Highlights of A Month in Yucatan Mexico

Hey Everyone!

Oh my goodness life is cruising along down here in Yucatan Mexico. We really didn’t know what to expect and prepare for – would getting around from point A to B prove to be difficult? Would there be a lot of fuss or hassling? Would everything just seem to take a lot of effort?

After having spend a month traveling around a bit of Yucatan Mexico we can pleasantly say everything has been so easy! We’ve taken buses, collectivos (small vans) bikes and walked all around. Yucatan Mexico is an absolutely wonderful place to begin one’s travels.

A few highlights include:

Beaching it Up!

Love it or hate it – Playa del Carmen has some extraordinary long stretches of sandy beaches. There is development along this area and some people say it’s “way too touristy” for them. For us, we used it for what we wanted to use it for and that was the beach. We went off and found a some great patches of sand with not too many people around. We stayed in the water every day for as long as we could without absolutely burning ourselves.

There was lots of creature comforts, good food and we stayed at a great place for $28 USD per night with a roof top pool!

For having a super easily accessible beach with warm water Playa del Carmen was the ticket.

HOT TIP: Did you know we didn’t pay for our plane tickets to Mexico? We easily used our travel points from this Chase card. I will never recommend to use credit cards if you are not 100% solid on paying them off in full every month. But if you can, this card has great rewards perks and is the same card we use and carry around ourselves.

Ancient Ruins on the Beach

Heading south a small jaunt we stayed a week in Tulum. Tulum’s reputation is for being a hippie town. We had mixed opinions on that. The main part of town is 3 kms back from the beach. Along a good portion of the beach is fancy hippie boutique hotels. Within this stretch the beach is pretty inaccessible and unless you want to drop some cash you’re better off staying in the main part of town. We had a fantastic airbnb for $18 a night with a kitchen and fast wifi.

Tulum is well known for having some of the best preserved coastal Mayan sites. This was one of the last cities built and inhabited by the Mayans. It served as an important trade route stopping point.

The area around Tulum is also dotted with amazing cenotes. We got to swim with turtles in the Grand Cenote.

And umm…we got to swim with a crocodile in Casa Cenote. Never ever have I heard of a place where it was ok to swim with a crocodile. When we paid our entrance fee the guy said we may see the baby crocodile. Well this was a pretty big baby to me!

However despite the idea that we should be afraid this crocodile is still pretty small and just wanted to be left alone so it could sun on its rock. Still – if you had asked me four months ago if I would wake up one day, ride my bicycle to a cenote and swim with a crocodile I would have said, ‘No way!’ One just never knows what will happen on the road.

More Ruins in the Jungle!

We hopped on a bus for a day trip from Tulum to Coba for more ruins. In Mexico it isn’t so much that we climb mountains – we climb ruins!

In the words of Chris, “Must Go Up Every Ruin.”

The cool thing is when ruins get preserved for their cultural heritage, by default large tracts of land also are preserved for wildlife habitat. It’s a win-win. There’s Tiff sitting a top another Mayan ruin in Yucatan Mexico dating back hundreds of years to the pre-Columbian Mayan culture.

Wonder of the World & UNESCO World Heritage Site

We both finally got a chance to set our eyes on Chitzen Itza. This site is famous in the Yucatan for it’s monumental architecture. The name means ‘mouth of the well of Itza’ referring to the Sacred Cenote located within the site.

We stayed near the park at the charming Doralba Inn Chichen for about $25 usd per night including breakfast.

HOT TIP: This hotel is listed on Expedia, Agoda and Airbnb. We found the best deal on Airbnb so always look for which booking site offer the best deal.

If you are just signing up for AirBnB use this link! You will get approx $20-40 off your first booking!!!

Doesn’t Chris look so happy chilling in that pool?

Renting Cars to go off into the Jungle

Basing ourselves out of Chetmul we rented a car for two days to head out to the remote site of Calakmul.  To get to the site it was a two hour drive one way once you pull off the main road.

We loved this site because currently it only receives about 60 visitors a day. Not many people make their way out to here so it still gives that nice remote feeling.

This area is also designated as the Calakmul biosphere conserving over 700,000 ha of land.

Sailing Across Borders

For a first time ever we entered a new country by boat! We hopped on a ferry from Chetmul, Mexico and made our way to San Pedro, Belize. All of this was an extremely easy and pleasant way to travel to another country. Hop on a boat and an hour later you get off in another country.

Then for the fist time ever we met up with friends in another country! Our park ranger friends flew down to meet us in on the island of San Pedro, Belize.

We had *so much* fun. Golf cart adventure, sunsets at secrete beaches and a whole lot more. Once we become adults our friends become our chosen family.  Yes, we do get to go on a lot of trips, but to have the opportunity to have such a fun time with our friends in Belize, now that was a trip of a life time.

It’s so hard to fathom we’ve been on the road a month and a half already. Every day just feels like it goes by so fast. Thank you so much everyone for coming along on this journey with us. Central America is a place we have been so curious to explore more for so long. So onwards and here’s to what is next. 🙂

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With the holidays coming up, in case you need any gift ideas, we wrote this post: 11 Great Gifts for Travelers, Campers and Adventurers

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