On Location: Postcard from Los Cabos, where a new luxe rises

STORY BY SHINAN GOVANI

It’s on: the Beverly Hills-ifcation of Cabo San Lucas.

Though a hot spot for years – it is virtually a second home for Jennifer Aniston, and was the playground for the boys on Entourage, in a fictionalized Hollywood, too, if you will recall – a fresh glaze of glamour is setting.

“That’s where the Kardashians go to get their stem cell treatment,” a friend casually mentioned whilst we whipped through a main drag in the resort city that is also a medical tourism hub in the southern reaches of the Baja California peninsula, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

Bodily regeneration ain’t the only name of the game, though.

At least nine fancy-pant hotels are scheduled to open in Los Cabos (the county as a whole) between now and the end of the decade, adding to the approximately 185 properties that sit here today.

Modest, compared to many sun destinations, sure, but it’s the growth in the luxury market that is raising temperatures, specifically (it’s a “dry heat,” baby).

The wave began perhaps with the arrival of a Four Seasons some months back. It wasn’t just any Four Seasons – a statement Four Seasons, sitting above a shimmering Sea of Cortez.

A spiffy, new Park Hyatt is opening any day now. In the works, too: both a new St. Regis, situated on some bluffs, and Cabo’s very own Soho House too (a private member’s club with 15 casas, plus residences).

Puttering around the area during the annual Los Cabos VIP Summit in November, I heard oodles of chatter about a super-luxe Aman retreat that has also been announced – call it Amanvari – as well as Raffle’s first North American resort, dubbed, rather grandiosely, Raffles Estera East Cape Resort & Residences.

The Canadian connection

It goes on and on, as illustrated by the grin on Rodrigo Esponda’s face.

The new energy? According to the managing director of the Los Cabos Tourism Board, it is driven, in part, by Canadians, who already make up the second largest international market for Los Cabos.

There's been a 20 per cent growth rate, driven mostly by visitors from Ontario and Quebec (WestJet recently followed Air Canada’s lead in offering direct flights from both Toronto and Montreal).

Notably, too: Canadians stay twice the length as U.S. visitors, with 10 days on average, and are eager for experiences beyond the beach.

“We are the most international destination in Mexico,” said Esponda, noting that is also quite secure, and that the only way to come here is by air.

With so much action in Cabo these days, and plenty still to come, I decided to do a glamour check-in during my visit!

Here, now, four ways you can already add some glitz to your trip:

Shop & drop

If there is a single harbinger of the growing luxury scene in these parts, it came with the arrival, recently, of Ánima Village.

Just don’t call it a “mall,” man. Combining stone, terracotta, and a desert landscape vibe – a design led by Sordo Madaleno – it’s the closest thing here to The Grove, in L.A., meets the strolling lure of Lincoln Road, in Miami.

When I visited, they were just putting some of the finishing touches on its first phase, headlined by various lifestyle brands like Nike, Hugo Boss, Ferragamo, Sandro, and All-Saints, plus a sprinkling of restaurants, juice bars, and cafes.

The next phase, in 2026, is when things go up an even bigger notch, with a veritable who’s-who expected to set up “shop."

Literally. Think: Brunello Cucinelli, Carolina Herrera, Prada, Valentino, Dior, and Cartier. Just to name a few!

Set inside the Cabo del Solo community – a stretch of in-vogue coast where the Hyatt is also rising – it’s more than just shopping. That’s the message! It is what one local newspaper called a potential new “evening circuit.” Sunset at a nearby resort, shopping and art at Ánima, then a late dinner and drinks without ever going into town traffic.

A new It zone, hemmed together with the kind of aspirational shopping that you would normally associate with places like Mayfair, in London, or Polanco, in Mexico City.

Rustic luxe

Less Gucci, more bougie Gilligan’s Island: the draw of Acre Resort.

Rising in the foothills of San José del Cabo, and unfurling at the end of a dirt road – all the more the surprise – it is the opposite of a “beach resort.”

Made up of a network of whimsical tree houses, plus some Bond-worthy villas, it is the swishiest example of eco-tourism you’re gonna find.

In a word: alluring. Little wonder that it was ranked #3 “Sexiest Hotel” in the world by Cosmopolitan magazine.

“60 mango tress on property,” mentioned our host while zipping us around in a golf cart, and giving us the drill on the working organic farm that Acre still sits on, and its reinvention made possible c/o two Canadians, Cameron Watt and Stuart McPherson, about a decade ago.

So much fauna, so many nooks, beautiful pools…even a whole animal sanctuary on site. Dogs and donkeys and horses and peacocks, oh my!

Meanwhile, the moody, main restaurant, which attracts tons of visitors every night, glows like something out of a Mario Testino photograph, and puts a new accent on “farm-to-table.” A very un-Cabo Cabo feel!

Prime rez

If there is one place to sit to indulge your inner “influencer” in Cabo, it’s one of the two pod-like banquettes at Arbol.

Set amidst infinity pools at Las Ventanas Al Paraíso, a Rosewood property, it’s high-octane glamour, especially when the sun has set.

A restaurant in Mexico run by a Thai chef with a tandoor grill, and a fully, Asian-spanning menu (consider a rich Kerala lobster curry with tamarind, coconut, and Jeera rice!)

All of it a backdrop, in fact, to the true palette-opener: Abrol’s design and setting, complete with views of the sea, twinkling lights aplenty, a pueblo-like whitewashed decor, and Tim Burton-y tree sculptures.

The hotel itself, which has been going since 1997, is new again, thanks to some good, old-fashioned aughts-era nostalgia.

Indeed, this is where Paris Hilton hosted a birthday party for Britney Spears recently. Can’t get any more aughts than that, right??

It helps that it only has 71 rooms and suites, adding to its exclusive feel.

Psssst: don’t sleep on the honest-to-goodness “speakeasy” hidden inside the hotel (you need a code to punch into the typewriter by the front door).

Dubbed La Botica – translation: “drugstore” in English – it’s impeccably designed in the art deco style.

Very Guy Ritchie meet Jay Gatsby, complete with an artist-in-residence spinning Afro-Cuban tunes.

Sea and be seen

In the “Never Gets Old” department, it’s hard to beat El Arco – a natural sea arch, sitting on a patch of water called Land’s End, where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean.

A piece of organic sculpture that has become synonymous with Cabo itself and the backdrop for more selfies than there are stars in the universe.

What the White Cliffs are to Dover, or the Rock in Gibraltar, it is to Cabo. Iconic, moreover, in that that the arch existed roughly 30 million years before the sea itself, the result of shifting tectonic plates!

If you can get thee to a yacht, or book a sailing excursion – we used Cabo Sailing Ocean Adventures – there is no better way to experience the beauty of the place.

The kind of luxe only nature could possibly provide.

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