What's awesome in Tulum, Mexico?
December 21, 2015 6:46 PM Subscribe
I asked, you answered: The lady pal and I are off to Tulum. And while it's quickly becoming the Hipster Cancun (Guilty as charged), I'm sure there's got to be some charm left. What's the best thing we can't miss? Bonus points for great meals, although all matter of ephemera and interest are appreciated.
And looking at your previous Mexico question, I still recommend Isla Holbox. If you haven't already nailed down Tulum plans, feel free to grill me about Holbox (as reticent as I am to share the secret...)
posted by lovableiago at 8:34 PM on December 21, 2015
posted by lovableiago at 8:34 PM on December 21, 2015
Hartwood was great. Agree with lovebleiago thst posada Margarita was totally cute and pretty but totally mediocre and overpriced. We also in August and our beach resort was great but for the endless sargassum. Made the ocean views an awful brown and not at all attractive to swim in. Playa del Carmen supposedly was better because the island blocked a lot of the current bringing in the seaweed.
Los aguachiles in tulum and is fantastic for tacos and not hipstery.
posted by Karaage at 8:47 PM on December 21, 2015
Los aguachiles in tulum and is fantastic for tacos and not hipstery.
posted by Karaage at 8:47 PM on December 21, 2015
We were just here over Thanksgiving!
Food: we ate a lot of awesome food here - my favorite dinner was at Cetli, in the pueblo. Delicious, and unique - lots of local ingredients. Feels very off the beaten path; is definitely foodie-worthie. My other fave dinner was an open air Argentinian steakhouse nearby on the main road, with a cool bar made of stones, whose name I never found out, and is ungooglable apparently. We just stumbled upon it (it's not the buenos aires one). On the beach road my memorable meals were La Vela for dinner, and Canopia for morning breakfast bowls and smoothies.
We ate at some popular places like Hartwood too but the dinners mentioned above are the places that really stood out.
Have plenty of cash on hand - we were fine when staying in the pueblo and ATMs are abundant, but of the few atms we found on the beach road only one worked. Many restaurants are cash only.
Sight-seeing: Sian Ka'an was our fave day trip; we went to the Community tours office near the municipal plaza area to book a trip, and the tour and lunch was well worth it.
Coba and Tulum ruins, as aforementioned, are also great (we went super early to Tulum ruins as they open - worth it as it got busy with tours coming through around 10-11am or so!)
Miscellany: our massages at Ahau hotel were excellent.
Feel free to email w specific questions, esp if you dig yoga as we did a good bit of that down there too.
Enjoy!
posted by NikitaNikita at 11:17 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Food: we ate a lot of awesome food here - my favorite dinner was at Cetli, in the pueblo. Delicious, and unique - lots of local ingredients. Feels very off the beaten path; is definitely foodie-worthie. My other fave dinner was an open air Argentinian steakhouse nearby on the main road, with a cool bar made of stones, whose name I never found out, and is ungooglable apparently. We just stumbled upon it (it's not the buenos aires one). On the beach road my memorable meals were La Vela for dinner, and Canopia for morning breakfast bowls and smoothies.
We ate at some popular places like Hartwood too but the dinners mentioned above are the places that really stood out.
Have plenty of cash on hand - we were fine when staying in the pueblo and ATMs are abundant, but of the few atms we found on the beach road only one worked. Many restaurants are cash only.
Sight-seeing: Sian Ka'an was our fave day trip; we went to the Community tours office near the municipal plaza area to book a trip, and the tour and lunch was well worth it.
Coba and Tulum ruins, as aforementioned, are also great (we went super early to Tulum ruins as they open - worth it as it got busy with tours coming through around 10-11am or so!)
Miscellany: our massages at Ahau hotel were excellent.
Feel free to email w specific questions, esp if you dig yoga as we did a good bit of that down there too.
Enjoy!
posted by NikitaNikita at 11:17 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh and re: hipster cancun... I think staying in the pueblo for part of our trip helped us get away from that vibe so just plan some time to explore the main town road by foot to balance it all out if you're staying on the beach :)
posted by NikitaNikita at 11:22 PM on December 21, 2015
posted by NikitaNikita at 11:22 PM on December 21, 2015
Yeah, Tulum can be kind of a crapshoot. Despite its beauty, it's become expensive and overcrowded in the last decade or so.
I recommend Isla Holbox if waves arent' important to you, very charming, old school, and as far as I know, yet to be discovered by the hordes (I was there almost a decade ago, though I don't hear much talk about it, so thats a good sign). No cars on the island, you can rent and ride golf carts around the island if you'd like. Easy to get to, well organized parking on the mainland side of the ferry for a few dollars a day, and really freindly people. I think theres more European and Mexican vacationers there than Americans.
Another consideration in the area: on the way to TUlum is a small town called Puerto Morelos. It's a small fishing village about 5 minutes off the highway, and I started going there several years back instead of Tulum because I preferred the vibe. I stopped in there last year and it's more or less the same, but with more tourists and fewer $1 fish tacos. Lots of Canadian snowbirds u at the north end of town.
Also, depending on when you're going to Tulum, the huge music festival BPM, which is centered in Playa Del Carmen, bleeds over into Tulum for a big chunk of January so you'll tend to get that crowd in that time period.
Seconding karaage take on restaurants. Back in the day, Posada Margarita made my favorite pasta dish outside of italy. Going back a few years ago it was an overcooked mess and $40 to boot. Heartwood is good, but cannot possibly live up to the hype it's got.
posted by newpotato at 4:35 AM on December 22, 2015
I recommend Isla Holbox if waves arent' important to you, very charming, old school, and as far as I know, yet to be discovered by the hordes (I was there almost a decade ago, though I don't hear much talk about it, so thats a good sign). No cars on the island, you can rent and ride golf carts around the island if you'd like. Easy to get to, well organized parking on the mainland side of the ferry for a few dollars a day, and really freindly people. I think theres more European and Mexican vacationers there than Americans.
Another consideration in the area: on the way to TUlum is a small town called Puerto Morelos. It's a small fishing village about 5 minutes off the highway, and I started going there several years back instead of Tulum because I preferred the vibe. I stopped in there last year and it's more or less the same, but with more tourists and fewer $1 fish tacos. Lots of Canadian snowbirds u at the north end of town.
Also, depending on when you're going to Tulum, the huge music festival BPM, which is centered in Playa Del Carmen, bleeds over into Tulum for a big chunk of January so you'll tend to get that crowd in that time period.
Seconding karaage take on restaurants. Back in the day, Posada Margarita made my favorite pasta dish outside of italy. Going back a few years ago it was an overcooked mess and $40 to boot. Heartwood is good, but cannot possibly live up to the hype it's got.
posted by newpotato at 4:35 AM on December 22, 2015
Response by poster: Hola!,
I thought I'd do a follow-up to my Q wit everything we learned in Mexico. We had some crazy adventures, saw some beautiful things and learned a few lessons. With that in mind!:
General Advice:
The Car Question: Do you need to rent a car? We certainly didn't and the amount we spent on Taxis and transport didn't quite meet the quote we got from the rental car place. If you're staying in any of the bigger cities or resorts along the big highway, you'll have access to the 12-person passenger vans called Collectivos. They just pull over and pick people up and they're dirt cheap. The most we ever paid was like a $1.50 US to go between Akumal and Playa Del Carmen.
That said, the longer you stay and the more you want to do, the more you might want a car. A good example was hitting the Dos Ojos cenote- There's a 3km walk between the road and the cenote that the collectivo doesn't go down. You either walk or drove. We took a cab and paid our driver to hang out for 90 minutes while we swam. The more of that stuff you wanna do, the more you'll want a car. Our strategey was to kind of adventure and sightsee in the AM, get back around 3 or 4 and then beach or pool chill, so this worked out for us.
At the very least, not having a car is a real option and it didn't really cause us any hassle. YMM, literally, V.
The Tour Question: Do you need tour packages? My answer is a resounding NOPE. We got a crazy quote for a tour of the Coba ruins and snorkeling of something like $300 US. We decided to just pay a Taxi driver to take us to the ruins, take a nap, and then drive us to the snorkeling place. It probably cost us- with snorkel rentals, taxi etc.- maybe $125? I really never saw the use of having a tour guide. Even at the ruins there were a lot of freelance tourguides you could hire, so it felt like all you were really paying for was a huge convience premium. Save your bucks and hire a taxi, read the Wikipedia article ahead of time etc. The only place where tours may pay off is they have on-site guides. I do wish we'd gotten a guide at Dos Ojos because they had weird little bat cave nooks and crannies that you wouldn't find on your own.
Ask your Taxi driver: The three best meals I had all came from asking taxi drivers where there favorite spots were, especially if you specificy that it doesn't have to be a tourist friendly area. And if you find a driver you like, stick with him- If you can habla espanol, they're pretty friendly and more than happy to schedule something for the next day. We had a dude take us to the ruins and on the way back we asked if he'd swing by around 11 the next day for some more driving. He not only showed up on time, but swung us a sweet deal by chatting up some dude he knew at the reserve. It really paid off to just swallow my pride and ask for tips.
Get there early: We go to Coba around 8:30 AM, about 30 mins after they opened, and had the place basically to ourselves. We left around 11 and the entrance area looked like Main St Disneyland. Same for Cenotes- Get there early!
Quickie City and Adventure Reviews:
The beaches are awesome, but in Akumal and especially Tulum they all belong to whatever resort is behind you. On at least 4 occasions we sat in the sand only to have some property manager run out and tell us to scram. There's very little "public" beach, which sucks.
Akumal- The Jersey Shore of the Maya Riviera. Packed to the gills with people snorkeling in 2 ft. deep water. PROTIP: From the main entrance to the beach, head left past the cannons. There's a huge, abanonded beach development of like 12 dilapadated condos with untouched, uncrowded beach. That's the place to snorkel. Otherwise, come for a day and see the crowds. The seafood place that's to the left of the main beach road (Playa del something?) is actually pretty good and reasonably priced. Everything else we ate around there was a bummer.
Playa Del Carmen- We got warned off pretty hard by folks who told us it was like a Spring Break town and it is, but I also found it kind of charming. It had a nice bustle and you could walk around and find some weird little restaraunts and stuff. Just stay off that main drag. On NYE, we also saw some crazy traditional Mayan pole climbing ceremony. All that said, we spent like a grand total of 4 hours here and all of it just walking around, so YMMV.
Puerto Morelos- Now we're talking. Prohibitions on beach construction have kept this area pretty chill. We had an amazing snorkel tour with Aquanauts, located at the far right end of the beach road. $30 for 2 hours of pretty aerobic reef snorkeling. It included all the equipment rental, plus wetsuits and the boat ride out to the reef. We also had our best meal here- A taxi driver took us over to the puebla side and dropped us off at a busy little seafood spot where we got like 4 pounds of mixed seafood for 6 bucks. The maragaritas were huge, the locals were amused we'd showed up. We wandered a bit after, fawning over all the street dogs and chowing on palettas. A great day, a ton of fun. NOTE: The collectivo drops you 3km outside of town. Either take a taxi or prepare for a hike- The shady side of the highway at mid-day has no sidewalk. We hiked, it wasn't bad.
Tulum- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. One of the most amazing beaches in the world is back-to-back with one of the most intolerable stretches of road in the Universe. I'm sure at one time this place was a hippie paradise, it's now a spoiled, trust-fund, new-age nightmare. I work in Venice Beach; I was not sure I was not in Venice Beach. That said: Go! There's a reason they film Corona commercials here. This is the beach other beaches dream of being. Bathwater warm, calm as hell. Just be prepared to get kicked off the beach anytime your butt hits a grain of sand you didn't pay for. This is especially a pain because there's no public entrance to the beach from the road, so if you walk a mile down the road and decide you'd like to walk the mile back on the beach, you'll have to trespass somewhere.
As for dining- Don't? I live in LA, I can get great cuisine. Paying LA prices in Tulum felt like a mistake and waiting in line for a reservation seemed like a particularly dystopic view of vacation. We splurged one night and ate at Simple. It was barely worth $60 LA dollars, it was nowhere near 900 pesos worth of food.
The one saving grace is La Eufemia which advertises itself as a "Chic Taco Botique", entirely in jest. They have erratic hours, unreliable service and 20 peso tacos. The shaggiest dog ever lives under the restaraunt. One time they sat us at a table and when a menu failed to materialize, they simply shrugged and said the cook hadn't woken up on time. It is magical. During happy hour they cleared out 50% of the seating to let a band play and gave away free beer. Just hang out here and keep your Hartwood bucks for silly souveniers.
I'll also stump for Mi Terra, a little taco joint run out of a trailer and El Camelo, a phenomenal seafood joint in the puebla that served me more ceviche than I could eat. Guru's, down the beach, also does 2 for 1 cocktails from 3-5 and I guzzled my guilty pleasure Pina Coladas all trip long. Met some great folks there.
Lodging Review:
We stayed at Villa Morena for the first few days. An Italiam woman and her husband bought a swath of jungle just north of Akumal and turned it into a quiet B&B. We had an amazing time here- It gets dark enough at night that I ilterally couldn't see my hand in front of my face and they have a small cenote on site!
Playa Selva, Tulum- Probably the least resort-y of any Tulum beach-side property outside of the camp site. Pretty chill.
Tulum2, priv beaches, camp, eufemia, fuck dining
posted by GilloD at 9:26 PM on January 17, 2016
I thought I'd do a follow-up to my Q wit everything we learned in Mexico. We had some crazy adventures, saw some beautiful things and learned a few lessons. With that in mind!:
General Advice:
The Car Question: Do you need to rent a car? We certainly didn't and the amount we spent on Taxis and transport didn't quite meet the quote we got from the rental car place. If you're staying in any of the bigger cities or resorts along the big highway, you'll have access to the 12-person passenger vans called Collectivos. They just pull over and pick people up and they're dirt cheap. The most we ever paid was like a $1.50 US to go between Akumal and Playa Del Carmen.
That said, the longer you stay and the more you want to do, the more you might want a car. A good example was hitting the Dos Ojos cenote- There's a 3km walk between the road and the cenote that the collectivo doesn't go down. You either walk or drove. We took a cab and paid our driver to hang out for 90 minutes while we swam. The more of that stuff you wanna do, the more you'll want a car. Our strategey was to kind of adventure and sightsee in the AM, get back around 3 or 4 and then beach or pool chill, so this worked out for us.
At the very least, not having a car is a real option and it didn't really cause us any hassle. YMM, literally, V.
The Tour Question: Do you need tour packages? My answer is a resounding NOPE. We got a crazy quote for a tour of the Coba ruins and snorkeling of something like $300 US. We decided to just pay a Taxi driver to take us to the ruins, take a nap, and then drive us to the snorkeling place. It probably cost us- with snorkel rentals, taxi etc.- maybe $125? I really never saw the use of having a tour guide. Even at the ruins there were a lot of freelance tourguides you could hire, so it felt like all you were really paying for was a huge convience premium. Save your bucks and hire a taxi, read the Wikipedia article ahead of time etc. The only place where tours may pay off is they have on-site guides. I do wish we'd gotten a guide at Dos Ojos because they had weird little bat cave nooks and crannies that you wouldn't find on your own.
Ask your Taxi driver: The three best meals I had all came from asking taxi drivers where there favorite spots were, especially if you specificy that it doesn't have to be a tourist friendly area. And if you find a driver you like, stick with him- If you can habla espanol, they're pretty friendly and more than happy to schedule something for the next day. We had a dude take us to the ruins and on the way back we asked if he'd swing by around 11 the next day for some more driving. He not only showed up on time, but swung us a sweet deal by chatting up some dude he knew at the reserve. It really paid off to just swallow my pride and ask for tips.
Get there early: We go to Coba around 8:30 AM, about 30 mins after they opened, and had the place basically to ourselves. We left around 11 and the entrance area looked like Main St Disneyland. Same for Cenotes- Get there early!
Quickie City and Adventure Reviews:
The beaches are awesome, but in Akumal and especially Tulum they all belong to whatever resort is behind you. On at least 4 occasions we sat in the sand only to have some property manager run out and tell us to scram. There's very little "public" beach, which sucks.
Akumal- The Jersey Shore of the Maya Riviera. Packed to the gills with people snorkeling in 2 ft. deep water. PROTIP: From the main entrance to the beach, head left past the cannons. There's a huge, abanonded beach development of like 12 dilapadated condos with untouched, uncrowded beach. That's the place to snorkel. Otherwise, come for a day and see the crowds. The seafood place that's to the left of the main beach road (Playa del something?) is actually pretty good and reasonably priced. Everything else we ate around there was a bummer.
Playa Del Carmen- We got warned off pretty hard by folks who told us it was like a Spring Break town and it is, but I also found it kind of charming. It had a nice bustle and you could walk around and find some weird little restaraunts and stuff. Just stay off that main drag. On NYE, we also saw some crazy traditional Mayan pole climbing ceremony. All that said, we spent like a grand total of 4 hours here and all of it just walking around, so YMMV.
Puerto Morelos- Now we're talking. Prohibitions on beach construction have kept this area pretty chill. We had an amazing snorkel tour with Aquanauts, located at the far right end of the beach road. $30 for 2 hours of pretty aerobic reef snorkeling. It included all the equipment rental, plus wetsuits and the boat ride out to the reef. We also had our best meal here- A taxi driver took us over to the puebla side and dropped us off at a busy little seafood spot where we got like 4 pounds of mixed seafood for 6 bucks. The maragaritas were huge, the locals were amused we'd showed up. We wandered a bit after, fawning over all the street dogs and chowing on palettas. A great day, a ton of fun. NOTE: The collectivo drops you 3km outside of town. Either take a taxi or prepare for a hike- The shady side of the highway at mid-day has no sidewalk. We hiked, it wasn't bad.
Tulum- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. One of the most amazing beaches in the world is back-to-back with one of the most intolerable stretches of road in the Universe. I'm sure at one time this place was a hippie paradise, it's now a spoiled, trust-fund, new-age nightmare. I work in Venice Beach; I was not sure I was not in Venice Beach. That said: Go! There's a reason they film Corona commercials here. This is the beach other beaches dream of being. Bathwater warm, calm as hell. Just be prepared to get kicked off the beach anytime your butt hits a grain of sand you didn't pay for. This is especially a pain because there's no public entrance to the beach from the road, so if you walk a mile down the road and decide you'd like to walk the mile back on the beach, you'll have to trespass somewhere.
As for dining- Don't? I live in LA, I can get great cuisine. Paying LA prices in Tulum felt like a mistake and waiting in line for a reservation seemed like a particularly dystopic view of vacation. We splurged one night and ate at Simple. It was barely worth $60 LA dollars, it was nowhere near 900 pesos worth of food.
The one saving grace is La Eufemia which advertises itself as a "Chic Taco Botique", entirely in jest. They have erratic hours, unreliable service and 20 peso tacos. The shaggiest dog ever lives under the restaraunt. One time they sat us at a table and when a menu failed to materialize, they simply shrugged and said the cook hadn't woken up on time. It is magical. During happy hour they cleared out 50% of the seating to let a band play and gave away free beer. Just hang out here and keep your Hartwood bucks for silly souveniers.
I'll also stump for Mi Terra, a little taco joint run out of a trailer and El Camelo, a phenomenal seafood joint in the puebla that served me more ceviche than I could eat. Guru's, down the beach, also does 2 for 1 cocktails from 3-5 and I guzzled my guilty pleasure Pina Coladas all trip long. Met some great folks there.
Lodging Review:
We stayed at Villa Morena for the first few days. An Italiam woman and her husband bought a swath of jungle just north of Akumal and turned it into a quiet B&B. We had an amazing time here- It gets dark enough at night that I ilterally couldn't see my hand in front of my face and they have a small cenote on site!
Playa Selva, Tulum- Probably the least resort-y of any Tulum beach-side property outside of the camp site. Pretty chill.
Tulum2, priv beaches, camp, eufemia, fuck dining
posted by GilloD at 9:26 PM on January 17, 2016
Just a note about walking in from the bus stop to Puerto Morelos: be careful when walking on the swamp side (although if memory serves, both sides are swamp sides)...crocs live in those swamps and there was an attack not too long ago.
posted by newpotato at 5:44 AM on January 22, 2016
posted by newpotato at 5:44 AM on January 22, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
Restaurant recommendation: Kitchen Table. Very small, cozy, romantic--the one complaint I came across was mosquitoes, but I (a person who gotten eaten alive everywhere else we went in Mexico, as I am apparently mosquito crack) doused myself in the necessary non-toxic prophylactic and was fine. My (then-new!) husband and I loved this place--great mellow vibe, really delicious food. (And even though there were a limited number of tables, when we were sat next to a particularly vocal, boisterous party the server graciously moved us when I politely requested that we move to a quieter, more intimate part of their small dining area).
Note: People get all Disney about Hartwood--it was closed when we were there but my impression is there are many new places springing up along the beach road that are comparable in vibe and food quality, and preferable in terms of wait time; Kitchen Table being one of them. Posada Margerita is another one people go crazy for. Walking in we thought, "Oooh nice, this will be great!" I thought the food was totally mediocre and the service was snotty (and it was QUITE expensive!). 3/10 would not go again.
Accommodations: We stayed here as part of our honeymoon so we splurged a bit, but soooo worth it was The Beach. Service was impeccable, the rooms and grounds were very, very nice, and the on-site restaurant (from which we got free breakfast every day) was solid. Better yet, they have a beautiful pool area. And you think, "Yeah OK but I am at one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in the western hemisphere" but when we went in late August--and in the six months+ leading up to that--the Tulum area was PLAGUED by sargassum--I mean knee-high in some places as you walk along the shore. Our aforementioned hotel were real troopers about clearing it every morning, but I did not get in the water during our stay (again, a gorgeous bar-serviced pool/beach-lounge area made up for it). My understanding is that a lot of the beach-side hotels there don't necessarily have pools, so do your research about seaside conditions and keep this in mind.
Stuff to Do: Do NOT be afraid to rent a car. It is very, very easy to get around there and it's much more economical for day trips (and flexible, time-/plan-wise) than taking a cab. People don't really...seem to obey standard traffic laws there? but you'll be fine if you are a decent driver, seriously. In order of stuff I most-to-very much loved:
Yal-Ku Lagoon: I could go on about this but it was the closest thing I have ever experienced to swimming in a tropical fish tank. Love love loved it. Less than 30 min. drive from Tulum--I say if you do nothing else, do this.
Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve (south of Tulum, down the beach road 15-20 min): If you have appreciation for nature and physical activity--DO THIS. We went with an amazing, very small tour group; my husband is a a bird-lover so we went on a bird watching kayaking tour and even though I am not as nature-crazy as he is, I was absolutely enthralled. The area was gorgeous (we stayed till past sunset), tranquil, and while the waters were very calm, the area we covered going in and out was significant and by the end of the day I was as deliciously exhausted as I've maybe ever been.
Coba Ruins: Less than an hour away--we really enjoyed them, as it's jungle-y and a nice, easy walk (or flat hike, what have you--the grounds are large, so I'd lean towards calling the latter). I enjoyed taking pictures there, and there is a big pyramid at the farthest point that is fun (and a little scary!) to climb up. You can rent bikes, and there are also guys hanging out at the front that can take you around on the cart-thingies, but we are young and fit-enough and really enjoyed walking the whole way (even in August, hot as hell! But there are places to buy water even in the farthest reaches of the park.) The people I saw on the carts looked very bored.
Feel free to PM me--we did a bunch of other stuff and I'm happy to point you in the right direction! If not, have a GREAT time. It's a beautiful, fun, romantic place.
posted by lovableiago at 8:24 PM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]