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Zipolite, Mexico
"I was there maybe 3 years ago and it was the best most beautiful hippy place ever. Hammocks on the beach $1 a night. Grass can be ordered and delivered from ones hammock. Food is great too. Strong waves - watch it! Nice sunsets."
Added: December 8th 2001
Category: Place
Location: Mexico
Hits: 18738
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Triman on 2013-04-17 20:20:08
Most of these comments are pretty old. I spent my 30th birthday in Z. I wouldn't expect it to be the same in 2013. Hell, I am sure different (including clean & sober).I'm thinking of riding down on my dual sport (mc). Think I'll make it both ways alive? And enjoy the atmosphere sober? PS. Locals were strumming little tunes about the gringos drowning at Playa Amor in 1976. Backpacks were getting ripped off. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Slickster on 2010-12-04 21:46:31 My Score: 
My Girlfriend and I sailed into Puerto Angel just east of Zipolite in May of 2010 and quickly took a liking to the area. We instantly fell in love with Zipolite and stayed for an extra week. We only got good vibes from the locals and tourists alike. We traveled together at all times of day and night and didn't feel uncomfortable at any time and in different states of mind. We stayed a few nights at Nude and El alquemista as well as a nice place on the beach. You also gotta check out the giant palapa on the point on east end of beach,the owner name is fawad and is a super coool guy...he will sell you a beer from his fridge if he has one his place was a resort at one point and you can still stay there for about 300 pesos a night...best view of entire beach....were headed back this march...c u there
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Big John on 2009-10-01 20:49:40
I first visited Zipolite in 1996, and I fell in LOVE.
Went back in 2003, and still loved it.
Returned again 2008, and while it had grown a BIT, it was STILL GORGEOUS AND WONDERFUL.
To the people complaining about places changing, remember, you change too. Those fruit bowls are just as good now as they ever were, and the people are just as chill.
Happy vibes, nice people, sun, beautiful beach.
And from conversations I had with people working there, tourism has steadily been going downhill. So maybe it spiked up a bit, but its still hugely laid back.
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by hmitchell on 2009-01-15 00:20:59
I was planning a trip there this summer, has anyone been there recently that can provide some input, and are the gangs really that bad? Also, are there heads and freaks living there currently? (I"m looking to visit a cheap town in Central/Southern America that is an area of heads). |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by orsola on 2008-12-23 12:35:30
I went to Zippolite in 1991, a long time ago, but, from what I can see now on Youtube videos posted, it still hasn't changed too much. I remember arriving in Puerto Angel and feeling slightly disappointed, especially after having visited Puerto Escondido, which, at the time, had stolen my heart. So my friend and I looked for a place to stay, and couldn't manage to stay on the beach... but we spent two fantastic days in Zipolite, just relaxing and letting ourselves go. I also have memories of amazing sunsets, and very deep moments of relaxation, because of the setting of the beach, and the fact that you are in the middle of nature. there were some nice young and less young people and also the mexicans who own cabanas there are rather sweet and know how to relate to you. I reccomend it, and myself would like to go back today, and maybe be able to spend there more than just a couple of days... |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by susanna on 2008-11-13 23:53:11 My Score:  
Zipolite is a mysterious area no doubt. I was in Zipol 15 years ago about a month. 4 years ago I decided to go back and check out the development during 11 years. Well as far as I can say it's for the better; they still keeping up the "secret" beach approach but the rooms at the palapas have electricity and a moscito net..... 2 years ago I bought a little house on the beach; the best thing I ever done. I hate it sometimes with all the drugs and criminality but love it for it's people, beach, food etc What I love most is that You will have a constant feeling about living in the twilight zone; for good and bad.
Go there;
Susanne the Swedish |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by dbmec on 2007-12-01 23:52:34
So is it still a good nudist beach? |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by J. Byrum on 2007-01-18 15:32:28
Last year, for the second year, I chose to rent a small second floor room in a beachfront Posada (small inn) in Zipolite owned by Daniel, an older Californian, and use one of the hammocks under the palapa on the beach only for daytime relaxing and reading. (In my earlier trips going back to the nineties, I rented only the hammock to sleep and relax.) This decision, particularly the door with a lock, allowed me a bit more control over basic belongings, including holiday mood-enhancers, i.e., alcohol (wine or mescal), etc. Living out in the 'open', while being 'one' with your surroundings, can be good, it can also be very limiting. While stepping-up to a room was certainly a major adjustment two years ago, even though the room lacked any facilities, and, therefore, it still meant waiting in line for the common, outside shower and toilet facilities each morning. Those changes caused my daily cost to escalate from a whopping two dollars a day to twenty dollars a day, however, the extravagance seemed well worth it. The overhead ceiling fan for those warmer, calmer nights was definitely worth the value, alone. The nature and inclination of a single, pesky mosquito annoyingly intent on waking you late in the night on finding one of your exposed extremities was also a consideration. I tell you all this because this year Daniel offered me one of his 'elite class' front beach, second-floor rooms with a balcony on the beach! Wow, a major extravagance, for sure. He assured me that this room was only available because of the alarmist advisory about recent rumblings in Oaxaca city had been placed on the internet by the US State Department. Due to those faraway events in the province, Daniel complained mightily that his demand had declined noticeably, even in this the 'high season' in Zipolite, and made such a classy room available. The cost, of course, escalated again and now reached the towering amount of thirty-five dollars a day! However, for this amount, I had a front-beach room with a view (wow! what a view......a full panorama from sunrise, which, admittedly, I rarely saw, to sunset, everyday on the two mile, crescent-shaped beach), and I had a private bathroom! Granted, the posada was far from a five-star hotel, by any count, and possibly, by home standards, would not even be close to a Motel 6 category, nevertheless, what a glorious and natural place it was. (For those unknowing and the great protected out there, to translate the term 'bathroom' in a Mexican context, you need to realize that while always tiled, often, as was the case here, there is no shower stall at all, only a shower head out of the wall and a drain in the middle of the floor. While there is an operating toilet----into which paper is never allowed--and a small mirror and a sink, usually not hung level on the wall. In this case, hey, they were even baby blue in color. No whimpy hot water is ever available or needed, of course. There were no doors or windows for the room at all, but there was a low wattage bulb overhead.)
Those basic details settled......now to relax and enjoy my magical surroundings. As is always the case, the first two days seem to require a rather major 'civilization adjustment'. You have to allow yourself to ease back to a past, maybe forgotten or maybe never-known, era when minutes and hours played different roles and had different meanings. That slip into another construct that existed, one where the clock does not control and structure one's life, does not come easily, nor without some uncertainty about one's decisions about its value. Those first several days, somewhat alone and rudderless, are filled with mild anxiety, as you find yourself searching for intellectual and social meaning in a seeming vacuum, even though visually that 'vacuum' is in paradise. The beach dominates the scene, framed by its craggy, mountainous backdrop, as broad and alluring as it always was, the sight and the sounds of the roaring waves of the Pacific, as blue and commanding as ever, and the reassuring warm rays of a bright sun, as life-giving as ever. But the feeling that initially encompasses one is, 'oh, hell, can I stay down here 11 days alone with nothing to do but read, walk and bathe in the sea?' It's a sinking feeling of uneasiness that suggests an impending immense boredom, and maybe worse...... a waste of good, 'productive' time. No news, that means no newspapers, no radio, no TV, no cell phones, actually no easy-to-get-to land lines at all. Ah-h-h-h, our society has trained and structured us well.
Well, by the third day, there is a new reality that is settling in. Those old, prickly anxieties begin to evaporate as quickly as they arrived and an enormous peace and contentment begins to infect the soul and take root. It's so pervasive that, by the last day, the realization that your time is up and return to the 'other world' is imminent, there comes the new anxiety. This time it's a fear of losing some sort of special contact with one's inner self. Those days that passed so quickly in the interim period, adjusted some inner rhythm and allowed you to live each day as simply as can be possible to imagine. Those carefree days are idyllic in their simplicity and center around an unstructured, natural existence, eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, relating and conversing with new people whenever desired, walking the beaches, bathing in the surf, relaxing while imbibing/consuming casually and, of course, reading multiple books in between. Nothing truly ever really happens beyond that. But what a stupendous regeneration it all is! (BTW, reading material consisted of: "Peace Not Apartheid" ---J. Carter, 'Team of Rivals' ----D.K. Goodwin; 'The Rise of the Creative Class' --Richard Florida, 'The Lady and the Monk' ---Pico Iyer, and 'My Invented Country' ---Isabella Allende.)
Of the many people that I met and talked with during that brief period, some of the following characters come to mind that could easily be wrapped into a novel: a 26 year-old Israeli, formerly a captain in the Israeli army with 8 years service in Lebanon and Gaza, still recovering from a minor shrapnel wound and planning soon to go to medical school in Rome; his erstwhile, youngish, Jewish Aussie traveling companion, who was in the advertising business back in Melbourne; a late twenties Swiss-French fellow traveling with his 'hot' bikini-clad girlfriend from Lausanne with whom I shared the back of a truck bed along winding roads to Pochutla one afternoon ---him, not her; the very laid-back, late fifties/early sixties, semi-retired, former truck driver, an old favorite, from Oregon who comes to Zipolite every year for three months and lives on a 'dime' and whom I have met many times before; a very attractive, outdoors-type, probably early fifties, western-tough woman from Idaho, apparently living with her partner, who has recently re-settled there struggling with the local officialdom to build a house near the beach; a middle-aged Irish engineer who had lived in NYC for a number of year and apparently made a good deal of money in a 'steel structures' business and then returned to settle on the west coast of Ireland; a buffed, surfer-looking graduate student in Linguistics that I met sipping wine and sitting in front of a beach party bonfire who was from Texas Tech (Lubbock, I believe) and was babbling on about his thesis and the strength of TT's linguistics program; a young Londoner (half-American, but having never set foot in the States) traveling with his cooing and outrageously sexy, Spanish girlfriend; a diverse group of four sparkling, young women, a Californian, a German, a Canadian and a Dane, all sun-tanned, very attractive and apparently traveling down the coast with this blonde, thirty-ish Danish fellow; an early thirties German business fellow, very serious and correct, from Stuttgart, traveling alone on vacation; a very well-spoken Mexican fellow in the advertising/promotion business in Vera Cruz, probably mid-thirties, traveling with an older, obviously well-off, Arabic-Mexican fellow with whom he seemed to have some major business connection and their young, very Germanic-looking, not worldly at all, 20 year-old friend, an Argentine; and then there was Daniel, the crusty, old, Peter Pan-type, owner of the posada, probably 65 or so, who lives in LA about half the year and the other half running the business in Zipolite, and is constantly on the 'make', trying to entice any younger, attractive female by buying them dinner and drinks. Assuredly, there is much more that I could say about each of these people, and below every surface, there is probably a whole new story that could unfold with a little more exploration! All you would have to do is converse for a half an hour over a drink to hear an ear full...... There were many, many more characters and there was never a dull moment. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by La Loca on 2006-07-02 20:09:57
I was in Zipolite in 97, My girl friend and I traveled thru interior Mexico In October for Day of the Dead in Patzcuero and left there to go to alfara and latecla (?) we ended up in Zipolite when we meet some people who were going there to see the beautiful beaches....one of the only places to run around nude and not be bothered. I it was amazing the sand was so clean and the water so clear. Def inatley worth the trip. We had no problems just like any place you ttravel, if you are looking fro trouble you will find it. Remeber you are in there country so respect it. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by JIll on 2006-04-20 22:37:35 My Score:
I will tell you that I have no previous experience in Zipolite before this winter, but to me... Zipolite was absolute paradise. I spent a month volunteering at Gloria's Shambhala and was treated part of the Zipolite family. I never felt threatened at any point in my travels, being a 21 yr old single woman... that says quite a lot in Mexico. The past three months, I have travelled through Guatemala and Southern Mexico- and the highlight of this time were the adventures I had in Zipolite and Mazunte. Preserve it. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by valou on 2005-10-11 04:17:22
i was with my friends in zipolite in 1987...let me tell you, it has change so much...we were living in casa de gloria...eating fruit salad and pancakes with banana and chocolat as cosmico, if i remember well....this beach was beautiful and not to many people...it was wild...
paradise on earth....but things change, people build. it's evolution i guess...have fun in zipolite... |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Joe on 2005-08-15 23:56:00
I was at Zipolite in '91. Even then it was full of rich, snotty "Trust-a-farian" brats. P.U. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by anima on 2005-07-09 06:22:25
I am sadly reading this. My first visit to Zipolite was in 1973. I ended up staying there for about a year. At that time there was no electricity. i lived with Ramon's family and with his in-laws, Maria and Maunuel, two of the founders of the village. They were very old back then and told me some amazing stories of the place back in the days of their youth in the 1930's-1940's. We basically supported ourselves free diving with homemade hawaiian slings. We would bring the catch back to Maria and she would cook it up and feed it to everyone. There was also a plasce owned by Filipa and Catalina. that's about it. I returned often during the 70's and 80's. I was there the night they truned on the electricity for the first time in February of 1976. Things started to change pretty quick after that. By 1982 the scene was more about about drugs and less about anything else it seemed, though it was still fun. Between 82 and 90 I started seeing lots of opium and the beginnings of the cocaine influence. The last time I was there, I flew in to Huatuilco from Austin on New Years eve 1994 to party with my old friend Gloria. We were lying on the beach new years morning when the gunships buzzed the beach and we all found out that the Zapitista uprising had started. There were lots of Zapatista sympathizers staying at gloria's at the time and everyone was pretty worried. During these years, I stayed in contact with lots of the local guys there who were divers and fishermen. One of my old diving compadres died there in a drunken knife fight with his best friend. Now he's gone and is friend is in prison. We pulled many people out of the surf who were drowning over the years and had developed pretty strong bonds. Another good friend from Germany, Hermann, died under some very suspicious circumstances in the vicinity of Playa Del Amor. There was talk of some drug dealer named La Pantera and a herion buy gone bad. I've never met this person, but as rough as the Playa De Amor area was getting in the mid 90's, it doesn't surprise me. I was thinking of making another trip in the near future. It's been over 10 years and I was hoping for better news of the place. I'll always feel like it is my spiritual home, but this talk of gangs is very disturbing. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by irish on 2005-06-15 12:11:35
get naked!!! |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by one irish dumpster diver on 2005-06-15 12:05:08
fucking hell yeah pacheco y loco if you were the mayor of zipolite it would be a good place to move to. Rob all those fuckers and buy some guns so you can start a revolution just like castro and che. Better yet dont do anything, just let them keep getting fatter and let them drink all the booze and kill themselves. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by pacheco y loco on 2005-05-12 22:53:50
listen you whiny computer literate, western world phuks. the reason places like this are becoming "polluted" with drug dealers and western civilization is because rich, fat phuks like you all find them and ruin them.
and the day Gloria is the heart of a town she fucking moved to to start a goddamn tourist trap for poor americans.... is the day mcdonalds moves in there. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Timiteo on 2005-01-22 04:57:31
I'll be in Zipolite maņana ... I've heard nothing but varying degrees of bad things about the place from locals, tourists from all over the world y ex-pats. (I'm Canadian) There's a build up now to how awful a crack house on the beach it is. I have low expectations. Even the hype of how terrible a place it is I'm sure will be a dissappointment. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by MJ on 2005-01-12 05:23:02
heehee sorry about the spelling...I still cannot type and look at the screen at the same time!! :) |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by MJ on 2005-01-12 05:22:10
Poor Zipolite. I was there January through April, and the locals were amazing. I met people who touched my life, and had the most wonderful experience, but also the most frightening. It seems the gangs from neighboring towns (peurto angel) have taken over the drug scene, and are terrorizing tourists and locals alike. Iy's quite sad, an italian man had his face completely disroyed while I was there by these thugs. It was horrible.....but I would still say it is a very amazing and mysterious place that changed who I was forever......we still keep in touch with everyone we met....... |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by dennis on 2004-10-23 01:24:48
I too am saddened about some of the comments. I have lived in the Caribbean Islands for most of the past twenty+ years and have now left them behind as the developers and mainstream tourists world over have made them Disneyland South. Oh there are a few spots left but they are no longer unharmed. I am now 65 and in good shape physcally but mentally am horrified over what has happened to all the old hangouts worldwide... try going back to Thailand or the Philippines.
I was thinking of coming to Zipolite and I may still as where else can one go to just hang and be among your own kind? |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Tonje Valen on 2004-08-17 23:17:32
I was in Zipolite in 1981 and it was a peacefull place whith only a few houses. We where living with a mexican family, like most of the Europians. We observed that the americans was living in a house run by a american. The place had higher standard and was more tourist like. We was afraid that this was the start to developing Zipolite into a more typical tourist place. I understand thats the fact. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by beach_player00 on 2004-07-31 23:42:26
I'm so disappointed to here the reviews posted of Zipolite. I've not yet been there, but will be traveling through that area in less that two weeks and was really looking forward to seeing Zipolite, it's beaches, and the people. I'll be in the Playa Azul/Zipolite/Mazunte area for probably 4-5 days. Anyone have recomendations... places to stay/eat, other beaches/areas, a good bar with good people. Any advice would be appreciated as my stay won't be long and trial and error can be a time consuming way (but the best way) to find what you like. Thanks. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by markguycan on 2004-05-31 07:07:02
sorry to hear of the decline of Zipolite' I haven't been there for several years but have been there 4 times starting back in the early 90's. Another tranquil place that has yet to see the build-up is Maruata in the state of Michoacan. Zihuatinejo is the closest airport about 3hrs to the south. |
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by Jordan on 2003-12-09 15:47:57 My Score:
Yes, I think Zipolite is deteriorating into a tourist haven from a travellers paradise. The hotels and restaurants recieving grants from the government after hurricane Paulina destroyed the place allowed the proprietors to expand and glossify their establishments. Unfortunately these transplanted business people seem to see success and prosperity measured by the same ruler that is used in Huatulco. The "Tao" and others are now multi-floored concrete monstrosities which seem to be the genesis of a new Acapulco and the apocolypse of a tropical paradise. Most tragic of all of this is the local strong-woman and proprietor of Shambhala, Gloria; really the founder of anything beautiful about the Zipolite scene (for instance it was largely under her influence that the clothing optional beach exists), is threatened with extinction.
Because of a serious injury recieved from a fall on her property she was unaware, in an American hospital and residence at the time, that victim businesses of Paulina were eligable for grants. She missed hers--and it was much needed to upgrade a crumbling Shambhala. Now faced with her competition avec facelifts, her failing health, Shambhala's days are apparantly numbered. Rumour has it that when Gloria goes, the grooviness on the beach will depart as private interest and corrupt military and police forces move in to create a beach more in the interest of the local conservative forces. Anyone who has spent time here knows the pressures.
I advise anyone who discovers what is left of this area not to spread the word indiscriminately. As more and more WASPY tourists arrive with their demands for luxury accomodations, the spicy dishes subdued, french fries everywhere etc. will be the rule of the day. Already a huge influx of Northern Europeans has seen many traditional and often tongue blistering sauces removed from the tables of local restaurants. I actually have seen a middle aged Germanic bloke literally try to blame a waiter because he non-discriminately dumped hot sauce all over his meal and found it too spicy. I really don't know what he thought it was.
Also, one could say the same element is moving in and often dominating the scene on the beach: refusing to disrobe in predominately nude areas, the same leering at women which inturn discourages( and who could blame them) the women from joining the nudists. Ad to this: aggressive behaviour and negative vibes surrounding the approach and attentions of gay/lesbian cruisers--a group that is well established and traditionally welcome on a beach where many come to sexually experiment. Ad Nauseum when these same oppressive individuals wear dreadlocks and beads and blend in whenever they don't open their mounths.
Zipolite, for me and I know many others, is a place of retreat, and discovery. A place where judgement is least severe, many stripes mingle and there are secret and free spaces to explore. Allowing this place to become too comfortable so as to accomodate the more materially oriented sects of our world will be, and slowly is creating its demise. A frankly, beauty aside, it is the only place in the world I can afford to go! Keep air conditioners out of Zipolite!
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Zipolite, Mexico
Posted by doctim on 2003-10-03 11:41:30
Has anyone been back to Zipolite lately? I've heard it has become more commercialized and developed. If it's not the kind place it used to be, is there another playa nearby that's better? |
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