PLAYA DEL CARMEN · MEXICO
Caribbean water, Mayan stone, the cenote underneath.
Tulum and Cozumel. Chichen Itza and Coba. Cenote dives and reef snorkels. Plus the Quinta, the beach clubs, and the ferry pier — everything an hour or two from the doorstep.
Across to the island
If you only take one boat, take this one.
Playa’s ferry pier sits two blocks from the Quinta. Forty-five minutes east, the most-booked day on the whole Mayan Riviera is waiting on the other side.
The classics
Riviera Maya’s Most Popular Day Tours
Chichen Itza, Tulum, cenote dips, beach-club ferry days. The trips travellers fly into Cancun for.
Three faces of the Yucatán
Three worlds on one peninsula.
The Riviera Maya is the Caribbean reef, the freshwater cenote and the Mayan ruin laid over the same stretch of jungle. Pick a face. Or do all three across the week.
Day-trip from Playa
Pick a direction. Pick a distance.
Forty-five minutes east by ferry is Cozumel. Two and a half hours north-west is Chichen Itza. Everything in between is a day-trip from the Quinta. Travel times below are door-to-door.
Reef, beach clubs, Caribbean clear water
Walk in from the beach to swim with turtles
Mayan cliff temple, beachfront ruins
Jungle pyramid you can still climb
Biosphere lagoons and mangrove channels
The wonder, the equinox shadow, Valladolid stop
Only in the Riviera Maya
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Beaches and reefs are everywhere. These three aren’t. Each one only exists because of the limestone shelf, the seagrass meadow or the calendar the Maya carved into the stone. Worth planning around.
Under the jungle
Swim a cenote.
Cenotes are collapsed limestone caves filled with freshwater so clear you can see thirty metres down. The Yucatán Peninsula sits on the world’s largest underground river system — there’s nothing like it anywhere else on earth. Some cenotes are roof-open with vines hanging in. Others are cathedral-domed and lit by a single skylight from above.
- 1 Chichen Itza, Cenote and Valladolid Small Group Day Trip
- 2 From Playa del Carmen ATV Adventure with Ziplines, Cenote
- 3 Half-Day Sea Turtle and Cenote Snorkeling Tour from Cancun & Riviera Maya
Year-round
Snorkel with sea turtles.
Akumal means “place of the turtles” in Maya. The bay’s shallow seagrass meadow is the only spot on the Riviera Maya where you can walk in from shore and swim alongside wild green sea turtles — year-round, every day. They’ve been grazing this lawn for a hundred million years.
- 1 Tulum Ruins, Turtles in Akumal and Cenote tour
- 2 Private Tulum Ruins, Turtles in Akumal and Cenote Adventure
- 3 Private Snorkeling with Sea Turtles in Akumal Beach
Mayan astronomy
Chichen Itza, on time.
Twice a year — on the spring and autumn equinoxes — the setting sun draws a serpent-shadow down the steps of El Castillo. Fourteen hundred years on, the timing is still exact. Clap once at the base of the pyramid and the echo comes back as the call of a quetzal bird. Mayan engineering at scale.
- 1 Chichen Itza, Cenote and Valladolid Small Group Day Trip
- 2 VIP Chichen Itza Private Tour
- 3 Skip the Line Chichen Itza Private Tour, Sacred Cenote & Lunch
By place
Pick a corner of the Mayan Riviera.
Playa for the Quinta and the ferry pier. Tulum for the cliffside ruins. Cozumel for the reef. Chichen Itza for the pyramid. Coba for the jungle climb. Sian Ka'an for the mangroves and the dolphins.
By activity
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Cenote dip if you want freshwater jungle. Reef snorkel if you want Caribbean coast. ATV if you want the bush at speed. Sailing, beach club, Mayan village — pick your day.
Just added