Tulum’s spectacular coastline – with all its confectioner-sugar sands, jade-green water and balmy breezes – makes it one of the top beaches in Mexico. Where else can you get all that and a dramatically situated Maya ruin? There’s also excellent cave and cavern diving nearby, swimmable cenotes and a variety of lodgings and restaurants to fit every budget.
Some may be put off by the fact that the town center, where the affordable eats and sleeps are found, sits right on the highway, making the main drag feel more like a truck stop than a tropical paradise.
My penultimate Mayan ruin:
The ruins of Tulum preside over a rugged coastline, a strip of brilliant beach and green-and-turquoise waters that leave you floored. Whilst the extents and structures are of a modest scale and the late post-Classic design is inferior to those of earlier, more grandiose projects – but wow, those Maya occupants must have felt pretty smug each sunrise.
Tulum is a prime destination for large tour groups. I arrived at the entrance just as the ticket office was opening. I spent a couple of leisurely hours walking around the site before the throng of tour groups arrived.
Next stage: Chichén Niza.
