Longer way home
Turquoise Caribbean waves break beneath Tulum's cliffside Mayan ruins.

Photo: Ščenza

Tulum, Mexico · North America

Tulum: the Yucatán coast and what's left of the old quiet

Tulum's transformation from a sleepy palm-shaded strip of palapa cabins to a brand-saturated wellness-tourism corridor has been one of the more dramatic coastal-tourism shifts in Latin America. The cenotes, the Mayan ruins, the wider Yucatán remain.

Ščenza

By Ščenza

· updated · 4 min read

I was last in Tulum in October 2024, on a return trip that I had been putting off for nearly a decade. The first time was in 2008, when the beach road south of the ruins had perhaps fifteen palapa-roof guesthouses, no paved sections, and a single small disco at one end. The second time was 2014. The third time, this last visit, was a different planet — a 12-km strip of luxury hotels, design boutiques, wellness studios, and restaurant-clubs, the road still mostly unpaved but the prices indistinguishable from Manhattan.

The Tulum that drew a generation of travel writers in the early 2010s is, structurally, gone. What remains, and is worth coming for, is the Yucatán Peninsula as a wider region.

Why I keep coming back

The Yucatán Peninsula has three permanent attractions that do not change: the Mayan ruins (Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Cobá, Ek Balam, Tulum itself); the cenotes (underground freshwater sinkholes — the peninsula has thousands, formed by the limestone bedrock); and the reef and beaches of the Riviera Maya.

Tulum-the-town is a small inland village; Tulum-the-archaeological-site is a small but spectacularly sited Mayan port-city perched on a cliff above the Caribbean; the zona hotelera, the beach strip, is the wellness-tourism corridor that has dominated the conversation for the past decade.

Where to base yourself

Tulum Pueblo (the inland town) if you want a more affordable base and access to local food.

The northern end of the zona hotelera for proximity to the ruins.

Akumal, 30 km north of Tulum, for a calmer, family-friendly beach base with a coral bay famous for sea turtles.

Bacalar, 3 hours south of Tulum, for a less-touristed alternative — a freshwater multi-coloured lake (the ‘Lake of Seven Colours’) with much smaller crowds.

What to actually do

Visit the Tulum ruins at first opening. 8 a.m. or you’ll queue. Smaller than Chichén Itzá but spectacularly located on a cliff above the Caribbean. Allow 90 minutes.

Visit Chichén Itzá at dawn. Two hours west, the largest and best-known Mayan city. Open from 8 a.m.; the buses arrive at 10. Get there early.

Visit Cobá or Ek Balam. Cobá is the jungle-shrouded Mayan city (40 minutes inland from Tulum) where you can climb the main pyramid, Nohoch Mul — closed in 2020, reopened in December 2025 with a timber staircase over the old stone and a cap on how many people are on it at once. It is the last major Yucatán pyramid you are allowed up, and that permission has been withdrawn before. Ek Balam is smaller, north, with extraordinary preserved stucco sculptures.

Swim in cenotes. Dos Ojos, Gran Cenote, Casa Cenote, and many more. The water is 24°C year-round, glass-clear. Snorkelling in cenotes is one of the singular experiences of the peninsula.

Snorkel the Mesoamerican Reef. From Akumal or Puerto Morelos. The second-largest reef on earth.

Day-trip or stay at Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. South of Tulum; mangroves, lagoons, birdlife, very few visitors. Boat tours through the channels.

Visit Valladolid. A small colonial town inland, a 90-minute drive from the coast; much quieter than Tulum, with a yellow-painted main square and excellent Yucatecan food at fair prices.

Where to eat

Yucatecan food is distinct from broader Mexican — chiles habaneros, achiote (annatto), sour orange, slow-cooked pork in banana leaves (cochinita pibil).

Hartwood (Tulum beach) — The famous wood-fired open-kitchen restaurant; cash-only and reservations elusive. Arca — Modern Mexican on the beach strip. Restaurant Antojitos La Chiapaneca (Tulum Pueblo) — Cheap, authentic, taco-heavy. El Camello Jr (Tulum Pueblo) — Seafood ceviches and aguachiles; locals. Hacienda Tres Ríos or Loncheria El Amigo Casiano for cochinita pibil. Sushi Lucki (Tulum Pueblo) — Surprisingly good fusion sushi. Café at La Malquerida for breakfast.

When to come

Late November through April is the dry season; perfect beach weather.

May and June can be hot but workable.

July through October is the rainy and hurricane season; sargassum seaweed accumulation on the beach has been a persistent late-summer issue for the past several years.

Practical notes

  • Visa: 180 days visa-free.
  • Money: Pesos; US dollars accepted at most beach hotels. Card universally; cash for small purchases.
  • Transport: Cancun airport is the main arrival; Tulum is a new airport (2023) with growing direct service. From Cancun, a 90-minute drive or shared shuttle.
  • The beach road: Famously unpaved and dusty; rent a bike from your hotel for transit along the strip; or use Uber if available in your stretch.
  • Sargassum: Brown seaweed accumulation on Caribbean beaches has been a persistent issue from May through August in recent years. Check seasonal forecasts.
  • The ‘Tulum tax’ on bills: Many beach restaurants now add a 15–20% service charge automatically; check the bill.

A final thought

Tulum is the cautionary tale of the past decade in Latin American beach tourism. A small, sleepy palapa-cabin village transformed itself, in roughly fifteen years, into a brand-saturated international destination, with prices to match and an infrastructure that has not caught up to the development. The water and electricity systems strain. The roads are unpaved still. The reef is bleaching.

The broader Yucatán Peninsula is, however, still one of the most rewarding regions in Mexico. The Mayan ruins are genuinely extraordinary. The cenotes are unique on earth. The wider coast — including the parts that haven’t been Tulumed — has small fishing villages, eco-lodges in the biosphere reserves, and quiet beach towns.

If Tulum is on your itinerary, treat it as one chapter among many. Stay two or three nights. See the ruins early. Swim in a cenote. Eat in Tulum Pueblo, not on the beach strip. Then go elsewhere — Valladolid, Bacalar, Holbox, Mérida. The peninsula has more to offer than the strip.

If you only have a few days

5 ideal things to do in Tulum

  1. The Tulum ruins at first entry

    Zona arqueológica, north of the hotel stripThe first entry of the day, not a minute later

    Walled Maya port city on a limestone cliff above the Caribbean, still occupied into the sixteenth century, with a squat pyramid the Maya may have used as a beacon for canoes finding the one gap in the reef. It is small — ninety minutes covers it — and it is almost entirely about where it sits. I turned up at eleven once and spent the visit looking at the backs of other people's heads instead of the sea.

  2. Float the Muyil canals in Sian Ka'an

    Muyil, about twenty-five kilometres southMorning; you will get wet, so plan the day around it

    Maya traders cut these channels through the mangrove to move salt, jade and cacao between the lagoons and the sea, and you can now put on a life jacket and let the current carry you along about a kilometre of one, on your back, looking up at bromeliads. Roughly forty minutes of doing nothing at all. It is the most restful thing on the peninsula and the only activity I have ever finished feeling younger than when I started it.

  3. A cenote morning on the Cobá road

    West out of Tulum puebloAt opening; the light shafts come mid-morning

    Limestone drinks everything here, so the peninsula has no rivers at all — the fresh water sits underground in thousands of collapsed sinkholes, and swimming in one is the thing the Yucatán does that nowhere else can. Gran Cenote and Dos Ojos are the well-organised ones just out of town. Mask, no sunscreen, and be ready for the temperature: twenty-four degrees all year round, which reads as warm on paper and does not feel it on entry.

  4. Climb the Acropolis at Ek Balam

    Near Temozón, about two hours westBefore midday, combined with Valladolid

    Ek Balam has the pyramid you are still permitted to climb, and near the top there is a preserved stucco doorway carved as the open jaws of a jaguar-monster, teeth included — plastered over for centuries, which is precisely why it survived. Far fewer people than Chichén Itzá, an hour up the same road. There is a cenote in the trees behind the site for afterwards. Climbing rules change without notice, so check on the day rather than trusting me.

  5. An afternoon, ideally a night, in Valladolid

    About a hundred kilometres west, towards Chichén ItzáStay over if you can; it changes the shape of the trip

    Colonial town founded in 1543 directly on top of a Maya settlement called Zací, using its stones, a fact the local guides state plainly and without softening. Walk the Calzada de los Frailes out to the convent of San Bernardino, eat cochinita in a square where the prices bear some relationship to the local economy, and swim in a cenote inside the town itself. After a week on the Tulum beach road it feels like being released from a very expensive waiting room.

Just the list, on its own page →

From a Split boy’s notebook

The Split lens

What reminded me of home

A cautionary tale rather than a parallel. Tulum was a sleepy palapa-cabin village fifteen years ago and is now a brand-saturated luxury-tourism corridor with collapsing infrastructure. Bol, Hvar town, and increasingly Brač's outer coast are on a similar trajectory. Tulum is what our islands risk becoming.

What Split could borrow

Tulum's lesson is what NOT to do: unregulated development, infrastructure-lagging-far-behind-tourism, beach-strip-rents-driving-out-locals. The intervention point is now, while our islands still have full-time populations. Stricter building permits, mandatory infrastructure-first development, rent control on protected residential zones — the playbook exists; the will is missing.

Filed underbeachesruinscenotesoff-gridyoga

Who can take you

Tour operators & guides to try

A short, opinionated starter list — just my humble opinion. Verify before booking.

  • Intrepid Travelsmall groupwww.intrepidtravel.com →

    Intrepid's Yucatán itineraries treat Tulum as a 2-night beach extension on a peninsula loop (Chichén Itzá, Mérida, the Mayan ruins). Group size 12–16. Caveat: Tulum's beach-strip overtourism is real and Intrepid can't fix that; the value is in the wider Yucatán inland circuit rather than the beach-strip days. Consider Mérida or Valladolid as your actual base.

  • Alltournativesmall groupwww.alltournative.com →

    Alltournative is the long-running Yucatán adventure operator — cenote diving, Sian Ka'an biosphere day trips, Cobá and Tulum site visits with proper guides, Mayan-village cultural visits. They've been running since the 1990s with active Mayan-community partnerships. Caveat: their day-trip format involves long bus transfers and some cenote stops are crowded by mid-morning regardless of operator; their longer 2-day Mayan-jungle programs are the more rewarding option.

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