Traveling to Gay Puerto Vallarta
Friends of ours had been traveling to gay Puerto Vallarta (PV) for years, but it was never in the cards for us even with as easy and cheap as it is to get to and vacation there. Our first trip to PV was to celebrate David’s 40th birthday. It was a surprise gift.
Gay Puerto Vallarta is located at the bottom of a lush vegetative valley. The beach is long and parallels a row of shops, bars, and amazing restaurants. The queer epicenter is Blue Chairs, which populates the beach with, well, blue chairs and serves traditional Mexican food and drinks.
The main roads are cobblestone and lined with shops of beautiful jewelry and more restaurants and bars. When the sun goes down, the downtown lights up and the streets become a block party for tourists.
The service everywhere is impeccable. Walking around the town it’s intriguing to imagine the days when Liz Taylor and friends were some of the first Americans to vacation in gay Puerto Vallarta.
The best part of David’s surprise was that I booked the penthouse of Casa Cupula, a place we had long wanted to visit, and paid for it all before we arrived. Casa Cupula is a gay-owned and operated establishment that caters to the LGBTQA crowd. It looks like an antique castle turned hotel with updated and modern rooms and amenities. The staff couldn’t do more to accommodate our every need from customized cocktails to in-room massage services.
Yes, one does find the need for customized cocktails served to them in their room.
Our initial down payment for Casa Cupula was due at the time I made the reservation and then the residual was due 15 days before our trip. Having started my savings earlier, I had enough cash to make each payment when it was due. Having priced the cost in advance, this was easy to do. The key was researching and planning.
At the time, I was traveling a lot for work and had banked a ton of airline miles with Frontier. This made the cost free to us for our round-trip tickets. My employer at the time paid for these. If you travel for work, make sure to sign up for airline miles and hotel points through the airline and hotel chain you’ll likely to use most. Then, make every effort with every work trip to use that airline and that hotel chain.
The costs are to your employer. The benefits are to you.
Many friends of ours had vacationed in and talked about gay Puerto Vallarta a lot. I talked with them about what to expect as far as entertainment, drinking and dining costs. Because of this research, I knew how much cash to save even before David knew we were going. This let us return home with $0 in credit card debt and made the birthday trip all the better.
Debt Free Guys’ Travel Tips
There are two important keys here:
- The first key was maximizing my work travel to acquire airline miles (my hotel points weren’t used for this trip)
- The second key was researching and planning
- Budget for the cash you’ll need when you’re on vacation
With these keys and a little bit of time, you’ll be ready for your all-cash vacation in no time. To have more cash for your all-cash vacation, start your own gay blog.