In 2022 I spent two month in México. It sounds like a lot of time for one country, but I could’ve travelled there for so much longer. Here’s a list with things I consider worth seeing, eating, doing and knowing in and about this beautiful country.
Cities and Islands
Cozumel: Great for snorkeling/diving, even if you are doing a short trip in Cancun or Playa del Carmen you can do a day trip to the island. Although it’s worth to stay one night. Tip: Renting a car or scooter is the easiest way to get around on the island. If you do so, take care of the police, I heard crazy stories about how they find reasons to give tourists a fine.
Puerto Escondido: I saw some of my most beautiful sunrises and sunsets there! It’s also a great place to learn surfing. Even if you’re a beginner, there are beaches with smaller waves. Finding an instructor won’t be a problem – there’s a lot in Puerto. Just make sure, it’s the right one for you. You can also do amazing horse trips closeby. They are usually in the evening so that it’s not too hot, but like that you can ride into the sunset. The street along Playa Zicatela is great for night activities: There’s regular bars, pool bars and great places to eat.
San Cristobal de las Casas: There’s a lot of nice things to do in and around San Cris. It’s a good thing to do the free walking tour around the city first. It gives you an understanding of how it is built and the tour to the „cañon del sumidero“ is a nice daytrip. I can also recommend a daytrip to the waterfalls „agua azul“ and „misol ha“. I also enjoyed walking around the city for hours, especially the markets are worth visiting.
Places to eat
„Don Luca Juice and Snack Bar“ in Playa del Carmen: You won’t regret going here! Everything is homemade, fresh and really tasty. He has smoothies, juices, salads and sandwiches. I went there every day, after I found that place.
„Mr. Taco“ in Bacalar: I spent two days in Bacalar to visit a friend and this place was his absolute favorite. After going there, I understand why. You have a great choice of all kinds of Méxican food (Tacos, Burritos, Quesadillas, etc.), the prices are really good and the portions are huge. Usually I eat a lot, but the burrito I had was enough for two full meals.
„Loving hut“ in San Cristobal de las Casas: Getting vegetarian or vegan food, especially good one, can be hard in México, but this place is an absolute gem. Unfortunately I only discovered it by the end of my time there, but the food is amazing, vegetarian (mostly even vegan) and for great prices, too.
Activities
Cenotes: Most of these underground caves (natural sinkholes) are to be found in the states Yucatan and Quintana Roo. There are different types of Cenotes, the most common ones are Cave, semi-open and open ones. I visited one of all kind and I can really recommend it as its usually combined with a Mayan ritual, which is also worth experiencing. My two favorites were both around Playa del Carmen: El Cenote Azul (open cenote, no tour needed) and Rio Secreto (Cave, guide needed).
Snorkeling in Cozumel: The coral reefs around the island are the worlds second largest (Nr. 1 is Great Barrier Reef). I did a tour and they took as to the best spots, but if you prefer, you can also do it on your own. Make sure to go to Playa El Cielo, there are always rays around that area. Just make sure, not to step on them! Take careful steps and whirl up some sand with each step, to make yourself noticeable.
Chichén Itzá: This complex of Mayan ruins is absolutely worth visiting – after all, it is one of the seven world wonders! I did it as a day trip from Playa del Carmen. But looking back, I’d recommend to stay in Valladolid. It’s a beautiful city and it’s not even an hour from Chichén Itzá. But no matter, where you start this trip from: Go there in the morning! Around the ruins itself there are no trees and it gets extremely hot. Also most group tours arrive later and by going there early, it’s usually not that crowded yet. If you get a chance to visit during the spring and fall equinoxes, it’s even more spectacular as you can observe the phenomenon of a meandering solar projection on the ruins.
Good to know
Language: Spanish
Currency: Mexican Peso
How to get around: The safest way is to travel by bus. The company most people travel with is ADO. Most cities have an office, where you can book tickets. It’s also possible by app or on the website. For shorter trips, there’s also collectivos, where you get picked up at a certain place and it’s a really cheap place to get by. The pick up and drop off locations can change, so it’s best to just ask locals about it, tourists don’t usually use them.
Before the trip: Check the entry requirements from your country to México (visa and vaccinations). From most countries there’s no Visa required and you get a certrain amount of days you’re allowed to stay in México at the border control. Checking is always important though.
I keep changing my plans, on what to write about each country that I visited. But as I already wrote a sneak peek in my last post, I might as well just start with something. Please, if you have questions about anything I’m writing, just ask away in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer quickly. You’re also welcome to leave inspiration for other topics on my blog, I’m happy about feedback in general and also on what you want to read about.
But let’s continue with my first solo trip EVER, starting with México. First of all: Thanks to all the concerned people at home, who warned me about this country. It turned out to be really unproblematic, also because I followed my simple security rules – I’ll write more about those in another post. Now I’ll just tell you about my route in México.
I took six month off work, but I was concerned that I wouldn’t even last a few weeks, because I’ve never been by myself for so long. For me, it was a win that I even entered that plane and let it take off with me on board. Spoiler: It was completely worth it.
First, let’s learn some spanish
I flew into Cancun and immediately made my way to Playa del Carmen. Honestly, a perfect place to start if you need some time to settle in. There’s a lot o tourists, so you’re not overwhelmed with another culture and language right away. I didn’t speak a single word of spanish at first, so I was kind of afraid that I would be lost. At the hotel I stayed a, I booked some tours with the tour guide Cuba. But he wasn’t just my tour planner, he became a friend. He even introduced me to his best friend (a language teacher), who gave me private lessons in spanish for the next two weeks.
After 5 days, my stay at the hotel was over and I changed to a hostel. Fortunately a saw a video from a blogger who talked about the app Hostelworld. Honestly, one of my favorites apps for my trip (more about those later). But I keep digressing from what I actually want to write about, I try to be better. So, I found a hostel and checked in right by the beach, that’s when the backpacking part really began. Beforehand I was worried that I would be lonely. But I never was: Even when I was alone, I was never lonely.
As soon as I checked in, I met a lot of people. Some of them have been travelling for a while and I got great recommendations on where to go. Which I was really grateful for as I didn’t have a single thing planned. For the next two weeks, I kept learning spanish, met amazing people, ate a lot of méxican food and took some daytrips – to Cenote Azul, to Puerto Morelos, Isla Mujeres, Cozumel, Chichén Itzá and to Bacalar (2 days).
One of my favorite memories of that time is the daytrip to Cozumel with Moritz, with whom I’m still in touch and we became good friends. We we’re too cheap to rent a car or scooter, so we ended up walking along the coast. Eventually we got a last minute offer for a snorkeling trip and we decided to do it. WOW. We saw sting rays and eagle rays, lots of different fish and we had a great group on the boat with us. In the end, all of us were singing, dancing and laughing with each other, even though the boat was way to small for that. A boat btw, that I’ve been captain of for like 10 minutes. Made me really nervous. The picture is staged though (as you could probably tell anyway).
Then some of the people, I got really close with started to leave the hostel. So I decided to do the same and I made my way to Holbox, which is another (beautiful) island around 3 hours from Playa. I stayed there for a few days and I remember sitting by the beach with tears in my eyes, overwhelmed by the beauty. I also did a horse trip along the beach, which was not as amazing as I expected it to be honest, but it was nice to sit on a horse again.
On that island I also had one of my favorite party experiences of all time. I usually don’t drink, but I felt really safe on the island and we were always in big groups, so I decided to make an exception. We started at the hostel and went to different bars and clubs after. Well, as you could’ve guessed, I wasn’t used to the alcohol anymore and I felt tipsy way before the others. That’s why I decided to walk back to the hostel. Holbox doesn’t really have roads, it’s all sand and at some point I saw two „people“ walk towards me. I said „hola“ and walk towards them (tried to do it in a straight line). I guess the straight line didn’t work, because as soon as I got closer to them I realized that those two „people“ were racoons. I laughed so hard and that scared them off, which is why on the picture I took, there’s only one racoon on it. But I still have it on my phone. It was THE story the next day, because of course I had to tell everyone about it. Here’s the picture, I guess you can also tell by its quality in what kind of shape I was….
No plans are the best plans
After 5 days I made my way back to Cancun, but only to make my transfer to Merida. The bus left in the morning and it took my around 4 hours to get there. The hostel I stayed at was absolutely beautiful and had really good breakfast (Hostal Boutique Casa Garza). Which was also where I met Zara. We where both chilling in the hammocks by the pool as we started talking. I mention her, because she plays a huge part on my trip. In Merida we only spent 3 days together. We went to the Mayan Museum and did a tour to 3 cenotes. Each of those were different, but all of them beautiful. We had to take a horse carriage through the forest, which was an adventure itself, but I felt bad for the horses.
After Merida, I went to Chiapas. It was the first time since I arrived that I took a flight. I flew to Tuxtla Gutierrez and from there, I took the bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. First, the plan was to stay there for a few nights and make my way to Palenque after that. But San Cristobal blew me away. It’s a beautiful city by the mountains, maybe it reminded me of home and that’s why I liked it so much. The free walking tour gave me a first impression of the city, after that I just kept strolling around and especially fell in love with the markets, where I bought waaaay to much jewelry. Side note: I’m still wearing the amber bracelet until this day, so it was worth it. I can also recommend the day trip to the Cañon del Sumidero. It was my first time seeing monkeys and crocodiles. What an experience!
As I said, my initial plan was to spend a few days in Palenque as well. But after I fell in love with San Cristobal, I decided to only do a daytrip to Palenque. That was crazy…. We left really early in the morning and by early I mean around 3am. The road was horrible, we had to go hours up the mountain on a very curvy road. Fortunately I don’t get sick and we had three stops: Agua Azul, Misol Ha and the Palenque ruins. All of them were beautiful! The way back to Palenque was hard: No stops, 7 hours on a curvy road. Back in San Cristobal I fell into bed and prepared for the next day.
Grasshoppers on a salad? Why not!
I took a bus to Oaxaca, where I really had to recharge my batteries. After all the tours it was nice to slow down for a bit. On my first day I went to visit Monte Alban, another archeological site. As the name says, it’s on a mountain and it was really exposed, so really hot as well. Which made it hard to stay there for long. It was also the perfect excuse to spend the day by the pool. The next day was kind of a game day with the other people from the hostel: We played table tennis, beer pong, cards and sang karaoke in the evening. One of the owners friends had a mezcal company and he invited me to do a tasting. Wasn’t really my favorite drink, but it’s traditional, so I tried it. As well as the grasshoppers they recommended on my salad. Which are not as bad as one might expect. It adds crunch like croutons would and they don’t really have a strong own taste.
The next day was another long day on the bus. This time to Puerto Escondido. It was the first time, I really knew, what I wanted to do when I got there – surfing! So I checked into my hostel and went to find a surf instructor. Which wasn’t hard at all. It felt like everyone there was an instructor. I was overwhelmed how fast I was able to surf a few smaller waves! It felt so good. Other than surfing I did some exploring with some people from the hostel and we played a lot of pool (billiard) at the bars by the beach. If you go to Puerto Escondido I really recommend you to rent a scooter. Otherwise it’s hard to get around.
The crasiest experience was probably when we tried to find the lagoon. An australian guy from the hostel was sitting on the back of my scooter and was also the navigator. Another german guy was with us, but he drove alone. At some point we got to a really sandy road that looked like it led nowhere. Made sense, because the lagoon on the map was shown in the middle of nowhere as well. We drove down there and at some point we got to a gate and we had to turn, what we didn’t see first, were the dogs that followed us from a house we passed. All of a sudden they started to bark and run towards us. They were on long leashes so if we kept to the very side of the road, we were fine. But it was tricky, because the sand was quite deep. At some point the dog almost got to bite the guy on to back of my scooter. Fortunately none of us got bitten and we got away with a scare. We spent the rest of the day in the hammocks to calm down.
After Playa del Carmen I didn’t really do a lot of tours anymore, I went exploring on my own more often. But in Puerto they offered a dolphin watching tour and a horse trip into the sunset. I did both of them and I still get goosebumps when I think back. On the dolphin tour they made clear from the beginning that they couldn’t garantee us to see them at all. Which was fine by me, they are wild animals after all. We left at 6am and it wasn’t long until we saw some turtles and rays – did you know that those jump out of the water?!?! It was so cool and I have a picture where it looks like the ray is waving. What a flex.
There were other boats out as well and they stayed in touch if some of them found dolphins before the others. As soon as we got the message from one of the other boats, we made our way there and that was insane. The dolphins appeared out of nowhere and followed our boat, jumping around. I was sitting on the bow of the boat and they were so close, I felt water splash on me all the time. To describe that happy feeling I had, is impossible.
The next evening, I did the horse trip. I even got picked up at the hostel. This one was much better (and longer) than the one in Holbox. We even got to canter along the beach. At one point of the route we had to cross a river. So we took off the saddles and reigns and a boat brought us to the other side. The horses? The swam across the river. What concerned me were the sign to be aware of crocodiles everywhere… I had that moviescene in my head, were all of a sudden a horse just gets pulled down by something. Fortunately nothing happened and it looked like they enjoyed it. It was one of my favorite sunsets: On the back of a horse, cantering towards the big light ball. This feeling of freedom is why I started travelling in the first place and I really felt it on the back of that horse. His name was Indigo by the way.
Because I really liked Puerto, I extended my stay to 10 days. After that I really had to go, because I had a flight booked to the states from México City and I also wanted to see that city before I left México. I didn’t really get the chance though, because I got sick. Maybe that was the reason or I’m just really not the big city girl, but my first impression of the mexican capital wasn’t the best. There were some amazing markets and I did a hike with two friends from the hostel, but to get out to the mountains, we had to drive around 3 hours by train, bus and taxi. Well, on the way back we hitchhiked, which is one my favorite moments in México City. I don’t know why: Maybe it was the farmer in the yellow VW Beetle who picked us up and was really funny and didn’t want anything in return or the fact that we hitchhiked in a country, that everyone warned me about.
Those were my two month in México. Not quite in a nutshell, but I could go on for hours about it. So personally I am proud of how short I cut it. The next post is going to be about some of my favorite characteristics of México: Favorite activities, food, places and some things I consider important to know.
Travels by Eva 