Punta del Este: South America's hottest resort destination
No trip to Uruguay is complete without a stop in hip and happening Punta del Este. My visit, in late January, was at the height of the summer season, when vacationers arrive en masse to play, party and take pleasure in the sunshine. No longer a river estuary, it's officially all ocean here, and Punta del Este is a grownup resort town with miles of sandy beaches and blue waters, the country's hottest nightclubs, best casinos and shows, and the highest concentration of fine restaurants.
If you're Uruguayan, Argentine, Brazilian -- or a celebrity from anywhere in the world -- there is no place better to be seen than "Punta." Property and rental prices are higher here than anywhere else in Uruguay, as is the cost of living. But expats here say they wouldn't live anywhere else.
"Absolutely, the best quality of life is found in Punta del Este," says Washington state transplant David Hammond, who has lived in Punta for six years and gave me a tour of its many eclectic neighborhoods. Not all are wall-to-wall, chrome-and-glass high rises as are found on the tip of the peninsula. There are many shady, single-family residential neighborhoods, too.
Bill Tickle, a British expat who retired to Punta permanently with his wife in 2010, lives in the San Rafael neighborhood -- cut straight from the cloth of gentrified Europe or Americana at its Norman Rockwell best. Quiet, tree-lined streets, tidy homes with perfectly clipped lawns . . . . The only giveaway that you're anywhere but is the cackle of parrots as they flit from tree to tree.
"Punta del Este is one of the best places in the world," Bill says. "There's a real sense of optimism here. People are working, they're getting ahead, and the international community is attracting that type of person, too. They see opportunity.
"Punta del Este is clean, it's safe, you can wear your best jewelry and drive an expensive car and have no fear of robbery or anything else. Plus, it works . . . electricity never goes off, and everything is organized, including the town hall. It's a comfortable place to come on holiday and a comfortable place to live . . . everything is here.
"How much you spend to live here will depend on your lifestyle. We do like to go to the port for dinner, which can be pricey, but we also go to the nearby town of Maldonado, where the food and drink are more reasonable."
Reasonable. That word stuck with me, because so much about Uruguay is "reasonable": the pace of life; the national penchant for tolerance and equality; the cost of organic foods, public transportation, health care; the optimism; and, yes, the quality of life. It's hard to name a place that provides more reasons to stay.
More from InternationalLiving.com:
