generation. After interviewing locals about how their grandparents used to farm, they incorporated sustainable techniques such as companion planting—corn squash and beans—and short-cycle crops like yucca, hibiscus and chaya, key ingredients in the local diet. Eighty percent of what is grown goes to Playa Viva and 20% of the rest goes to farmers’ markets and a community CSA.
In fact, Playa Viva’s regenerative impact goes far beyond the environment. “The hotel should exist to support the community,” David told us. In Juluchuca—a cluster of painted cement buildings on dirt roads—we visited a women’s collective: six women from three communities in the watershed who run a brisk enterprise processing some of the farm’s plants into products like moringa powder and hibiscus jam, which also generates income for local families who’ve begun growing these ingredients. It was high season for turmeric, and trays of the sliced root lay drying in the sun, before being ground into powder. Nearby, we toured an afterschool education center funded by Playa Viva, which houses computers and a small library, serving kids from 6 villages. Ximena, its director, explained their wider goal of imparting to kids across the watershed skills like English and math, an environmental awareness, and a sense of cultural connectedness, so they will be more likely to want to stay in the community and have rooted livelihoods. Guests can arrange visit any of these projects by appointment.
Be sure to… Visit the gift shop to browse the handmade silver jewelry, ceramics and textiles from local communities; you can also buy the turmeric, meringa, and hibiscus powder and jam made by the women’s cooperative. And it’s also worth taking a trip into Juluchuca, where you can pick up a bag of coconut candy, which it’s famous for, and sustainably harvested salt, from one of the roadside shacks.
Parting words… Playa Viva’s other slogan is, “Where your vacation meets your values,” and as a guest, I really did feel my tiny place within greater radical vision of the place. At the same time, it is simply a gorgeous spot for a barefoot, unplugged and slightly Robinson Crusoe-esque beach vacation, with prices that align with the resort’s ethics: accomms for 2 start at $395 in high season ($450 for festive) and $320 in low season, which includes transport to-from Zihua, 3 meals a day, daily yoga, tips, and a donation to the Regenerative Trust. Oh, and kids under 5 stay free. I’ll definitely be back!
Date of stay… March 2 to 5, 2024
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