I'm Diego. I moved to Tulum from Mexico City in 2014 when Tulum Pueblo had one traffic light and the beach road was unpaved. The town has changed more in twelve years than most cities change in fifty. Some of it's good. A lot of it makes me angry. Here's the truth.
Dramatically. When I moved here, the beach road was sand and gravel. There were maybe twenty hotels on the strip, most of them basic eco-cabanas with no electricity (just candles and the ocean). A fresh fish taco in Pueblo cost 15 pesos.
Now there's a highway being built, an international airport opened in 2024 (TQO), and the beach road has hotels charging $500-800 per night with DJs and infinity pools. The taco in Pueblo is 30-40 pesos. Still cheap by tourist standards. But everything doubled.
The construction has been devastating to the jungle and the cenotes. Hotels built too close to the water table. The reef is stressed. The sargassum seaweed problem — which gets worse every year April through August — is partly a climate issue that development accelerates.
But. The cenotes are still stunning. The ruins are still there. The Caribbean is still turquoise. And the food in Pueblo is still extraordinary if you know where to look.
Spending all their time — and money — on the beach road.
The beach road (Zona Hotelera) is a 7-km strip of eco-luxury hotels and beach clubs. A day at a beach club costs 500-1,500 MXN in minimum spend. A cocktail is $12-18 USD. Lunch for two: $60-100 USD.
Tulum Pueblo — the actual town, 3 km from the beach — has taquerias where dinner for two costs $8-12 USD. The same quality ingredients, the same talented cooks, without the Instagram tax.
My rule: sleep in Pueblo (or at a mid-range hotel on the beach road if you want luxury), eat in Pueblo, and bike to the beach for the day. You'll spend 70% less.
Taqueria Honorio. Full stop. This is the best taco in the Yucatan Peninsula and I will argue this with anyone.
Antonio Honorio opens at 7AM and cooks until the meat runs out — usually by 1PM. His cochinita pibil (slow-roasted pulled pork in achiote and citrus) on a handmade tortilla with pickled onions: 35 MXN ($2). His chicharon (fried pork belly) taco: 40 MXN.
Arrive by 11AM or risk him being sold out. It's on a side street in Pueblo. No Instagram aesthetic. Plastic chairs. A woman making tortillas by hand on a comal next to the counter.
Other spots I eat at regularly: Burrito Amor (vegetarian burritos, 85-120 MXN), La Chiapaneca (Chiapas-style tamales, 30 MXN), and Matcha Mama (yes, it's trendy, but the bowls are genuinely good, 180 MXN).
Gran Cenote is the most famous: crystal-clear water, stalactites, turtles, and underwater caves. Entry: 500 MXN ($29). It's beautiful but crowded after 10AM. Go at opening (8:15AM) and you'll have 30 minutes of relative peace.
Cenote Dos Ojos has the best snorkeling — two connected cenotes with 60-meter visibility and a bat cave you can dive into. Entry: 400 MXN ($23). The water is 25°C year-round.
My actual favorite: Cenote Calavera. It's smaller, rougher around the edges, and you jump in through holes in the limestone ceiling. Entry: 250 MXN ($15). Less touristy.
Rules for all cenotes: no chemical sunscreen (biodegradable only, enforced at entry), shower before swimming, don't touch formations. These are sacred Maya sites and ecologically fragile.
This is the thing tourism boards don't want to talk about. Brown sargassum seaweed washes up on Tulum beaches heavily from April through August. It smells, it makes swimming unpleasant, and some years it's meters thick on the sand.
Some beach hotels clean their stretch daily (at enormous cost). Public beaches may not be cleaned. The further south you go on the beach road, the worse it tends to be.
Check real-time conditions on SargassumMonitoring before booking. November through March typically has the cleanest beaches. If you're coming April-August, plan cenote and ruin days instead of beach days.
The tourist areas — beach road, Pueblo center, cenotes, ruins — are safe during the day. Standard precautions apply: don't leave valuables on the beach, use the safe at your hotel, and don't buy drugs from anyone (this is not a victimless activity in Mexico).
Don't drive the highway between Tulum and Playa del Carmen at night. Topes (speed bumps) are unmarked and aggressive, there are no streetlights, and people walk on the highway edge.
The biggest actual risk: cenote safety. No lifeguards. Underwater currents near cave openings. Do not enter cave systems without a certified dive guide.
Absolutely. The Tulum Archaeological Site — a walled Mayan fortress city from the 13th century perched on 12-meter Caribbean cliffs — is the only major Mayan ruin overlooking the sea.
Entry: 95 MXN ($5.50). Open daily 8AM-5PM. Arrive at 8AM. By 10AM, the tour buses from Cancun arrive and it becomes a mob scene.
You can descend stairs from the ruins to swim at the beach below. Bring a swimsuit and a towel. The view from the cliff — turquoise water, white sand, ancient stone walls — is one of the most photographed in Mexico.
Three things:
It's not all luxury eco-chic. The Instagram version of Tulum — the $500/night treehouse hotels and rose-petal baths — is real but it's 10% of the experience. The real Tulum is a small Mexican town with a mercado, a church, and families living their lives.
"Eco" is marketing for most hotels. Many beach road hotels advertise as eco-friendly while running diesel generators, dumping wastewater near cenotes, and destroying jungle for construction. If you care about sustainability, research your hotel's actual practices.
The beach is public. By Mexican law, all beaches are public property. Beach clubs cannot deny you access to the ocean. Look for the public access points every few hundred meters along the beach road. You don't need to pay a beach club minimum to swim.
With caveats.
Come for the cenotes — they're unlike anything on Earth. Come for the ruins — the cliff-top setting is extraordinary. Come for the food in Pueblo — Honorio's tacos alone justify the trip. Come for Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve — floating through ancient Mayan canals in a UNESCO reserve is unforgettable. For more insights, check out our Tulum vs Playa del Carmen comparison. For more insights, check out our firsthand Tulum story.
But come with your eyes open. Tulum is developing fast, not always responsibly. The beach road can feel like an outdoor shopping mall disguised as a jungle path. And the sargassum situation is real.
The Tulum I moved to in 2014 is gone. But the cenotes are still crystalline, the ruins still stand on the cliff, and Honorio still makes the best taco on the peninsula. As long as those things are true, Tulum is worth your time.
