![\"IMG_6483-3\"](\"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6483-3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPlaya feels much more local than Cancun, without the all-inclusive properties and is not a single hotel strip but an active and vibrant city.\u00a0 The main drag of 5th avenue is tourist central however, with similar tourist trinkets in every shop, lots of bars and overpriced restaurants, and hawkers on every corner.\u00a0 It’s a fun stroll once or twice, but we quickly learned to avoid it.\u00a0 Fortunately, once you step a street off the main drag, the city becomes much easier to take in.<\/p>\n
We learned that the Yucutan was only recently (in the past couple decades) developed for tourism, and that the further south one goes from Cancun, the more laid back and local the destinations are.\u00a0 All the Atlantic beaches (which have the whitest sand and blue-green waters) are in the state of Quintana-Roo, in the eastern side of the Yucutan peninsula.\u00a0 There is a single highway up and down the coast, with a wonderfully efficient system of taxis, buses, and “collectivos” that run non-stop up and down the highway.\u00a0 We especially enjoyed the collectivos, which are the cheapest form of public transport.\u00a0 They are large vans that accommodate 13 persons in seats, but routinely have a couple more passengers standing or sitting in the lap of another.\u00a0 They will pick you up or drop you off seemingly anywhere along the highway, you just have to flag them down. If there are not seats then you stand until someone leaves at a subsequent stop. These vans must be a central American thing because I remember riding them in Costa Rica as well.\u00a0 However, we couldn’t think of seeing them anywhere else in the world.\u00a0 For a few minutes I thought how great it would be to have them in the states, and then I remember that we have laws against stopping on the interstate!<\/p>\n While transportation is cheap, prices everywhere we went were surprisingly high, and not just in the touristy areas. We visited a Walmart in Playa several times, and we found the prices for food and everyday items to be similar to those in the states.\u00a0 Like anywhere else, you also have to be careful with the exchange rate used, since US dollars are accepted in many places (at usually poor rates).<\/p>\n Utilizing the cheap transport, we took several daytrips to beaches south of Playa, including Tulum (where we saw some quaint ruins and a beautiful white sand beach), and Akumal, where Jose and I went snorkeling in the Akumal Bay National Marine Park and had the pleasure of observing around 10 sea turtles.\u00a0 The equipment rental and guided tour for about 1 hour was well worth it at around $30.\u00a0 The turtles are truly beautiful creatures.\u00a0 They remind me somewhat of cows in the sea – large, slow, and munching away at seagrass for most of the day.\u00a0 Unlike cows though, they each have unique stripes on their shells and carve gracefully through the water.\u00a0 After the snorkeling and walk along the quiet beaches, we stopped at a second bay just north of the turtle bay and found it to be almost devoid of tourists.\u00a0 We had an excellent dinner at the Buena Vida cafe, which came complete with killer views, a pool, hammocks and treehouses for any kiddos..<\/p>\n On another day, we took the 40 minute ferry over to Cozumel, where we rented a car for $60 and drove around the main road loop through the southern half of the island, stopping at a few of the sites.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the weather that day was poor, which may have clouded our impressions of the island.\u00a0 It seemed extra touristy due to the cruise ship terminal and there was overall a lack of interesting sites to make the bumpy ferry ride worth it.\u00a0 Apparently it’s world-class scuba diving though, and on a nice day some of the beach parks – which usually come with beach chairs, a bar and various activities for a fairly cheap entrance fee – would might have been worthwhile.<\/p>\n Since we had a kitchen, we usually only ate out for one meal per day.\u00a0 We enjoyed almost all our meals out as well.\u00a0 One of our favorite restaurants in Playa is El Fogon for tacos and tortas “al pastor” (spiced pork on a gyro style rotisserie).<\/p>\n We also really enjoyed the restaurant aguachiles for its ceviche and fresh fish. Without a doubt, ceviche is a must-have dish while down in the area, as everywhere we tried them they were fresh and delicious.<\/p>\n Overall Impression – we still enjoy Playa much more than Cancun, but if we come back to the area we may stay further south along the coast where it’s less touristy and more laid-back.\u00a0 With the beautiful beaches, authentic mexican culture and food, and loads of activities within an hour’s drive – such as cenotes, beaches, adventure parks, snorkeling, diving, etc – it’s an awesome area for a vacation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n More pictures from our trip:<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We just got back from a 10 day Thanksgiving holiday in Playa del Carmen and Merida.\u00a0 Since Southwest Airlines just opened up flights to Cancun earlier in the year, we were able to cash in around 20k points and fly into the area for free (the second ticket was free with the companion pass).\u00a0 Playa is just a short 1 hour bus ride away from Cancun.\u00a0 We stayed in another Airbnb locale, which was two (more…) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,246,86,220,95],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mexico","tag-beaches","tag-mexico","tag-playa-del-carmen","tag-ruins","tag-seafood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Playa-2014-1000x300.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2847,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.travelingthieles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n