NAIO HOTEL & VILLAS

Palomino sits where the Sierra Nevada snowcaps, a jungle river, and the Caribbean all converge, which sounds made up but isn't. Naio is the rare luxury option in a town still thick with backpacker hostels, with thatched-roof villas around a stone-and-turquoise pool, palapa loungers on the sand, and private pools opening into airy, minimalist living rooms. The restaurant and bar run a notch dressier than anything else in the village.