Travel Blog

Tulum

Playa Paraiso

Tulum is a paradise where the jungle meets the Caribbean sea. Tucked along Mexico’s Riviera Maya, it's a dreamy blend of white-sand beaches, jungle vibes, and timeless ruins. If you're craving more than just a beach vacation, Tulum delivers a full-blown escape into the wild. Think motorbiking through lush jungle roads, swimming in ancient cenotes that feel like portals to another world, and watching the Caribbean ignite with color as the sun dips below Mayan ruins. Tulum isn’t just a place you visit — it’s a place you feel in your bones. Let’s dive into the adventure.

Let’s start with the most iconic Playa Paraiso. True to its name, this beach is straight out of a postcard of paradise. Towering palms sway lazily above sun loungers, while the ocean waves are impossible shades of turquoise. It’s the kind of place where you order a coconut water, settle under an umbrella, and let time dissolve. The waters here are calm enough to swim, and the crowd is a relaxed mix of locals, yogis, and barefoot adventurers. I stayed at the Amansala beach club which looked out over this incredible beach that is crowded during the day and completely empty at night.

Tulum

Hotel zone

Tulum's hotel zone includes but also stretches beyond the beach Playa Paraiso. While this area is a paradise on earth, it stays loud all night, so be prepared and bring some earplugs if you plan on visiting and sleeping here. For a better nights sleep I'd recommend the Jaguar National Park area if you have the money, or Tankah, if you don't plan on staying out partying all night. Personally, I don't party, but the hotel zone is still one of my favorite parts of Tulum, for the quality of the beach, the food and the aesthetics of the beach clubs. During my stay, I spent awhile between group tours by myself walking from the incredible beach in Sian Ka'an to The Coffee, in the Tulum hotel zone. In all honesty, if I was with a wife here doing that, I would have just settled into that habit for the rest of my life, if money allowed. The Sora latte photographed above at The Coffee. is the best tasting drink I've ever had, alongside some bubble tea and Thai iced tea. I thought it was a mom and pop shop, but actually it's a Brazilian coffee chain. Anyway, support small business, but definitely worth a stop anyway.



Tankah

Playa Tankah

Just beyond the energy of Tulum’s hotel zone lies Tankah, a serene stretch of coastline where the jungle edges softly into the water that glows in shades of blue you only see on postcards. Tankah offers the Tulum dream, without the crowds, for travelers who crave beauty and a quiet tranquility. I traveled solo during this time and it gave me time to reflect on what really matters in life. The beauty of this area is stunning and I found myself wishing my friends and family could be with me in this paradise in Mexico. Although it's incredibly beautiful, I almost felt kind of bored here as a solo traveler, since the very small crowd here was mostly childless couples. That might all change soon with the new construction they were building when I was there though. Still, although incredible, it doesn't look quite as nice as Jaguar Park nearby or offer the same excitement of meeting someone in the hotel zone, and it's not the stunning untouched beauty of Sian Ka'an, which basically makes you feel like you've crashed your pirate ship and discovered a paradise no one knows about. But, after you've seen all that, this is a fantastic space to explore nearby.

Tulum

Zona arqueológica de Tulum

Years ago, I discovered Tulum through the photographer Tec Petaja. Film photos of weddings by the ruins and the beach quickly turned this into a place I dreamed of moving to and doing wedding photography from. Just a short walk from Playa Paraiso, you’ll find one of the most breathtaking juxtapositions in Mexico, Tulum Ruins Beach, where ancient Mayan temples sit on cliffs above a hidden cove. After exploring the ruins, take the staircase down to the beach for a refreshing swim. Floating in the water with centuries-old stone towers above you? It’s a moment you won’t forget. If you come here, obviously you have to see the ruins or you'll wonder what is was like, but I think that although it's the most famous part, the other parts of Tulum were even better looking and more fun, because they're less structured than fenced-in walk through tour. Nevertheless, it's still a good time, the ruins are full of iguanas, and an iguana even popped his head out of the turret at me multiple times for the photo above, which was a funny moment.

Tulum

Jaguar Park National Park

Tucked between the dense emerald jungle and the brilliant Caribbean,  offers a rare blend of wild nature and quiet coastline, where shaded forest trails suddenly open onto a secluded stretch of beach untouched by the party scene of the hotel zone, but still offering a few luxurious hotels and restaurants. Jaguar National park is a great place for romance, or maybe a honeymoon, but be sure to bring bug spray, it's loaded with mosquitos. It's also very expensive, but the beach here is just fantastic.

Tulum

Sian Ka’an Biosphere

If you’re up for a wild adventure, don’t miss the majestic beauty of Sian Ka’an, a World Heritage site just beyond the hotel zone of Tulum. Here, beaches stretch for miles, untouched by development. You might see dolphins, sea turtles, or even nude people in the wild. It’s a reminder of what the Riviera Maya looked like before the world discovered it. I hope this place never changes, everyone should try see it, and more importantly, preserve it from ever being built upon.

Coba

Set deep in the Yucatán jungle, Coba feels like stepping into a quieter, more ancient side of Mexico, where moss-covered temples seemingly rise between forgotten pathways through time. Unlike the more polished ruins of Tulum or Chichén Itzá, Coba invites exploration, whether you’re biking shaded trails to remote pyramids, listening to the jungle hum around you, or climbing the steep steps of Nohoch Mul for a breathtaking view over the treetops. It’s a place where the past is still present in every root and stone, making Coba one of the most atmospheric and transportive archaeological sites in the Yucatán. The photos above are from Coqui Coqui Coba, where I stayed. The hotel was owned and designed by fashion model Nicolas Malleville .

Cozumel

Cozumel is a paradise island for divers, with some of the most beautiful blue green and clear water in the world. I was able to bike around most of the island in just one day. I think when you are traveling solo, you'll experience three different kinds of culture shock, the surprise than comes when something is different than you expected, the sudden awareness of people going about their different routines all around the world at every moment, and the shock of self discovery, leaving you questioning all your beliefs and desires, and realizing you don't actually know yourself or the world around you that well. Even if you were to speak a hundred languages, you'd still only understand the smallest fraction of the world.

In Cozumel, I felt the first kind of culture shock, which was that part of it was much different than I expected. I was expecting a tourist island full of cruise ships and divers, which it is, but it also has a section of authentic local life that I just wasn't anticipating at all. In a grocery store on Cozumel, I watched as everyone got and paid for their groceries in Spanish, which lead me to the second culture shock, the hyper awareness of how vast our world is, because I knew back home people were doing the same thing in English and so forth in every country. Even though the languages, foods and religions are different, the systems are the same, someone takes money for food. And so it is with us, even though we are all different, essentially we all have same desires and ambitions.

Playa Del Carmen

Playa del Carmen is a family friendly, very touristy section of Mexico and I stayed a few days here solo, which was an interesting experience, because I almost felt like an outsider tourist observing other the tourists. The majority of the city is basically a cruise ship port selling tequila to the people who just debarked. Since the cruise ships passengers have to be back to the ship, walking up the main avenue which is a cross between an American mall and a bunch of Mexican trinket shops selling booze and hot sauce is really the only option, besides the nearby beach with the arch entrance photographed above. Since, I wasn't on a cruise ship or with a group, I had the time and perhaps lack of common sense to walk well outside the tourist zones. Here, in the sprawling and diverse city of Playa Del Carmen, it was amazing how quickly the scenes changed from police searching cars near housing with tarp roofs, to luxurious beach clubs with prices that were probably the same per day, as a year lease on a the ramshackle dwellings just a mile away.

One of the things about Playa Del Carmen that was right up my alley, were the vegan restaurants at the edge of the tourist and local section of the city, complimented by the balmy weather and bathtub seawater. Overall, my impression as a solo traveling American, was that it was like a slightly better and cheaper version of Florida. Playa Del Carmen is a family friendly city that looks better than Cancun, but in my opinion, it's not nearly as beautiful as Tulum. Playa Del Carmen was a wonderful place to see once, but unlike Sian Ka'an, I don't feel a longing to return here.

Ednza

Ednza has one of the lesser known but most beautiful Mayan temples in Mexico. I visited here with my friend Cris from Campeche nearby and you can see the photos we took of each other on the steps of the temple above. It's a nice day trip to see the temple build by Mayans so many years ago, and maybe ponder if architecture actually peaked with the Mayan civilization.

Chichen Itza

One of the seven wonders of the world, this Mayan ruin was once painted red and white and was the home to a game where the winning Mayans were sacrificed to the Gods. While this might make the Mayans sound like a stupid barbaric people, consider that at the time, and even now people still violently kill each other over disagreements. Actually, the Mayan architecture and calendars were among the best in the world, the Mayan calendar is still more accurate than the Gregorian one, not requiring a leap years, because it's lunar based, and the ruins have lasted longer than most civilizations to this day. Another interesting thing to me about Mayan culture is how brilliant the language is, common expressions in English are just one word in Mayan. For example the sentence "What's your name?" Is just the word Naqbi. The phrase, "My name is" once again one word, Janubi. Good day? Just the word Sagri. Imagine how much time the Mayans save with their more efficient communication.

Bacalar

Bacalar is tucked away in southern Mexico near the border with Belize, Bacalar feels like one of those rare places that somehow escaped the rush of modern tourism. While nearby destinations like Tulum and Cancún buzz with beach clubs and crowds, Bacalar moves at a slower rhythm—one shaped by water, wind, and the glow of an almost unreal lagoon.

The heart of Bacalar is the breathtaking Laguna de Bacalar, often called the Lagoon of Seven Colors. The name comes from the incredible shades of blue that stretch across the water, from pale turquoise near the shore to deep sapphire in the lagoon’s cenotes and deeper channels. Stand on a dock early in the morning and you’ll see why people fall in love with this place. The water is so clear it almost looks photoshopped. Kayaks and sailboats glide quietly across the surface, and the gentle breeze ripples through the lagoon like moving glass.

Campeche

Campeche is the most colorful city in the world and it also has the oldest church in Latin America. In spite of this it doesn't get many American tourists. The only way I found out about it was because I did a camp photography job and met my friend Cris who was from here, and he invited me to come visit. Personally, I took the bus all the way from Tulum to Merida to Campeche which was actually fairly enjoyable and they had American movies dubbed in Spanish on the bus. Above are photos of us showing off the fantastic culinary scene here, with huge bags of cheese puffs that just cost about $5 bucks. I realized tacos are aren't really popular there, and actually in Campeche people ate panuchos, which taste amazing, tortillas with eggs and beans on top and lots of different spicy soups. In Mexico, it's also popular to put salt on fruit and you can buy a delicious huge fresh squeezed juice for the same cost or even less than a Coke.

Campeche is a nice slice of authentic Mexican culture with people selling food right out of their houses and driving around sitting in the back of truck beds. It gets very hot, I visited in January and it felt like a warm summer day back home in Connecticut. In the summer, it gets so hot that the sun turns red. If you do decide to visit, the temple in Ednza is just a distance away.