Huatulco, one of Mexico's most recent resort projects, is quickly on its way to rivaling the country's better known recreation zones. With each new development, planners experiment with and perfect their designs, and Huatulco has benefited from its predecessors. Scattered across 20 miles of ideal Pacific coastline in the state of Oaxaca, the resorts are set in bays that break up the sprawl. The principal bays are Bahia de Santa Cruz, Bahia Chahue, and Bahia Tangolunda. There are golf courses, horse stables, tennis courts, marinas, trendy restaurants - pretty much everything you'd expect out of a tropical beach vacation. Near the city center there is also an ecological park, Rufino Tamayo.

Not far from Huatulco are two other resort towns worth a day trip: Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido, both to the west. The quiet towns have excellent beaches and are well-known in the surfing world; each year Puerto Escondido hosts a major international competition.