We Were Supposed to be Packing

We were supposed to be packing.

Boxes. Bubble wrap. A tape gun. It’s all sitting on the counter in the kitchen, perched atop a drawer full of expired vitamins that make me wonder who I was when I bought them.

We’re moving in a week to a new house. Logic has declared it’s “time to get serious.” The responsible thing, dare I say the adult thing, would’ve been to stay home yesterday, sort through more drawers, and brace ourselves for the impending chaos of relocation.

But then the ocean called.

And, not wanting to be ill-mannered, we answered.

Playa Careyeros is just over an hour from Puerto Vallarta, tucked north of Punta de Mita. It’s the kind of beach you don’t find so much as stumble upon. The road narrows, the cell signal drops, and Google Maps starts acting like it’s guessing.

There are no souvenir shops; no signs shouting “Paradise, This Way.” Just a dusty turnoff, a few bumps of hesitation, and then… magic.

It was exactly what we needed, so we grabbed backpacks, slammed the car doors with a “we’ll deal with packing later” attitude, and we hit the road.

We passed fruit stands, a guy on a motorbike transporting what had to be 47 coconuts, and the occasional goat. Somewhere beyond Punta de Mita, the road stopped pretending to be a road and became more of an optimistic suggestion.

And then, there it was…waiting.

The beach appeared like a revelation. The sand is a squint-inducing white, powdery and cool beneath your feet. The ocean stretches before you in lazy shades of turquoise, doing its best impression of total indifference. It’s beautiful. And I relate deeply.

We laid out our towels with a refreshing lack of urgency. Maybe ten people shared the entire beach. Some read books, others did yoga. A few floated in the water like philosophical jellyfish.

Playa Careyeros isn’t a beach for the loud or the loud-hearted. There are no vendors shouting “¡Cocos fríos!” and no bachelorette parties waging sonic warfare with Bad Bunny. There’s just space to exist; to be.

The sun didn’t push. It lingered behind wisps of cloud, painting the sky in the most remarkable blues. The breeze carried just enough gossip to rustle the palms and remind you that somewhere, someone was definitely answering emails.

Poor them.

And the water!

It didn’t demand. It invited us with a slow, “come here, I want to show you both something” kind of pull. The waves at Careyeros don’t crash. They sigh. They arrive like they’ve remembered you and consider you a friend. I floated out until time lost its edges and my legs forgot about gravity. I was a buoy; a salted thing suspended between sky and sea.

At one point, I turned to Omar, also drifting in the turquoise hush, and said, “We should definitely be packing right now.”

He didn’t even turn. He just replied, “Mmmmmm.”

Which, in Omar-speak, means, “Why are you ruining this with facts?”

It was a fair point, so I left it at that.

Time doesn’t move the same way at Playa Careyeros. It doesn’t tick. It sways like a hammock in the breeze, barely noticeable but entirely enough.

We floated in silence while pelicans glided overhead like feathered royalty. Somewhere down the beach, someone played guitar badly. It was perfect.

The packing could wait, and the guilt we expected to feel never fully arrived. There was just a quiet voice whispering, “Yeah. This was the right choice.”

Some days aren’t meant to be productive. Some days are meant to be beautiful. Meant to be days where you abandon the grind in favor of the glide. Days where you float instead of push, and the only thing you cross off your to-do list is, ‘was present for this.’

Around 5 PM, we gathered up our towels, made a futile attempt to shake off the sand, and climbed reluctantly back into the car. We were salty, damp, and very much not ready to face the fortress of boxes waiting at home.

The drive back was the kind of quiet that only follows a perfect day. It was full and light all at once. I muttered, “We should’ve stayed.”

And Omar, still crusted in salt and smiling like someone who had touched the good stuff, said, “We’ll go back. I’m pretty sure it’ll be again, and again, and again.”

Look, I’m not here to promote irresponsibility. But when the beach looks like that, when the ocean holds you like it was made for your exact mood, and your soul whispers, ‘what if we just didn’t today?,’ you listen.

You go. You float. You lose track of time. You let the sun melt the edges of your stress, and the tide take whatever urgency remains.

The packing can wait. Life, the real kind, the vitamin D-drenched kind, cannot.

As we drove back toward Vallarta, shoes full of sand, sun-kissed and tired, we didn’t talk much. The magnificence of the day had already said everything that needed saying.

We brought half the beach home in our shoes, and left a part of ourselves behind in the water.

If you ever find yourself in Puerto Vallarta with a free day, a little gas in the tank, and a desperate need to disappear from the grid, go to Playa Careyeros. Don’t overthink it. Don’t even pack that well. Just go.

Float, forget, and let the tide take it from there.

Everything else can wait.