Mexico With Kids Is Not Just the Beach. The Yucatan Loop I Book

We lived in Merida for three months and I would put it on any family’s Mexico list before Cancun.

Here is the loop.

Fly into Cancun because the flights are cheap, and leave the same day. Drive two hours to Valladolid, a small colonial town with a cenote in the middle of it, and stay two nights. Chichen Itza is 45 minutes away and you can be at the gate at 8am before the buses arrive from the coast, which is the only way to see it.

Then Merida, two hours west, for four nights. It is a real city, safe, with a Sunday street party on the main square, a market that sells the best cochinita pibil you will ever eat, and Uxmal an hour south, which the kids liked more than Chichen Itza because you are allowed to climb things. Cenotes are everywhere. The ones near Cuzama, reached by a horse drawn cart on old rail tracks, were Avilene’s favorite afternoon of the whole three months.

Then back east to the coast for the beach part. Tulum or the quieter stretch near Akumal, three nights, and home from Cancun.

Ten days. Two hours of driving at a time on good roads with almost no traffic.

Costs. Merida is one of the least expensive places I book. A big colonial house with a pool for a week costs what three nights on the coast costs. The coast is where the money goes, so I keep it short.

When to go. November through March. It is hot the rest of the year, and by May Merida is over 100 degrees most afternoons. Hurricane season on the coast runs June through November.

Safety comes up in every call about Mexico and the Yucatan is the answer. It is the safest state in the country by most measures and Merida regularly tops the lists for Latin America.

The Mexico guide has the rest of the country, and this loop sits in the North America family travel guide as the place I would actually start.