The beach is two blocks away. The best water is underground.
Which cenote you can actually swim in. What the Chichén Itzá day costs once entry and lunch are counted. Reviews of the tours you can book in Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Puerto Morelos and Akumal.
Four bookings a first week on this coast is built around.
A cenote swim, the pyramid day inland, the ruins above the sea and a morning with the turtles at Akumal. What each costs, and what the people who went say about it.
01The cenote morningMagical Cenote and Paradise Lagoon Snorkeling AdventureA jungle sinkhole and a lagoon swim, back in town by lunch. The day that explains why anybody comes inland at all.
02The pyramid dayChichén Itzá, Cenote and Valladolid with Lunch and transportationChichén Itzá, a cenote and an hour in Valladolid on the way home, with lunch and the coach included. Long, hot, and the one nobody regrets.
03Tulum in one runTulum Ruins, Turtles in Akumal and Cenote tourThe clifftop ruins at opening, turtles at Akumal, a cenote to rinse off. Three of the coast’s headline sights in a single pickup.
04The turtle swimHalf-Day Sea Turtle and Cenote Snorkeling Tour from Cancun & Riviera MayaHalf a day in Akumal bay where the green turtles graze the seagrass in waist-deep water. Fins, a guide, no boat needed.
Every cenote is a hole in the same limestone. They are not the same swim.
An open pool with a rope swing, a half-collapsed cavern with light coming through the roof, or a flooded cave that needs a torch and a guide. Four kinds of day in the fresh water, what it costs to get in, and which town each one leaves from.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Hidden Cenote Swim: Snorkeling, Sea Turtles and Beachside Lunch
Cenotes near Playa del CarmenShort drives inland, back on the sand by four.
Cenotes around TulumJungle sinkholes, usually paired with the ruins.
Cavern and cave divesTorch beams, haloclines and no daylight at all.
The underground riverHelmet, headlamp, an hour walking in the dark.
All 131 cenote days →
Playa del Carmen and Tulum, and the quieter stops on the road between them.
A ferry-port beach town, a ruin on a cliff, a fishing village on the reef, a bay full of turtles, and the two Maya cities inland that everybody drives out to see. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Four ruined cities, and only one of them needs a six o’clock pickup.
Chichén Itzá is two and a half hours inland and full by ten. Tulum is forty minutes up the coast and stands on a cliff over the sea. Cobá is jungle you can still walk into, Ek Balam is the quiet one. Choose by how early you are willing to get up.
- 1Chichen Itza, Cenote and Valladolid Small Group Day Tripfrom $214
- 2VIP Chichen Itza Private Tourfrom $285
- 3Tulum Ruins, Turtles in Akumal and Cenote tourfrom $129
Playa del Carmen is a beach town that mostly works as a departure point.
Everything in Playa del Carmen →
Quinta Avenida runs one block back from the sand, the Cozumel ferry leaves from the pier at the end of it, and the vans for the jungle and the ruins collect outside the hotels before breakfast. These three carry more travellers than anything else in town.
A buggy into the jungle, then a cenote
Limestone tracks, dust, and a swim at the end of it to get the dust off. Morning departures are the ones to take: by two in the afternoon the jungle is an oven and the light has gone flat.
A taco crawl off Fifth Avenue
Five or six stops on the streets behind the tourist strip, where the al pastor spit is on the pavement and the salsa is somebody’s grandmother’s. Skip dinner beforehand.
Half a day on a chartered boat
Boats leave from Puerto Aventuras and Xpu-Ha for the reef and the sandbars, with a snorkel stop and drinks aboard. Split between six or eight people it costs less than it looks.
The most-booked days out between Cancún airport and Sian Ka’an.
Every day out on this coast →The trips more travellers take than anything else on the Riviera Maya, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Chichen Itza, Cenote and Valladolid Small Group Day Trip
Travel from Tulum to Chichen Itza with a small group of up to 10, then enjoy lunch and a walk in Valladolid before swimming at Cenote Xux Ha. Guides such as Miguel, Paloma, Santi, and Alondra bring Maya history to life, while snacks, drinks, tickets, and transfers are included.
From · $214
Read our review →
2
From Playa del Carmen ATV Adventure with Ziplines, Cenote
from $49
3
Half-Day Sea Turtle and Cenote Snorkeling Tour from Cancun & Riviera Maya
from $99
4
Tulum Guided Tour, Magical Cenote, Lagoon Snorkeling and Beachside Lunch
from $169
5
VIP Chichen Itza Private Tour
from $285
6
Playa del Carmen Buggy Tour with Cenote Swim and Mayan Village Visit
from $99
7
Tulum Ruins, Turtles in Akumal and Cenote tour
from $129
8
Playa del Carmen Walking Food Tour
from $84
Tulum is a walled Maya port on a cliff, with a road of beach clubs behind it.
The archaeological site opens at eight and the first hour is the only cool one. Inland the jungle is punched full of cenotes. South past the hotel road the pavement ends and the Sian Ka’an reserve begins, which is where the boats and the canals are.
Every Tulum day out →
The second-longest reef on earth starts a few hundred metres off this beach.
Green turtles graze the seagrass in Akumal bay in water you can stand up in. The Puerto Morelos reef sits inside a national marine park with a fixed guide-to-swimmer ratio. Whale sharks arrive off Isla Mujeres in summer. Almost all of it is a snorkel rather than a dive.
Behind the hotels the jungle starts, and it is full of engines and zip lines.
Buggies on limestone tracks, a rappel down into a sinkhole, hanging bridges through the canopy, and a cenote at the end to wash the dust off. Half a day, hotel pickup, and louder than anything else on this list.
- 1From Playa del Carmen ATV Adventure with Ziplines, Cenotefrom $49
- 2Tulum Guided Tour, Magical Cenote, Lagoon Snorkeling and Beachside Lunchfrom $169
- 3Playa del Carmen Buggy Tour with Cenote Swim and Mayan Village Visitfrom $99
What a day out on the Riviera Maya actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best days here come in under the cost of dinner on Fifth Avenue.
Cenote entries, the Cozumel ferry, reef snorkels out of Puerto Morelos and the shorter runs to the ruins.
The standards: Chichén Itzá with lunch, Tulum and Akumal in one pickup, buggy-and-cenote mornings.
Private guides, chartered boats out of Xpu-Ha, and the whale-shark day that only runs in summer.
Three things the Yucatán has that nowhere else on the Caribbean does.
Beaches and ruins are everywhere in this sea. A flooded cave system the size of a county, a biosphere still crossed by Maya canals, and the largest fish alive turning up on schedule are not.
The flooded caves
There is no river anywhere in the northern Yucatán. The rain goes straight down through the limestone and runs to the sea underground, and the surveyed passages behind Tulum now run to hundreds of kilometres. Divers go in on a line with three lights each. Snorkellers get the first chamber, where the daylight still reaches and the fresh water sits in a visible layer over the salt.
- 1Scuba Diving in Cenote Dos Ojos from Playa del Carmen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 453 reviews
- 2Scuba Diving in Cenote Kukulkan from Playa del Carmen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 370 reviews
- 3Cenote Cavern Tour and Swim with Sea Turtles in Akumal★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 256 reviews
Sian Ka’an
South of the Tulum beach road the tarmac gives out and a biosphere reserve the size of a small country begins: mangrove, lagoon, sandbar and a strip of reef, with a fishing village at Punta Allen four hours down a track. The canals through the marsh at Muyil were cut by the Maya as a trade route and you can still float them. Boats need a licensed operator; nobody drives themselves in.
- 1Sian Ka’an Adventure Full Day Trip to Punta Allen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,179 reviews
- 2Tulum Archaeological Site & Sian Ka’an Muyil Tour from Tulum★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 824 reviews
- 3Tulum: Mayan Ruins & Sian Kaan Tour with Boat Ride and Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 423 reviews
The whale sharks
From roughly June to September plankton blooms off the north-east tip of the peninsula and the biggest fish in the sea turns up to feed, in numbers that are hard to believe until the boat is sitting among them. Two swimmers in the water at a time, a guide with each pair, no touching and no scuba. Out of season the boats do not run at all.
- 1Whale Shark Encounter Full-Day all inclusive Tour from Riviera Maya★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 519 reviews
- 2Private Whale Shark All Inclusive Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 136 reviews
- 3Whale shark encounter Private tour – swim with whale shark cancun★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 63 reviews
Four Riviera Maya bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this coast can be arranged the night before over a beer on Fifth Avenue. These four run on dawn departures, capped group sizes and a season that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Chichen Itza, Cenote and Valladolid Small Group Day TripThe vans leave Playa del Carmen before six and the site is full by ten. Early-access departures are the first thing to sell out in high season.
- 02Whale Shark Encounter Full-Day all inclusive Tour from Riviera MayaThe sharks are only off the coast from roughly June to September. Outside those months there is nothing to book at any price.
- 03Cancun/Playa del Carmen: Tickets to Rio Secreto and LunchNumbers underground are capped and every group goes in with a guide and a helmet. There is no turning up at the gate.
- 04Xplor Park Admission with Lunch and Drinks *Official Product*Park admission is sold for a named date, and the good weeks go months out. Changing the date later is somebody else’s problem.
When the seaweed lands and the afternoon turns to thunder.
From about April to October the sargassum drifts onto this coast in mats and the beach smells of it, and most afternoons in that stretch end in a downpour. Both have the same answer: go inland and go under the ground. The cenotes are clear whatever the sea is doing, the caves hold the same temperature all year, and the ruins are better before noon anyway.
By place — Puerto Morelos down to Sian Ka’an
By kind of day — water, ruin, jungle or kitchen
Playa del Carmen, the cenotes, Tulum, Cobá: the run almost everybody does first.
The newest Riviera Maya tour reviews.
The rest of the Riviera Maya arrivals →
Private or Shared Mayan Temazcal Ritual from Tulum
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Tulum Ruins Exploration and Horseback Riding and Cenote Adventure
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Birdwatching in Coba from Tulum – Shared Group Tour
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Tequila and Mezcal Tasting in Tulum with Cheese Pairing
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“Private snorkeling with turtles in Akumal + Photos included”
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4 Hour Private Fishing Tour in Puerto Aventuras Riviera Maya
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