Americas · Mexico
Tulum & the Riviera Maya
A Maya temple above a palm beach, cenotes in the jungle and the best-looking hotels in the Caribbean.
The Riviera Maya runs south from Cancún for 130 kilometres of white sand, reef and jungle. Tulum is the temple town at the end of it, with a ruined city on a cliff above the sea and a beach road of thatched hotels that set the style for the whole Caribbean. Between the two are Playa del Carmen, the island of Cozumel, the turtle bay at Akumal and hundreds of cenotes, the freshwater sinkholes that the Maya called the mouths of the underworld.
The palm: Coconut palm
The coconut palms along the Tulum beach road are mostly Malayan dwarfs, replanted after a disease called lethal yellowing killed the old groves in the 1980s. In the jungle behind them the Maya still use the chit palm for thatch, and the tall, straight thatched roofs of the beach hotels are its work.
When to go
Sights
Tulum ruins
The only Maya city on the coast, walled on three sides, with a beach below the temple. Go at eight.
Cenotes
Dos Ojos, Gran Cenote and hundreds more: swim, snorkel or dive in freshwater caves.
Cobá
A jungle city with a pyramid, an hour inland, and bicycles between the ruins.
Sian Ka’an
The biosphere reserve south of Tulum: mangroves, dolphins and a lagoon float at Muyil.
Beaches
Playa Paraíso
The north end of Tulum’s beach, palms leaning over white sand and the ruins in view.
Akumal
Turtles grazing on seagrass in a sheltered bay, half an hour north of Tulum.
Playa Xpu-Há
A wide, calm beach between Playa del Carmen and Akumal with two beach clubs and nothing else.
Events
- Nov
Day of the Dead
Altars, marigolds and the Xcaret festival in the first days of November.
- Nov
Riviera Maya Jazz Festival
Free concerts on the beach at Playa del Carmen at the end of November.
- Mar
Spring equinox at Chichén Itzá
The serpent of light descends the pyramid on 20 and 21 March.
For remote workers
A comfortable month: about €1,700
Playa del Carmen is the established remote-work town with coworkings, gyms and a walkable centre; Tulum town, not the beach, is the affordable version. Mexico grants up to 180 days on arrival and a temporary resident visa for longer stays. Fibre is fine in town, patchy on the beach road, and the beach hotels run on generators.
Compare as a baseFor families
Akumal’s bay has turtles you can snorkel with from the sand, Playa Paraíso is calm and the cenotes are swimming pools carved by nature. Seaweed can pile up between May and August, so check the daily reports. Hospitals in Playa del Carmen and Cancún are good.
Rank for your familyThree things to know
- Fly to Cancún; the ADO bus and the new Maya Train connect the coast, and colectivo vans run every ten minutes along the highway.
- December to April is dry and busy; May and June are hot with less seaweed than July and August.
- Stay in Tulum town for prices and on the beach road for the postcard; the two are a fifteen minute bicycle ride apart.