Tulum, Mexico

On March 7th, Ryan and I took a trip down to Mexico! We were both extremely excited as this was our first time visiting Mexico and our first holiday out of North America. The past four years in Canada we have spent travelling locally and not ventured much further than the US. So this was a big deal for us! We decided our holiday would be spent in Tulum, as we had read so many great things about the beaches, laid back lifestyle and the many Cenotes scattered throughout the area. I don't want to go into a long boring post about our trip so to summarize in dot points here are some of the highlights of our trip! Don't forget to scroll down to view the video and photos! Where we stayed: We opted to stay in an air bnb as opposed to all inclusive. I have mixed feelings about this choice now! While I generally love air bnb for getaways I can definitely see the benefits of an all inclusive hotel - especially when you only have 10 days in the area and want to "relax." Our air bnb was located only a short 8 minute walk to the main street of Tulum which meant we were close to many bars and restaurants which was great as the beach road was extremely expensive for food and drink. That being said we were a good 3 km away from the main beach area and the last thing we wanted to do was ride bikes in the heat every day to reach the beach. This resulted in us taking a taxi most days and being open to being ripped off on a few occasions by taxi drivers. If we were there for longer than 10 days I can see the benefit of wanting to stay in an air bnb but for this trip I think the hotel route would have been far more enjoyable.

Where we ate: We quickly discovered that the beach area was geared towards tourists with expensive food and drinks wherever you looked. At one place in particular we were charged approx $20 CAD for two beers and "towel rental" if you can call it that. Other places it was approx $5 CAD for a beer which we found to be expensive. Going into town we could find many bars offering two beers for 40 pesos which works out to be approx $1.40 CAD per beer! Big difference! We also discovered food was way cheaper in town. Some of our favourite spots we discovered to eat were El Capitan (cheap magaritas and delicious seafood), El Mariachi Loco (located on the main street in Tulum, HUGE and strong frozen magaritas, cheap beers and delicious fajitias!), Ki' Bok Coffee (we came here for the coffee and breakfast was decent too), Raw Love Tulum (this was one of the places we ate on the jungle road near the beach, all the food is raw and delicious, i loved this spot).

What we saw: During our time in Tulum we were able to visit a few cenotes including Gran Cenote and Caleta Tankah ! We really enjoyed Gran Cenote despite it being one of the more popular tourist spots, the Cenote was still very beautiful and we spent a good 2 hours here swimming and snorkelling. Caleta Tankah had a small open cenote which was lovely and fresh and also offered the beach which compared to the main beach area was free of seaweed (Tulum has a major seaweed problem right now). We enjoyed exploring the main street of Tulum, and we spent a few days by the beach. We also visited the Mayan Ruins site which was my least favourite day, the ruins were pretty unimpressive, and felt like we were visiting Disneyland with the hoards of tourists and we were also ripped off that day by about $80 CAD so it did ruin my experience a little bit.

Trip Highlight: I do have to say that our highlight of the trip was our photoshoot with Flytographer! If you haven't heard of Flytographer you are missing out. Being a photographer myself I love the idea of having holidays photos with both Ryan and I in the photo and not always being behind the camera. In the past we have found photographers to do this in area's we have visited but Flytographer makes it even easier to make those holiday photos possible. They have many local photographers located all around the world, and you can easily book through their website for any destination. The photos we got back from our photographer Conie were incredible and i'm so greatful that we booked to have them done and will definitely use Flytographer in the future! (Photos included at the end).

In conclusion: Our time in Tulum was very interesting and enjoyable. We definitely came away from the trip feeling refreshed and we learnt a lot about planning trips in countries where the main language isn't English. It does make things a little less straightforward and planning ahead for activities is definitely a must do if you on limited time and a budget.

Next stop: Havana, Cuba!

Mexican Pesos make you feel rich!