I’ve had Tulum on the top of my travel bucket list for a while now. We had some friends getting married in Cancun this past November, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to take a few extra days and visit.
Tulum is a bit more difficult to get to than your average destination. After arriving at the airport in Cancun, there is still about a 2 hour drive to the Tulum area. Most of the hotels will help with booking, and ours was able to book a van to pick us up and take us to the hotel. The majority of the drive is super easy on highway, but once in Tulum, the road changes real quick. The beach road itself where all of the hotels are located is essentially a dirt road, and is EXTREMELY bumpy. I was still in the first trimester of my pregnancy, and those last few miles were pretty rough to get through, so be prepared!
Note on the roads: the beach road is very bumpy. There are a lot of potholes, and it takes a while to drive down it, as you have to go really slow. Because of that, if you’re staying for a long time, a lot of hotels provide bikes and / or four wheelers to get around. The four wheelers honestly seemed like the best option, and allow you to easily navigate the holes and pedestrians. If you’re walking, make sure you wear shoes that you don’t mind getting slightly muddy/dusty. Definitely not a place to bring your best heels!
We arrived pretty late at night, and checked into our room at Alaya Tulum. There weren’t a lot of lights when we arrived, so we honestly couldn’t see much of the surroundings around our room. It was SUCH a delight to wake up and see truly how beautiful the views were. The rooms are all little villas and our room walked had a side door and a front patio that allowed us to walk directly out onto the beach. The entrances to each room have water with flowers to use to rinse your feet before entering back in, and provided such an adorable touch.
There are a lot of hotels in Tulum, and we struggled to figure out which one we wanted to stay at. One super important thing to note, is that a lot of hotels are “eco-hotels” which is great for the environment, but can mean very different things per property. A few that we looked at we realized didn’t have air conditioning, or had bathrooms that were an indoor/outdoor situation. Alaya was perfect, because it was a rustic feel, while still having all of the amenities that you’re used to/want in order to be comfortable. I honestly wouldn’t stay anywhere else – we loved it so much.
Our first morning was a busy one – we got up early and met our driver to head out to the cenotes. I was honestly overwhelmed trying to decide which cenote to visit, and they all had different pros and cons. We ended up going with Absolute Adventure as our tour company, and visiting the Dos Ojos cenote.
The great thing about visiting with Absolute Adventure is that we arrived early before the crowds, and we had the entire cenote to ourselves for quite a while.
You can swim between the “two eyes” and we had snorkel gear and waterproof flashlights to be able to see the incredible scenery below the surface. There were a bunch of divers that were starting out their day, and it was wild to be able to see them heading down into the dark underwater tunnels.
Afterwards, we changed out of our wet suits, and had a fantastic lunch with our guides before heading back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel, we went straight to the beach to lounge. The hotel had a great beach side bar and restaurant, and we were able to get some great fresh juices and fresh guacamole as an afternoon snack.
That night, we had reservations at Ilios. It was the most recommended restaurant to us when we were planning our trip, and it did not disappoint.
As usual, we completely over-ordered. The menu is expansive, and in addition to all of the appetizers and entrees, you can order fresh seafoods and meats and choose the preparation of them. We started with the eggplant chips, which were PHENOMENAL, along with an aioli for dipping.
For our mains, we picked a fresh fish, and alaskan king crab legs. Fun fact, forgot how big king crab legs are, and we ordered more than twice what we could realistically eat, but it was SO good.
We got back to the hotel early, and legit went to bed at like 9 pm. A combination of being worn out from the cenote swim and the sun, being SO full from dinner, and just my general first trimester tiredness led to me falling fast asleep the second I got into the room.
The next morning we woke up early to see the sunrise on the beach. If you know Eric and I, you know that our vacations almost always involve lots of adult beverages, so we’re rarely in the mood to get up early in the morning when we don’t have to. Being pregnant, with no alcohol, and falling asleep so early has been a really fun change of pace.
After watching the sunrise, we headed back in to lounge around in bed a bit more before officially starting our day. I honestly could not get over how beautiful it was to wake up looking right out onto the beach and the water. I dream about waking up in this bed again!
We spent most of the morning lounging in the sun and catching up on some reading.
The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around the beach road a bit before our drive back to Cancun. We started with a stop at Matcha Mama. I’ve heard that this spot is normally PACKED with long lines and lots of folks waiting to take the typical instagram photos.
When we got there, were were the only people in sight. I think we may have somehow gone on an off weekend, and it was so enjoyable. We didn’t see a single line for anything the whole visit.
In addition to the cute photo ops, the food and smoothies here are delicious. Eric got a fantastic smoothie, and I got a vegan chia coconut gelato that was so fantastic.
Right next to Matcha Mama is the Follow Your Dreams sign that is also a staple instagram photo for Tulum. Again, no line, no one in sight trying to take a photo.
Before catching our ride, we stopped at the little food truck park near our hotel and grabbed some food to tide us over. Juanita’s Fajitas was my favorite, and the quesadilla was so flavorful.
There are a few other trucks with different cuisines, all of which have a lot of vegan and health food items, and then a bar in the middle to grab drinks. We saw a few people stop by on their four wheelers to grab a beverage before heading back out to explore.
Unfortunately, after grabbing some food, we did have to jump in the van to head back to Cancun. We loved our time in Tulum, and we’ll definitely be back for another vacation at Alaya in the future. Let us know what spots to include on our next trip in the comments!
