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Smoke billows from burning vehicles after a wave of violence in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, on Tuesday. The city has been a winter haven for Canadian snowbirds.@morelifediares via Instagram/Reuters
Rich Jeanneau was watching the Canada–U.S. Olympic gold medal hockey game on Sunday morning when his wife, Lisa, began to smell smoke.
In their condominium in Puerto Vallarta, where the Saskatoon couple has spent their winters for about a decade, Mr. Jeanneau, 59, first checked the stove.
Then he looked outside and saw three cars were on fire. He went up to the roof of their building and counted roughly 25 fires burning across the city, including at a mattress store across from their condo.
“We were scared,” he said. “This isn’t the Mexico we know and love.”
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The unrest followed reports that Mexico’s army had killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, as part of a government crackdown on cartels. Soon afterward, violence flared in parts of Jalisco state, where Puerto Vallarta is located.
The federal government warned Canadian travellers to Mexico to remain cautious even as the situation becomes more stable. Major airlines said Tuesday that they will resume normal service to Puerto Vallarta after temporarily suspending flights following the violence.
For the Jeanneaus, who bought their Puerto Vallarta condo about eight years ago, the violence was unsettling.
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Rich Jeanneau and his wife, Lisa.Supplied
The city has become a booming hub for Canadian snowbirds, many of whom own property there. But the recent violence, along with economic turmoil in Cuba and continuing tensions between Canada and the United States, have retirees confronting how safe, and how stable, their winter escapes really are.
Stephen Fine, president of Snowbird Advisor, which provides services that include insurance and currency exchange, said Sunday’s upheaval has shaken the Puerto Vallarta snowbird community.
“It has a history of being a safe place and a very popular destination for both snowbirds and other Canadian travellers,” Mr. Fine said.
The Mexican city has become even more popular in recent months, as some Canadians who might once have wintered in U.S. destinations such as Arizona or Florida have looked elsewhere amid rising Canada–U.S. tensions.
A blog post on Snowbird Advisor described the Bay of Banderas – the large bay with Puerto Vallarta at its centre – as the “new Florida for many Canadian snowbirds,” citing modestly priced rental apartments and condo developments, along with an international airport that handles direct flights from several Canadian cities.
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Tourists on the boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday. Many Canadian snowbirds own property in the city.ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
Other traditional sunspots have also been disrupted. Cuba has faced fuel shortages linked to intensifying U.S. sanctions, and earlier this month major Canadian airlines, including Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat, suspended service to the country.
In November, 2025, before the energy crisis worsened, Cuba’s Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos García Granda, said Canadians are its “most important visitors,” and that snowbirds were a major market for the country, according to a report from Travel Market Report, a trade publication for retail travel advisers in North America.
Aaron Wong, a real estate broker who helps Canadians buy property in Mexico, said since 2020, he has seen the number of Canadians buying homes in Mexico quadruple, with much of that activity in Puerto Vallarta. The affordability has been a massive draw for Canadian clients, Mr. Wong said.
He said that among his Canadian snowbird clients, he has seen an increase in interest in Mexico, especially in the past year since the implementation of the U.S. tariffs.
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Tourists walk past a burned shop in Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday.ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
Victor Vera, originally from Mexico City, moved to Puerto Vallarta 28 years ago, and he works as a singer in a band and runs Vera Realty with his wife. He said the city is a “winter home for thousands of Canadians,” with about 80 per cent of his real estate clients looking to buy or rent in Puerto Vallarta coming from Canada.
In her 80-unit condominium in Puerto Vallarta, Laurie Beavis, 62, estimates at least half the units are filled by Canadians. The city has been her winter refuge for more than 40 years. Now retired, she spends four months each winter there with her husband in the condo they own, away from their home in Saskatoon.
On Sunday morning, she was out for a walk when a local resident stopped her and told her to go home because it was not safe. Then she heard explosions. “We were all shaking,” she said.
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Laurie Beavis and her husband.Supplied
In her building, residents gathered for a potluck on Sunday night inside their gates while they remained locked in, because some people did not have food, she said.
“It’s unbelievable how people come together,” she said.
For many snowbirds, the strong communities they build abroad make it difficult to leave, even when instability hits. While some Canadians are also avoiding U.S. destinations this year, many continue to return.
Mr. Jeanneau and Ms. Beavis both plan to stay in Puerto Vallarta. The situation has already begun to settle, Mr. Jeanneau said, and after years of building a life there, leaving does not feel right.
“This is half my home,” Mr. Jeanneau said. “My Mexican friends can’t leave. Why should I?”
