San Quintín

San Quintín is a small settlement in the hills of the municipality of Bahía de Banderas, on federal Highway 200 a few kilometers inland from Sayulita. It is one of a row of roadside communities on the stretch between Bucerías and Sayulita: Palmarito lies just 600 meters away, San Ignacio about two and a half kilometers to the northwest, and El Guamúchil a similar distance to the southeast. Sayulita and its beaches are about seven kilometers away, and La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, on Banderas Bay, about nine kilometers to the south.

Its story is one of very recent growth. The 2005 census found 72 people here; by 2010 there were 100 and by 2020, 236, in 61 occupied homes. Almost two thirds of today's residents were born outside Nayarit, a sign of how the boom on the coast between Sayulita and Punta de Mita has spread inland. Basic services arrived with them: in 2010 only one home in twenty-five had piped water, while in 2020 more than four in five did, and the share of adults with paid work more than doubled over the same decade.

There are no hotels or sights. The village has a community preschool and community primary classes, and a small fonda, Doña Conchita; more restaurants, taquerías and bars are two kilometers up the road in San Ignacio, and the nearest hotels are in Sayulita. It is a place you pass rather than visit, but it shows how far inland the growth of the Riviera Nayarit now reaches.