This year was the first of many atypical holiday seasons for me. While Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years were crazy (I worked on all of them), I still had some time off to escape the dreary cold in Boston. When 2 friends and I had the same 3 days off we knew we had to go somewhere. My only conditions were that our destination was warm and budget friendly. This birthed our girls’ getaway to Tulum!

I had never heard of Tulum until about 4 months ago when a fellow flight attendant mentioned it. A week later, a gal I went to college with was visiting the area and her pictures were STUNNING. I knew I wanted to visit sometime. And because our phones listen to us, I started seeing things about Tulum everywhere on social media.

Getting There

Tulum is on the Yucatán peninsula a couple hours south of Cancun. We flew into the Cancun airport. After reading a few different things on the internet we decided to rent a car to get to Tulum. This ended up costing around $140 for the 3 days and I felt it was money well spent. We were able to control exactly where we went and when we went there. Driving in Mexico was not hard to do! They also drive on the right side of the road and our rental was an automatic transmission. The only thing to watch out for, is they don’t care too much about lanes or turn signals.

Staying in Tulum City

As I mentioned earlier, one of my requirements for our trip was for it to be budget friendly. After looking on Air BnB we found a super cute place in Tulum city that was also quite cheap. I never felt unsafe in our Air BnB and the host was easy to communicate with and informative about the area. Check out the Air BnB listing!

What We Did

We knew a few things that we wanted to do for certain in Tulum. Cenotes were a big one. And I really wanted to see Casa Malca, former home of Pablo Escobar. After researching different posts from Pinterest (like you may be doing right now) and mapping out where different attractions were I created this itinerary for us.

Side note/tip: Did you know you can save locations in Apple Maps and add them to a collection? This really came in handy when planning what order to do things in and easily pulling up our next location when we needed GPS assistance (every time we got in the car).

My itinerary proved to be a bit ambitious for us with a few unforeseen hiccups the first day with getting to Mexico and picking up the rental car. So here’s what we ACTUALLY did.

Day 1

• Made it to Cancun
• Picked up the rental car
• Had our first pit stop in Playa Del Carmen for lunch

I mapped us to a restaurant I heard good things about on the internet but after circling the block a few times and accidentally driving on a pedestrian only road once we abandoned the plan in favor of a restaurant we could see with ample parking. Enter: El Zorro Plateado. The decor was adorable, the staff was friendly and the food was delicious! I ordered the Relleno Negro.

After finishing up our lunch, it was fairly late in the day so we decided to go to our Air BnB.

After getting settled and freshening up, we went to dinner at El Mariachi Loco. I had a few different places pre-mapped for dinner that we could choose from, we ultimately picked this one because we saw we could sit on swings at the bar! This trend deff needs to make it to the states. The tacos were alright, not dazzling but certainly not bad. The Palomas however were fantastic!

We were pretty beat from the long travel day and had a lot to fit in on day 2 so we turned in after dinner.

Day 2

We were up early to make the most of the day! First stop: Breakfast

We ate at Ki’Bok, which is highly recommended across the internet. And for good reason. The staff is friendly, the prices are reasonable, and the food and coffee are all great! I highly suggest sitting in their outdoor/garden space out back! I ordered the Huevos Divorciados (like Huevos Rancheros but with 2 sauces instead of one!), while my friends had the Pan Francés (French Toast), and a Fruit Plate.

Once we have our fill of breakfast we head out to the highly anticipated first cenote of the day. We went to Cenote Dos Ojos first. We chose the ‘swimming’ package. There was another package that included snorkeling for a little more. I believe the entrance fee was around 300 Pesos.

Wow. I saw plenty of photos online of the different cenotes but they do not compare to being there in real life! Unfortunately while we were there, it was cloudy the whole time. But even in the lower light, the water was incredibly clear! There are even little fish in the water that come up and nibble on you a little bit. We took A LOT of photos here, please enjoy!

Next stop: Grand Cenote! A little more developed of an area with facilities and lockers. They do require you to shower before entering the cenote to get off any extra impurities you could bring to the waters. It was also very beautiful but more crowded than Dos Ojos. I would love to come back first thing in the morning to beat the crowds! Not as many photos here because it was raining.

After several hours of swimming, we had worked up an appetite and headed towards the resorts on the beach. We lunched at Juanita Diavola, an Italian restaurant at the Coco Tulum Hotel. I didn’t get any photos, but we ordered a brick oven pizza and it was fantastic! Just the pick-me-up we needed. We even had a couple slices left over that I was able to snack on later that evening. After lunch we wandered down the beach. We had wanted to go to Coco’s beachfront bar because it’s BEAUTIFUL, all white decor right on the blue ocean but they were closing up due to the inclement weather that was being expected.

The server did recommend Coco Limited just down the beach, a sister property that would most likely still be open. We headed that way and it was the ticket! There we found a smaller version of the bar we just left, complete with swings! We sipped Mojitos and enjoyed the ocean view. The sun even came out for a few minutes and I took advantage of it!

We then made our way down to Casa Malca. I picked up a tip from another post saying that if you entered from the beach side, you would be less likely to get asked questions. So that’s what we did! We had a drink at the main bar and roamed the grounds a bit. I was a bit bummed we didn’t get there until it was getting dark but it lent a really cool vibe to the photos!

We ended the evening at the I Scream Bar. Another highly recommended place from the internet. There was live music when we first arrived, a great playlist when the live act was finished, good tacos, great drinks, and we heard they had vegan ice cream but none of us tried it out. It is definitely a touristy spot but not in a bad way. Everyone there was very friendly and we were able to chat with other travelers around us.

Day 3

Of course on our last day, the sun finally started to come out. We didn’t get much of a chance to soak it up, though, as we had to get back to Cancun to go home. Boo!

We wanted to get some miles behind us, so we opted to wait until Playa Del Carmen to grab food on the way. We were able to get some delicious breakfast food to-go, but I forgot to grab the name of the place! Anyway, we made it back to Cancun just it time to get our flights and just like that I was back in snowy and 30 degree Boston weather.

My Top Tips for Tulum

• Have Pesos! I thought I could skate by on a card but the cenotes and smaller restaurants are cash only. Just bite the bullet, pay the fees and get pesos. I cannot emphasize this enough.
• Have at least one person in your group that speaks Spanish. In the resorts there were English speakers but to have a better experience, it’s best to have someone who knows the language.
• Rent a car. It was so valuable being able to be in control of where we went and when. Plus, things are rather spread out even once you’re in Tulum.

Shop My Tulum Wardrobe

• Blue and White Bell Sleeved Dress (I’m wearing an XS and I liked it so much I wore it both nights we were there!)
• Sandals (Old Steve Madden, similar linked)
• Seersucker Set (I’m wearing a small)
• Lemon Print Suit (Wearing a small, check out my full review!)
• Backpack (HIGHLY recommend)

And that’s my guide! If you’ve been to Tulum and want to share more tips, feel free to do so in the comments below!

Thank you so much for reading! Xoxo,