Mexico Road Trip: The Yucatan Peninsula

We're putting the finishing touches on this year's Christmas trip, which got me thinking about last year's trip to Mexico. And while I did share tons from that experience, I never quite got around to linking it all together, so here it is..."the great big everything you need to know to take a road trip around mexico" post. 

Well...maybe not everything you need to know. But at the very least, it includes our itinerary, tips, and budget. 

wonder of the world: chichen itza

With traveling to Mexico, there was absolutely no way that we were going to miss out on visiting Chichen Itza. NONE. It's a modern wonder of the world for goodness sake. It's also a UNESCO world heritage site. So if that's not a clue to how spectacular this place is, then maybe you're just not paying enough attention. But, with this being such a popular site to visit, I thought I'd share a few of our tips for managing everything, especially since we visited on our own. 

why we skipped the resort stay in Mexico?

When we started telling friends and family that we were headed to Mexico, so many people asked us what resort are you staying at. Everyone seems to fly into Cancun and stay at a resort, so people naturally assumed that we were doing the same. And then I would promptly inform them that no we aren’t staying in a resort, we’re road tripping around Mexico and figuring it out from there. And while we got lots of crazy eyebrow raises, I know that this was the best way for us to travel through Mexico. 

We travel to step outside our comfort zones, to challenge ourselves, and to see a world beyond our own.

And a resort would have been the death of all that. It was definitely nerve-racking and scary to take this on, but it was perfect and wonderful and I don’t regret a thing. So I felt like I had to share our reasoning for why we chose to skip the resort stay in Mexico.

Vibrant Valladolid

While visiting the Yucatan in Mexico, we spent the majority of our time along the coast soaking in those crystal blue waters. But we also took the time to go more inland in order to visit some of the larger Maya Ruins. And while we were there, we made the cute city of Valladolid our home base.

This city surprised us and turned out to be a total show stopper. We had initially planned it just to be a place to rest our heads at night, but each day we found ourselves making excuses to spend as much time as possible exploring this city.

Climbing Coba

Yep, we climbed this! 
Still can't believe we followed in the path of thousands before us by climbing the tallest Maya pyramid in the Yucatan of Mexico. 

Figured that it was a good time to warm things up around this little space by sharing more on our time in Mexico. It was the quickest trip, but we managed to explore several sets of Maya Ruins. While Coba is the least popular of all the ruins we visitied, it was also a favorite of ours, so I thought I'd start the recaps here. 

Coba truly was a city and the paths we walk there today are the original scabe (white roads) that the Maya people followed. Most of the complex has yet to be excavated, which adds to the wonder of this gorgeous place. Because what you can see there just scratches the surface of the world that was once here. 

merry in mexico

I will forever be in love with our holiday tradition of gifting each other an adventure for Christmas. We started doing this years ago right after we got married. While I love giving and receiving all the things at Christmastime, nothing beats creating memories and once in a lifetime experiences that we will have forever.