Self-drive Mexico: Discover the Yucatan Peninsula

Our local partners will assist you with collection of you car upon arrival at Cancún airport. Your car will be a mid-sized Chevrolet Aveo (or similar) which will be your companion for 12 days. Other sizes of car are available but terms and conditions are subject to change. Drive to your hotel in town.

Cancún straddles a lagoon on the north-eastern tip of the Yucatán peninsula. It’s a purpose-built resort with beautiful beaches, good diving and water sports. Alongside the facilities that come with five-star hotels are high-class shopping and fashionable nightclubs and bars.

Drive inland to Chichén Itzá (2 hours direct) the grandest and most well organised of all the Mayan sites, dominated by the huge, symmetrical, stepped El Castillo pyramid. The origins of the site are mysterious. It has the largest and best-preserved ball court in the Americas: the venue for an ancient ritual game that was played throughout the continent, but which is still not fully understood. Archaeologists have not been able to determine whether the losers or winners were decapitated, but judging from the gory carvings along the base of the court’s walls, someone certainly came to an unpleasant end.

En route you might want to visit the laid-back colonial town of Valladolid with its grand church and peaceful plaza. It’s also a good spot from which to visit one of the cenotes which pit the peninsula. Cenotes are steep-sided freshwater sinkholes fed by underground rivers, deep enough for you to take a dip into their sparkling clear turquoise and emerald waters.

Accommodation is a short walk from the site, and in the evening there is the option to return for the Sound and Light Show.

Drive towards Mérida (2 hours direct), capital of the state of Yucatán and a hacienda-style hotel on the outskirts of the city which is your base for the next 3 nights.

The city of Mérida was founded by the Maya, but in 1542 it was conquered by the Spanish conquistadores and became immensely wealthy, described as the ‘Paris of the New World’. Its income came from the production of sisal, cactus fibres that are used to make rope, and it was culturally and geographically isolated from the rest of the country until transport infrastructure reached it in the 1950s.

Today, Mérida retains a lovely colonial centre with a mix of opulent and crumbly buildings, but it is a modern, bustling, thriving city with lots of local character, some excellent places to eat and good shops and markets. The inhabitants, descendants of the Maya and the colonists, love a good fiesta, and you may well find one going on, with live music and street stalls, while you are there.

Merida is around 30-minutes’ drive from your hotel. Stroll around the sunny streets, shop for local lace or one of the region’s famous hammocks. Outside town you might drive to the ruined ceremonial temples of Uxmal, for many the most dramatic forest-clad Maya site. It’s just over an hour from Mérida, but you enter a different world. The site is dominated by the majestic Pyramid of the Magician, inhabited by birds and bats, alongside which is an elegant ‘nunnery’ quadrangle with Puuc-style complex stonework pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. This is the site with the most mystic ambience.

Also in contrast to the lively city of Mérida is Celestún on the remote, undeveloped and swampy gulf coast just 45 minutes’ drive away. A low-key beach resort favoured by Mexican families, the once isolated fishing port has an inviting, broad white sandy beach and good seafood restaurants. But it is most famous for the lagoons at the entrance to town which are filled with rose-coloured flamingoes. Boat trips can be booked locally and there are car parking areas now. There are three main routes out of Mérida on the west side from the Pereferico. The newest route is via Tetiz and Kinchil, which is the quickest.

Drive to Campeche (2 hours direct) on the coast facing the Gulf of Mexico. The old walled city is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site – pastel-painted mansions built by aristocratic Spanish families, pristine white churches and the shady zócalo main square evoke the city’s era of glory. There’s a lovely seaside promenade, perfect for walking at sunset.

At leisure to explore the city, or drive to the little-visited Mayan pyramid complex at Edzná, a few miles outside town.

Drive southeast of Campeche and deep into the southern Yucatan Peninsula, today’s destination being the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. The journey takes around 4-5 hours, initially via the coastal road and the fishing port of Champoton where seafood stalls line the promenade. As you head inland, a landscape of lush cattle pasture and tropical forest takes over and shortly before tonight’s accommodation a rich seam of Mayan archaeological sites begins. You may opt to stop off at the ruins of Balamku, which remain enveloped in forest.

Spend the next 2 nights at a rustic lodge, some 60km north of the archeological site of Calakmul.

Construction of the Tren Maya railway since the early 2020s is bringing significant change to these remote reaches of the Yucatán peninsula, which hitherto remained an off-the-beaten-track destination for adventurous travellers. It’s realistic to anticipate ongoing construction as well as some heavy vehicles along the highway as associated development continues.

Calakmul is undoubtedly the main reason for visiting this region, smothered in rainforest, it’s an important and very impressive site of what was once a vast and powerful city. There are 6,750 ancient structures identified there, the largest of which is the great pyramid at the site, at 45m high one of the highest temples of the Maya world.

Calakmul Biosphere Reserve is home to some wildcat species, such as the cougar, the ocelot and the emblematic jaguar, an endangered species and very precious in the Maya culture. Mammals living in this jungle are the howler monkey, spider monkey, anteater, armadillo and deer. There are almost 300 species of birds, among them: parakeets, toucans and wild turkeys. There are also about 50 species of reptiles and 400 of butterflies.

It’s a good idea to set off bright and early for the 400km drive to the Caribbean coast near Tulum. We recommend a stop to stretch your legs at Kohunlich, another site surrounded by dense rainforest and which contains almost 200 mounds that remain largely unexcavated. The city was elaborately planned and engineered, with raised platforms and pyramids, citadels, courtyards and plazas surrounded with palace platforms, all laid out to channel drainage into a system of cisterns and an enormous reservoir to collect rainwater. Kohunlich is best known for its Temple of the Masks, a pyramid with a central stairway flanked by huge humanised stucco masks. Shortly before hitting the Caribbean coast is the town of Bacalar, famous for its mesmerising Lagoon of Seven Colours and a good place to stop for refreshments before the onward drive to your accommodation.

It’s a further 3 hours or so to Tulum, until the late 1980s little more than a jumble of Mayan dwellings at the entrance to the ancient ruins. Now one of Mexico’s foremost resorts, hedonists flock to modern-day Tulum’s trendy bars, boutique hotels and all-night beach parties. Just north of the main hotel zone is quieter Tankah, your base for relaxation for the next 3 nights. Tulum’s ruins – perhaps the most photographed in Mexico and perched above the aquamarine Caribbean – are 10km to the south.

At leisure. Explore the ruins and relax on the beach below, or head inland to Mayan Cobá in the jungle. For a change from Mayan ruins you might visit the effervescent little resort of Playa del Carmen up the coast, a family-friendly place where there is a plethora of restaurants, bars, shops and entertainment. Alternatively drive to Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve which embraces tropical forest, mangrove and savannah and a coast and offshore marine reserve. The area is abundant with wildlife particularly aquatic birds. Other inhabitants include monkeys, tapirs, turtles, ocelots and jaguars. Guided boat trips through the wetlands can be organised locally.