Tulum is about an hour south of Playa del Carmen. I’d been nibbling around Tulum a few times: two cenote dives nearby and a wonderful beach front brunch just north of Tulum with my Airbnb host and my two neighbors.
But yesterday was my first foray into the actual ruins, beaches and city of Tulum.
I started with the Mayan ruins. The buildings themselves were really nice but are considered not nearly as spectacular as some of the other Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. What is magnificent is their location; right on cliffs overlooking the beach.
Tulum was a fort and major trading port for the Mayans where goods would come in from settlements up and down the Yucatan Peninsula and Central America, both by land roads and by the sea. The main area is enclosed by thick walls on three sides and cliffs overlooking the ocean on the fourth side.
Next I walked along the beach moving south from the ruins. When there’s no seaweed present, Tulum is considered one of the most picturesque beaches in Mexico. Yesterday there was minimal seaweed and I was able to walk along the long wide beach until the public section ended. It was indeed a beautiful beach and there were plenty of hotels, beach clubs and bars/restaurants where you can just chill the day away.
Then I headed downtown, which is basically a strip of businesses along the main highway. There were a lot of standard Mexican stores, similar to the main business street in Playa. But there were also some nice alternative restaurants and businesses that you wouldn’t see in a typical Mexican business district.
I didn’t see much of the new age culture in my short time there, but I did see a lot higher percentage of gringos relative to Mexicans than I’ve been seeing in Playa. And most of those gringos had a much hipper look to them than the ones I’ve been seeing in Playa, including yours truly 😊.
A girl I met in Playa used to live in Tulum. She liked it but got a bit tired of the scene. Her joke was that only social media influencers, Instagram models and yoga instructors lived there. It looked very livable to me, but it didn’t seem to have my two current lifelines: almost daily stand up paddleboard opportunities and close proximity to the world class scuba diving in Cozumel.
Finally, this 30 minute video is both a beautiful travelogue of Tulum and then a pretty detailed breakdown of the problems it’s facing. It gets a bit pedantic at some points, but does a good job of breaking down the challenges of tourism development in emerging economies.