Mexico 🇲🇽

shellyvix
Jul 2, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Jun 3, 2025

12 Days in Mexico: Mexico City, Merida, Valladolid, Tulum & Playa del Carmen

MEXICO CITY

Hotel (4 nights): MyPlace at Santo Domingo $69/night with a kitchen and rooftop lounge area. Located in El Centro, walking distance to various historical sites. We found the area to be perfect for navigating the city on foot, as well as easy to use Uber. There is an excellent public transportation system that we would have used if we had stayed longer.

DAY 1: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Santo Domingo Church: first Dominican monastery established in Mexico
Zócalo: main square used by the ruling class since the Aztecs
- Metropolitan Cathedral = largest and oldest cathedral in the Americas
- National Palace = offices of the President and the Treasury
- El Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan = construction began after 1325 by the Aztecs and the temple was rebuilt six times
Rooftop Breakfast: Restaurante La Terraza Majestic overlooking the Zócalo
Museo de Bellas Artes: oldest art museum in Latin America
Other Sites: Torre Latinoamericana, Benito Juarez Monument, Museum of Tolerance, Casa de Azulejos
Refreshment: La Cerveceria de Barrio Alameda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ukREn6QVJg

DAY 2: Teotihuacan

Viator Hot Air Balloon Ride Teotihuacán: the absolute highlight of the trip and an incredible value! We booked a 5 hour (including breakfast, round trip transportation and time to view the pyramids on foot) hot air balloon ride to view the ancient pyramids from the air.
The posted video ends with a 1.5 minute video compilation purchased from the balloon company, Volare, for only $5 that includes footage taken with a camera attached to our balloon during the journey.

DAY 3: Coyoacán & Lucha Libre

Uber to the quaint colonial town of Frida Kahlo with breakfast at Moheli
Walk across the street to Plaza Hidalgo and the Church of San Juan Bautista and enjoy beso de angel gelato at Tepoznieves
Museo Frida Kahlo (The Blue House), Mexican surrealist painter
Visit León Trotsky’s home only two blocks from Frida’s Blue House. Frida and husband Diego Rivera were very close with Leon and his wife, Natalia. The home has a guard tower and steel doors, but eventually Stalinist assassins killed him in the home with an ice pick while his grandson lived there (he recalls the horror in this BBC article). Nearly all of Trotsky’s family was eventually murdered by Stalin.
Coyoacán Market
Lucha Libre at Arena México (tickets through Ticketmaster) - very entertaining and worthwhile, easy to get an Uber ($4 to El Centro) right out front afterward

DAY 4: Xochimilco

Breakfast near Santo Domingo Church in El Centro
Uber (1 hr) to Xochimilco for a 2 hr canal cruise in our own trajinera (standard rate is approx $25/hr), a perfect way to spend our last day with our backpacks before Ubering to the airport. The people were so much fun - from the boat captains to the mariachi bands to the partying kids!
Xochimilco was a lake on which the Aztecs built chinampas, floating gardens: a man-made piece of floating land built on water created by interweaving reeds with stakes beneath the lake's surface and then covered with soil. For more info on the fascinating history: In Mexico City, A Technicolor Borough Serves Up Tasty Street Foods — On Water

MERIDA

Rental Car (8 days): Discover Cars $361 (small 4 door w/full coverage, pick up Merida Airport, Drop off Cancun Airport). When you arrive, you will either have to buy very expensive additional insurance from the dealership or put a large deposit on a credit card. The agreement stated US$5,000-16,000 deposit, but Europcar (aka Keddy) at the Merida Airport required US$20,000. This amount was on hold until I returned the car to Europcar Cancun Airport and then it was immediately removed.

Hotel (3 nights): Hyatt Regency Merida, an excellent stay for only 7,000 points/night with Club Access (breakfast and afternoon food + beverages). Perfect location - only 1km to the historic Centro, superb customer service and a rooftop pool.

DAY 5: Explore Merida: wander the cute, colonial streets of Mérida. Merida is considered the safest city in Mexico AND, in 2019, it was ranked as the second safest city in all of North America. For dinner, we had delicious cochinita pibil tacos and sopa de calabaza at Manjar Blanco, made famous from the Netflix show Taco Chronicles (volume 2, episode cochinita).

DAY 6: Uxmal: drove to the stunning ruins (600-900 AD) of Uxmal, one of the largest cities of the Yucatán peninsula on the Ruta Puuc and at its height was home to approx 20,000 Maya. Puuc architecture has rounded corners, small arches and highly decorated upper sections with serpents, lattice work and pillars.

DAY 7: Chichen Itza: on our way to Valladolid, we stopped at the "city of the water sorcerers" to explore more ruins (550-1500 AD). Located fairly close to the Riviera Maya, Chichen Itza is highly commercialized (a lot of vendors peddling goods inside the ancient site). The ruins are worth it, if you are unable to explore other ruins.

VALLADOLID

Hotel (2 nights): Hotel Gayser: $59/night with basic breakfast (toast, fruit, coffee, juice), extremely clean, ample free street parking and located only a block from the main plaza

Day 8: Explore Valladolid

Cenote Zaci - in the center of town lies this beautiful cenote, a swimming hole created by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs striking just north of Mérida
Convento de San Bernardino de Siena
Calzada de los Frailes - diagonal street that runs from the plaza to the convento
Dinner in the main plaza, Parque Principal Francisco Cantón Rosado, at Restaurante El Atrio del Mayab

TULUM

Hotel (1 night): Kan Tulum $139 for the deluxe king infinity pool room at this incredible eco resort. I highly recommended staying here for a night or two.

Day 9: Tulum Town

Drove from Valladolid to Tulum in intermittent rain for just under 2 hours and stopped in Tulum Town to have lunch at Del Cielo, a trendy spot perfect for relaxing while we waited to check into our tropical jungle paradise.

After checking in, we didn't leave until check-out the following morning because we wanted to enjoy every moment in Kan Tulum's gorgeous setting - our private pool, the 360 rooftop view and the excellent local food and beverage at their restaurant.

Hotel (1 night): Cielo Maya Beach Tulum $142 for the deluxe suite balcony with ocean view, breakfast and a bottle of sparkling courtesy of Expedia VIP status.

Day 10: Tulum Beach

To experience both the jungle and the beach of Tulum, we checked into a small boutique hotel and immediately noticed the extremely elevated beach prices - $25 for a nothing-to-write-home-about burger and fries. It was a bit windy with some rain, so we hopped in the pool for a bit and enjoyed our balcony, but didn't end up walking down the beach as planned for dinner.

PLAYA DEL CARMEN

Hotel (1 night): Caribbean Paradise Hotel $70 for a superior double room w/balcony that includes breakfast. The hotel is in a perfect location - a block from the beach and directly on the pedestrian walkway with restaurants and shops. We paid $10 to park in the hotel lot (their parking garage was flooded). I highly recommend this hotel, as well as Playa del Carmen for the range of activities and the lower-than-Tulum-Beach prices.

Day 11: Playa del Carmen

Our 1 hour drive from Tulum Beach to Playa del Carmen was pretty easy, aside from one area inundated with water. While waiting to check in, we had a beverage at the cute coffee shop right next to the outdoor hotel lobby and a 60 minute massage at a Luum Spa in the same strip mall. We walked down the pedestrian road, stopped in some shops, enjoyed a gelato and had dinner with a mariachi band at La Parrilla, kitty-corner from our hotel.

Day 12: Departure Day

After checking out and enjoying the hotel's voucher breakfast across the street, we drove 1 hour to Cancun Airport to return the car. We were shuttled to the airport and spent a couple hours in the lounge having snacks and drinks before boarding our flight home.

PACKING SUGGESTIONS

Travel light: use a Samsonite Underseat Carry-On or backpack and packing cubes or vacuum sealed bags
Bring a crossbody bag, travel wallet, portable charger, toiletry bag

GETTING THERE

Priority Pass MSP Lounge: $15 vouchers per person for food and drink. Sign up for the Venture X card for free access.
Frontier Airlines MSP-DEN $30 per person
Capital One Lounge DEN - Great food, drinks, atmosphere and they send you off with a bag of groceries for your flight! Sign up for the Venture X card for free access.
Volaris DEN-MEX $124 per person
Volaris MEX-MID $56 per person
Priority Pass Lounge MEX for food and drinks. Sign up for the Venture X card for free access.
Delta Airlines CUN-MSP 14,000 Skymiles + $78 per person