These 3 spots at the Yucatan Peninsula share the preferences of travelers from around the world, but all the three of them offer different things and cater to different public.
Cancún, the most known of them, and the closest to the airport, caters mostly to US “traditional” tourists, who prefer huge all-inclusive 5-star resorts. Nightlife has plenty of options, mostly dance clubs where it is frequent to spot “girls gone wild” scenes. Beaches are just perfect, and restaurant offer is diverse and meets the highest standards. The main disadvantage is that there is no “village & beach life”, to mingle with other tourists and locals you have no other option but to drive to a shopping mall or a dance club. Beach social life is also secluded to the private beach of your hotel. I personally do not like big hotels and the Cancún “tourism lifestyle”, though the beaches and the restaurants are probably slightly better than those of Playa del Carmen and Tulúm. My top restaurant pick in Cancún is Restaurante Puerto Madero, and classy Argentine-beef-plus-seafood place by a marina. It has a beatiful terrace overlooking the marina and the Cancún lagoon.
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The list of good restaurants in Tulum is growing every season, from just a few local food spots 10 years ago to many Italian and other international cuisine restaurants now. Zamas is one of my favorite places in Tulum. It is nested on a key spot, where the sea almost touches the coastal road Tulum-Boca Paila. The fish and the shrimp are good, but the place is best known for its pizzas and the live music. Music ranges from bossa nova to latin and jazz. This is good place to meet people and socialize when the other restaurants and bars in town are still empty (like in low season). To get to Zamas from the town, take the road that connects it to the beach, and when you get to the beach (at the crossroad) take right some 1000 meters. It has a parking lot across the road. Restaurant Zamas’ phone is 98712067 and the site is www.zamas.com.
Restaurant and Hotel Casa Oaxaca is the top choice in town (much better than the bettern known “Los Danzantes”). Get the best of Oaxacan cuisine and mix it with modern trends, you get the Oaxacan fusion Casa Oaxaca is offering. Best in the menu are the coconut shrimps with a mix of smashed banana and chayote (boil the chayote and then mix it with the banana -platano macho- with a little bit of butter). Combine it with (one of my favourite wines) Clos de los 7, a smooth & rounded blended wine produced in Mendoza (Argentina) by 7 French wine makers. They have jazz on the terrace from time to time. The hotel (a luxury boutique hotel) is also excellent, considered one of the best in town and included in the Johansen´s Condé Nast list for boutique hotels.
Renting a house or a condo in the Mayan Riviera provides a whole new experience compared to the traditional all-inclusive hotels that populate the area. There are many alternatives, each of them a unique experience, depending on what you want for your dream holidays.
Akumal is a top place for snorkeling. It has an amazing coral reef a few steps into the sea. It has a small center with cute restaurants and a diving shop. Normally a quiet place, it can get very crowded on key dates like New Year and Easter. In addition to the houses inside the Akumal village, there is a more tranquil area in South Akumal, 2km to the south on the direction to Tulum. The sign on the highway reads “Aventuras Akumal”. The houses I´ve been there are Villa Italiano and U-Nah-kin condos. Villa Italiano -3 double bedrooms- is about $ 2000-4000/week (depending on the season) and U-Nah-Kin -2 double bedrooms- is some $1500-2000.
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