Once-upon-a-time Mexico was synonymous with low-budget movies and high-octane cocktails. Yes, Acapulco always had a certain glamour to it and Richard Burton used to take Liz Taylor to Puerto Vallarta, but when it came to travel most of us preferred to stick with the Caribbean and the Côte d’Azur, later turning our attention to Mauritius and the Maldives. Yet nowadays Mexico is right up there with those other A-list destinations. World-class hotel companies like One&Only, Orient-Express and Rosewood Hotels have been operating there for several years now; most of them offering the kind of exemplary service levels demanded by the ‘do-you-know-who-I-am?’ kind of movie star. But the place is not just for jet-setters with a penchant for personal butlers and a compulsion for choosing the thread count of their bed linens.

It’s also for adventurers who like to scramble over ancient Mayan ruins, get up-close-and-personal to grey whales or enjoy shots of tequila in a sand-floored bar. It’s an enthralling mix of the past and the present, the authentic and the surreal; with scenery as diverse as cactus-studded deserts, long lonely beaches, busy industrial cities and sleepy colonial towns.

Consider two quite distinct areas; the rich man’s playground known as the Baja Peninsula, boasting the PacificOcean on one side, the Sea of Cortez on the other and cosmopolitan towns like the very fashionable Cabo San Lucas. Or make for the Mayan Riviera, where the white sandy beaches and clear Caribbean waters around Playa del Carmen combinewith theMayan ruins at Chichén, Itza, Tulumand Coba to create a beach holidaywith some definite added extras.

BAJA PENINSULA: BRITISH AIRWAYS FLY NON-STOP TO DALLAS, TEXAS (FLYING TIME APPROX. 10 HOURS) AND SAME-DAY CONNECTIONS ARE AVAILABLEWITH AMERICANAIRLINES TOSANJOSÉ DEL CABOAIRPORT (FLYING TIME APPROX. 3 HOURS).
MAYAN RIVIERA: BRITISH AIRWAYS OFFER REGULAR FLIGHTS TO MEXICO CITY (FLYING TIME APPROX. 11 HOURS) AND SAME-DAY CONNECTIONS ARE AVAILABLE TO CANCUN WITH AERO MEXICO OR MEXICANA. (FLYING TIME APPROX. 2 HOURS).