Welcome back to our current series on Tulum! We're splitting this up into so many entries because the amount of information to give you is way more than I wanted to put in one entry. In this fourth part, I'm going to talk about the activities in the area.
There are plenty of activities to do in and around Tulum, some are season-specific and others are open all year round, whether it’s sea turtle viewing, or visiting cenotes (natural sinkholes revered and considered sacred by many indigenous Mayans), museums, amusement parks, etc. You have Xcaret, a resort area with various amusement and waterparks, Tulum Native Park, an outdoor park with ruins and cenotes, the Zona Arqueológica which is the larger museum complex with Mayan ruins, and other cenotes that can be visited separately from parks.
Some hotels and resorts will have other activities, such as snorkeling and catamaran tours, and you can also plan trips to Cozumel or Playa del Carmen to go shopping, depending on what it is you want to do.
I’m generally not big on doing lots of activities while on vacation as I like to have a lot of free time to relax. Typical introvert stuff. If you prefer keeping busy and not spending all your day at the beach, talk to the hotel concierge, the taxi drivers, and wait staff at the restaurant you’re eating at what their recommendations are.
I personally recommend going to do different cenotes: the Gran Cenote, about a 10-minute drive away from downtown Tulum, and Cenotes Casa Tortugas, which is about 20-25 minutes away. Gran Cenote is exactly what it sounds like: a massive cenote that’s incredibly deep and large. You can rent a snorkel set if you don’t already have one and peek underwater at all the life that’s moving in the rocks below your feet.
This one is the easiest to get to and visit and takes about an hour of your day, depending on how long you want to spend in the water. You can spend as much time as you want, swimming around the pool, looking in the water, and enjoying the scenery. It is recommended to rent a locker so your stuff can stay dry for an extra cost. You don't need one and you can leave your stuff outside on the walkways at your own risk.
Cenotes Casa Tortugas, on the other hand, is a much different experience. It’s my personal favorite given how vast the complex is and the fact that a meal can be included in the price of entry. From Aldea Zamá it costs about 500 pesos for a taxi, and then the driver will wait while you pay for your ticket if you don’t purchase online (either option is fine; I found it easier to purchase in person so I could clarify what it was I was paying for, but the online ticketing is far easier in general) and they will then drive you to the entrance. The entrance fee is about 600 pesos (about 30 USD) and you can choose whether you want to take advantage of the taco buffet or zipline. My brother and I opted for the taco buffet since we were hungry and aren’t big into ziplining, and honestly, I think we made the better decision since it is literally all-you-can-eat. No joke. My brother is an active guy, and he went up twice and no one said anything.
There are 5 cenotes in total, and once you go through all of them with the guide, you are then free to explore the cenotes that are in the open air (as opposed to the ones in caves) as much as you want, and you can also take advantage of the bars that are scattered on some of them. You can spend all day there if you so choose, and honestly, the fact that there’s a food option is what makes it a slam-dunk choice. There are other cenotes as well, but this turned out to be an incredible experience, and even my other brother who did the Native Park with his in-laws said he wished he’d done the cenotes with us.
The Native Park gives you access to ruins, zip lines, cenotes, and a traditional Mayan meal for $100 so it’s an all-in-one pack that you spend the entire day doing. I’d originally had this as an option, but given the cost and the timing, I opted to not go and instead stuck to the cenotes on their own. The day we went it was incredibly rainy, and when the taxi dropped us off downtown so we could go to an ATM, we had a torrential downpour, but the experience was great all the same.
I will say that the water is cold as it’s groundwater being constantly fed from the rocks, so if you’re sensitive to cold, bear this in mind. When it’s bright and sunny though, the cold water does feel amazing!
My personal favorite activity, however, is the Zona Arqueológica, the museum complex of Mayan ruins right by the beach. The entire complex is absolutely stunning, with a lot of information relating to Mayan culture and traditions, as well as the wildlife and scenery make it an absolutely phenomenal experience. At one point there’s an overlook of what’s essentially a mini beach, and it’s heaven on earth. I want my own private beach that looks just like that. Words really won’t do it justice, so here are some photos.
Finally, if the only thing you want to do is go to the beach, or you're tired of running around the Yucatán, there are some amazing stretches of beach just south of the Zona Arqueológica that are public and all-access. We had three beach days, one at a beachfront resort where my brother was staying and two at the public beaches which are accessible by taxi and bicycle. There are also one or two beaches located in the Zona Hotelera, but they are much smaller and parking is not as much of an option.
Stay tuned for the final entry, where we'll go into detail about when is the best time of year to plan your travel, and for how long.
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