San Blas, Las Varas & Aticama, Riviera Nayarit real estate: properties for sale

San Blas, Las Varas & Aticama — the MLS lumps them together as Nayarit Costa Norte — is the corridor north of the Riviera Nayarit proper, two to two and a half hours from the airport: slow, small-scale Mexican Pacific with no high-rises, no gated master plans and no condo regimes, just houses, casitas and small villas on titled or ejido lots. San Blas is the walkable colonial port, a Pueblo Mágico since 2023, with the plaza, the market, the pier, the 1770 fort on the Contaduría hill and the mangroves of La Tovara, a national park reached by boat with more than three hundred bird species. Bahía de Matanchén to the south is seven kilometres of sand, one of the widest beaches in Mexico, with the surf hamlet of Las Islitas and its palapa restaurants at the far end. Aticama is a small fishing village north of the bay known for oysters, shrimp and lobster; Playa Los Cocos is a quiet gold-sand bay thirteen kilometres south of San Blas with titled oceanfront lots; and Las Varas is the inland farming town in the Sierra de Vallejo from which the roads fan out to the coast, with no beach of its own.

Buyers are people who want the real, unhurried coast at the lowest prices in the MLS and accept that the bay's services are hours away.

Practical points. All the beaches face the open Pacific and suit surfers more than swimmers; Matanchén is the only protected bay. Biting jejenes at dusk are a fact of life in San Blas. The new toll road from Compostela to Las Varas opened in 2024 and cuts about fifty minutes; confirm whether the last section to San Vicente is finished before you plan the drive. No hospital of the bay's standard; a car is essential. Ejido lots are common here: only a titled lot in the Public Registry can go into a fideicomiso, so the notary's search is the first and decisive step.

— John Forget, Mexico Life Realty