If you want to see what it would be like to live in a foreign country, in a development where you have access to golf, tennis, and restaurants, there are villa rentals waiting for you where all you have to do is book it and show up with a suitcase. In the elite communities of Latin America, you can be assured of a secure environment and you’ll have staffers who can speak your language.
Many of the finest villa rentals are in gated communities or private developments where there’s only one way in and one way out, past a gatehouse with a guard. So if the TV news channel you watch has you scared to visit Mexico or Central America, get your feet wet with one of these options and that’s one worry you can take off your list.
These private communities are quite common in the USA and Canada, so this is not a strange concept for those heading south. Plus you’ll find them on most islands in the Caribbean, with a short flight to get to Casa de Campo villa rentals in the Dominican Republic, for example, in a huge development with plenty of amenities at the ready.
If you search for luxury villa rentals in a mainland Latin American country you’re considering though, you’ll still find plenty of choices from established agencies in locations where foreigners and elite nationals own vacation homes. Here are a few countries where you’ll be able to live the high life with your own group or family, having the whole place to yourself. You’ll get more room to spread out, a kitchen, and staffers who are only there to serve you, not a whole hotel full of strangers who are the other guests.
In these top locations, you’ll often have access to facilities of a hotel or two, however, when you’re ready to mingle. Plus many of them have a golf course, tennis, pickleball, beach clubs, and other offerings that are included in your nightly rate. You can park the car and get around on foot or in a golf cart. With the right arrangements, you can have the fridge stocked with groceries and your favorite beer before arrival and have all or some of your meals prepared by a chef, served in your own private dining room.
Upscale Mexico Villa Rentals
Plenty of development money has poured into Mexico over the years and the richest people with a dream have been able to take over large parcels of land that are the size of a city. One of the most ambitious projects when it started was the Punta Mita development on its own peninsula north of Puerto Vallarta. There are some condos and hotels listed as “Punta de Mita” that are in the same area, but the ones without the “de” are in a giant gated community that includes a Four Seasons, a St. Regis, two golf courses, Punta Mita beach clubs, and some of Mexico’s most impressive homes.
The people who own these houses are rarely living in them all year, but they have to keep staffing them and leaving the air conditioning on, so they’ll offer them as upscale villa rentals the rest of the time. I’ve stayed in a couple different ones here, which I wrote about in this feature article on villas in Vallarta and Punta Mita. That’s one of them at the top of this post, Casa Koko, and here’s another one that’s looking right out at the ocean:
There’s another development even further north, out in the boonies of Nayarit really, that’s anchored by a One&Only and a new Rosewood hotel: Mandarina. We haven’t gotten invited to check it out yet, but I’m sure the homes you can rent there are spectacular.
Then if you head south, you have impressive developments in the Costalegre region of Jalisco state, including the long-established Careyes development with some great beaches and a Hollywood celebrities vibe. Another is on the way as part of the Four Seasons Tamarindo project and golf course.
On the Baja Peninsula you’ve got Los Cabos at the bottom, full of gated communities around golf courses and oceanfront locations. Most of the luxury hotels have some kind of ownership section too, such as around Waldorf-Astoria Pedregal, Pueblo Bonito and the Quivira golf course, around One&Only Palmilla, and by Nobu and the Diamante course. For more seclusion, head to the East Cape around the Four Seasons (and eventually an Aman resort) or up to Loreto where billionaire Carlos Slim set up a development.
On the Caribbean coast, one of the oldest gated communities is the Playacar one near Playa del Carmen, joined by the Mayakoba project with a championship golf course a bit north of the city. Others have popped up on the long stretch of coast between Cancun and Tulum, usually condos around a new resort development.
In the interior, San Miguel del Allende has many gated communities, though usually these are residential only, without a lot of diversions. The one around the Las Ventanas golf course and clubhouse restaurant is an exception though, plus some of the area wineries have housing developments where you have access to a good restaurant nearby. You’ll find others near Merida, Lake Chapala, and more.
Central America Villas
Costa Rica and Belize are the tourism powerhouses in Central America and they’re also full of foreigners who loved it so much they put down some roots. So you’ve got plenty of communities to choose from where you’re not just renting a mansion on a hill that’s an hour away from a good restaurant.
In Costa Rica, one of the longest-established and most convenient developments is Los Suenos, which we highlighted many years ago in this feature story about touring the regions south of San Jose. This is the closest beach area to the capital city, near Jaco, so in theory you could get here via a car transfer and not have to rent one. Much of the area is walkable, there’s a golf course, and a commercial village with nice restaurants and a coffee shop.
I personally loved the Las Catalinas development in Guanacaste, a purpose-built “new urbanism” village where everything is built on a pedestrian scale instead of an automobile scale, where you run into your neighbors while out for a stroll. It has a great beach, a bike shop, a gym, a taproom for a local brewery, and much more. I rented a tricked-out villa with a Sonos sound system there and didn’t want to leave.
There are plenty of other villa rental clusters in Costa Rica and more on the way for the future. Some are in residential areas for Ticos, like Los Reyes in the countryside north of San Jose, or in Guanacaste resort areas like Papagayo. See more in this article about luxury real estate in Costa Rica.
In Belize, land is limited on Ambergris Caye, the most popular tourist destination, but the Mahogany Bay development has condos and villas for rent with access to hotel facilities and a beach club reached by boat. There’s been more space to spread out on the Placencia Peninsula, but it’s a narrow stretch of land so the gated sections are small, like Placencia Residences and Las Brisas Island in the lagoon, both with boat slips.
Panama has more land to work with and hosts more large gated communities with golf and other amenities. The Coronado beachfront community is only 1.5 hours south of the capital city, making it a convenient place to get to for trying Panama on for size, full of foreigners who speak English and close to good medical care.
Another option for luxury villa rentals is the Rio Hata area, anchored by a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus and the Marriott Autograph Collection Buenaventura Resort. This gated community is also about an hour and a half from the capital city and its busy international airport.
The favorite destination for foreign retirees is Boquete, in the southern highlands in coffee country, where there is one gated community by a golf course, Valle Escondido, that has 80 houses and 40 condos. Several others developments are smaller and less ambitious. In Bocas del Toro, there are few large gated communities, but some large villas are only reachable by boat, so you get a secure location with limited access.
The Pedasi Peninsula has long been a spot where owners have built luxury homes, but most of them were one-off projects. That changed with the opening of Blue Venao, a gated development now in phase three, with more amenities and owners coming in.
Other Villa Locations in Central America
As the political winds blow one way or the other, the desirability of a country can change for the better or the worse. It’s the latter in Nicaragua, where the country was on a major upward trajectory two decades ago. But then the Ortega presidency turned into the Ortega dictatorship and the foreign capital flowed out like water in a bucket with a gash in it. So you can rent a luxury villa there in the aftermath for a fraction of what it would cost in neighboring countries, though we wouldn’t advise buying anything there until there’s a regime change.
El Salvador may be going in the opposite direction, though the long-term track record is not a good one. The president locked up anyone with a whiff of criminality attached to them and the country has gotten much safer as a result. That and its open policy on cryptocurrencies has lead to new developments in the works aimed at a higher net worth than the surfers the country attracted previously. Time will tell.
Guatemala has plenty of gated communities around the capital city and Antiqua, but one got buried in ash when a volcano erupted, highlighting the geographical risk faced here with ambitious housing and golf projects.
How about you? Have you found an elite community for luxury villa rentals anywhere that you have traveled in Mexico or Central America?
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