What to do in Mexico? Part 1.
Few people travel to Mexico independently; it's not like going to the Black Sea or even flying to Europe. Many think it's an extremely dangerous adventure, and even if they want to visit this country, they keep putting it off "until better times".
If you've long dreamed of Mexico but don't know how to properly plan an independent trip without the help of travel agents, the story of St. Petersburg travelers Alexey and Polina will help you get your bearings, build a route, and not miss anything.
"In February 2017, we took a road trip across the Yucatan Peninsula. We covered our 2,500 km route in 13 days. It was decided to spend a few days on the coast at the beginning and end of the trip, and dedicate the middle of the vacation to exploring attractions far from the sea; such a packed itinerary involves visiting a new place almost every day.
It's worth noting right away that Mexico is a huge country. At the very beginning of planning, we still had illusions that we could manage to fly to Mexico City for a couple of days, and even to the Pacific Ocean. But in the end, we decided to focus on the Yucatan Peninsula, which includes several states differing in nature, local flavor, and even weather. This is the fabulous Caribbean coast. This is a colossal concentration of mysterious ancient Mayan cities. These are underground cenote lakes, biosphere reserves, and amusement parks. Our travel itinerary turned out to be very packed, and in this post, we will tell you about its first part – the Riviera Maya.
The first thing that became clear even during the planning stage was that Cancun is an "all-inclusive" paradise for Americans. The Caribbean coast is beautiful everywhere – a Bounty-like scene with azure water, palm trees, and white sand. But it's important to understand that the so-called Hotel Zone in Cancun itself only offers this beauty to hotel guests. The cost of staying in a beachfront hotel starts from 10-15 thousand per night (without meals), and the fewer nights you book, the more expensive each night becomes. However, you can find very cheap accommodation in Cancun, but this is Cancun city, which is quite far from the sea.
We recommend starting the route from the classic resort town of Playa del Carmen, which is approximately 50 km from the airport. Car rental at Cancun airport with full insurance and zero deductible cost us about 37,000 rubles.
Playa del Carmen features many people, shops, restaurants and cafes, paid equipped beaches with various payment schemes, few palm trees, and a noticeable high tide by evening. However, key places are within walking distance. There's an American Walmart supermarket where you can buy a diving mask, an inflatable mattress, sunscreen, and many other useful vacation items at reasonable prices, which you don't necessarily need to bring from home.
65 kilometers from Playa del Carmen is another resort – Tulum (65 km from Playa) – reports promised even more beautiful beaches, fewer crowds, and a relaxed atmosphere there. So, for the next two days, we booked accommodation in Tulum.
Tulum is a city consisting of two main parts: the area around the highway and the beach area, with approximately 6 km between them. This means you can live in the colorful "center" of the city with a wide choice of places and a certain freedom of choice, for example, in prices. And at the same time, you'd travel 6 km to the beach and back daily. This can be done on foot (though it's long and hot), by bicycle, by car, or by taxi (approximately 100 pesos per trip). By bicycle, you can explore both nearby spots and slightly more distant locations (e.g., beaches) – there are bike paths.
Alternatively, you can live on the coast, which will be significantly more expensive, but not as expensive as in Cancun, for example. Hotels on the Tulum coast have their own beaches, often their own restaurants, and many even have their own clubs, attracting trendsetters from all around. Accommodation for one night starts from 6 thousand rubles (on average, 10-12 thousand per room), and the more nights you book, the cheaper each night becomes. There are many eco-hotels, boutique hotels, in general, small and cozy places.
Along the road from Playa del Carmen to Tulum (65 km) is concentrated a large part of interesting locations, such as eco-parks, semi-wild beaches, and underground cenote lakes.
Once there, we realized that for the entire vacation (especially if you don't have many days), you can stay in one place and visit nearby attractions on self-guided day trips. Therefore, if you bought tickets for less than 10 days, the first thing you need to do is choose: Playa del Carmen or Tulum - and try to book accommodation as early as possible.
Staying in this stretch, you can also do without a rental car, moving around on local "collectivo" minibuses. Taxis between cities are expensive, but within cities, they are quite affordable. You can bargain.
So, what we managed to do:
1) swim in a natural environment with turtles at Akumal beach;
2) visit the semi-wild, and in our subjective opinion, most beautiful beach – Xpu-Ha, which is 6 km from Akumal;
3) compile our own ranking of numerous underground cenote lakes, but definitely visit Cenote Calavera (which visually resembles a skull), as well as Gran Cenote. These places are very close to Tulum. The average cost of visiting a cenote is 100 MXN, the required time is 1-2 hours, and equipment rental for diving and snorkeling is available. But we recommend having your own masks to save a little money - and for hygienic reasons =)
4) visit the Mayan fortress – Tulum, which is located right on the coast, and you can swim on a beach enclosed on all sides beneath the walls of the ancient city. Bring your swimsuits! Visiting Tulum fortress is possible from 8 AM to 5 PM, entrance is 70 MXN; we recommend taking a small train that transports you from the entrance to the ruins for 20 MXN to save energy.
5) visit the ancient city of Coba, located 47 km from Tulum. The pyramids, or as they are called here – structures, within Coba are located at the maximum distance from each other compared to other complexes. Bicycle and rickshaw rentals are even available inside for 40 MXN. We rented bicycles, explored the entire complex, climbed the main pyramid - and all of this took an hour and a half.
We managed to complete this program in the first 4 days of our trip. Then we headed deeper into the peninsula – but more on that in our next story. We will tell you how to plan a visit to remote and therefore less popular, but more mysterious ruins of the Mayan civilization. Where to find colonies of pink flamingos depending on the time of year. In which part of Yucatan there is a freshwater lagoon where shades of blue can rival the landscapes of the Maldives. Which Mexican dishes you absolutely must try to understand the local mentality. What traffic peculiarities you need to be prepared for and how to refuel your car without the risk of being scammed. In short, we are ready to prepare you for the most eventful journey – so see you soon!"
"In February 2017, we took a road trip across the Yucatan Peninsula. We covered our 2,500 km route in 13 days. It was decided to spend a few days on the coast at the beginning and end of the trip, and dedicate the middle of the vacation to exploring attractions far from the sea; such a packed itinerary involves visiting a new place almost every day.
It's worth noting right away that Mexico is a huge country. At the very beginning of planning, we still had illusions that we could manage to fly to Mexico City for a couple of days, and even to the Pacific Ocean. But in the end, we decided to focus on the Yucatan Peninsula, which includes several states differing in nature, local flavor, and even weather. This is the fabulous Caribbean coast. This is a colossal concentration of mysterious ancient Mayan cities. These are underground cenote lakes, biosphere reserves, and amusement parks. Our travel itinerary turned out to be very packed, and in this post, we will tell you about its first part – the Riviera Maya.
The first thing that became clear even during the planning stage was that Cancun is an "all-inclusive" paradise for Americans. The Caribbean coast is beautiful everywhere – a Bounty-like scene with azure water, palm trees, and white sand. But it's important to understand that the so-called Hotel Zone in Cancun itself only offers this beauty to hotel guests. The cost of staying in a beachfront hotel starts from 10-15 thousand per night (without meals), and the fewer nights you book, the more expensive each night becomes. However, you can find very cheap accommodation in Cancun, but this is Cancun city, which is quite far from the sea.
We recommend starting the route from the classic resort town of Playa del Carmen, which is approximately 50 km from the airport. Car rental at Cancun airport with full insurance and zero deductible cost us about 37,000 rubles.
Playa del Carmen features many people, shops, restaurants and cafes, paid equipped beaches with various payment schemes, few palm trees, and a noticeable high tide by evening. However, key places are within walking distance. There's an American Walmart supermarket where you can buy a diving mask, an inflatable mattress, sunscreen, and many other useful vacation items at reasonable prices, which you don't necessarily need to bring from home.
65 kilometers from Playa del Carmen is another resort – Tulum (65 km from Playa) – reports promised even more beautiful beaches, fewer crowds, and a relaxed atmosphere there. So, for the next two days, we booked accommodation in Tulum.
Tulum is a city consisting of two main parts: the area around the highway and the beach area, with approximately 6 km between them. This means you can live in the colorful "center" of the city with a wide choice of places and a certain freedom of choice, for example, in prices. And at the same time, you'd travel 6 km to the beach and back daily. This can be done on foot (though it's long and hot), by bicycle, by car, or by taxi (approximately 100 pesos per trip). By bicycle, you can explore both nearby spots and slightly more distant locations (e.g., beaches) – there are bike paths.
Alternatively, you can live on the coast, which will be significantly more expensive, but not as expensive as in Cancun, for example. Hotels on the Tulum coast have their own beaches, often their own restaurants, and many even have their own clubs, attracting trendsetters from all around. Accommodation for one night starts from 6 thousand rubles (on average, 10-12 thousand per room), and the more nights you book, the cheaper each night becomes. There are many eco-hotels, boutique hotels, in general, small and cozy places.
Along the road from Playa del Carmen to Tulum (65 km) is concentrated a large part of interesting locations, such as eco-parks, semi-wild beaches, and underground cenote lakes.
Once there, we realized that for the entire vacation (especially if you don't have many days), you can stay in one place and visit nearby attractions on self-guided day trips. Therefore, if you bought tickets for less than 10 days, the first thing you need to do is choose: Playa del Carmen or Tulum - and try to book accommodation as early as possible.
Staying in this stretch, you can also do without a rental car, moving around on local "collectivo" minibuses. Taxis between cities are expensive, but within cities, they are quite affordable. You can bargain.
So, what we managed to do:
1) swim in a natural environment with turtles at Akumal beach;
2) visit the semi-wild, and in our subjective opinion, most beautiful beach – Xpu-Ha, which is 6 km from Akumal;
3) compile our own ranking of numerous underground cenote lakes, but definitely visit Cenote Calavera (which visually resembles a skull), as well as Gran Cenote. These places are very close to Tulum. The average cost of visiting a cenote is 100 MXN, the required time is 1-2 hours, and equipment rental for diving and snorkeling is available. But we recommend having your own masks to save a little money - and for hygienic reasons =)
4) visit the Mayan fortress – Tulum, which is located right on the coast, and you can swim on a beach enclosed on all sides beneath the walls of the ancient city. Bring your swimsuits! Visiting Tulum fortress is possible from 8 AM to 5 PM, entrance is 70 MXN; we recommend taking a small train that transports you from the entrance to the ruins for 20 MXN to save energy.
5) visit the ancient city of Coba, located 47 km from Tulum. The pyramids, or as they are called here – structures, within Coba are located at the maximum distance from each other compared to other complexes. Bicycle and rickshaw rentals are even available inside for 40 MXN. We rented bicycles, explored the entire complex, climbed the main pyramid - and all of this took an hour and a half.
We managed to complete this program in the first 4 days of our trip. Then we headed deeper into the peninsula – but more on that in our next story. We will tell you how to plan a visit to remote and therefore less popular, but more mysterious ruins of the Mayan civilization. Where to find colonies of pink flamingos depending on the time of year. In which part of Yucatan there is a freshwater lagoon where shades of blue can rival the landscapes of the Maldives. Which Mexican dishes you absolutely must try to understand the local mentality. What traffic peculiarities you need to be prepared for and how to refuel your car without the risk of being scammed. In short, we are ready to prepare you for the most eventful journey – so see you soon!"
