38 Best things to see & do in Mayan Riviera

The Mayan Riviera is one of the few places in the world where you can get close to a giant American crocodile and live to tell the tale. And as croc encounters take place in glass-clear water you’ll get some great pictures to prove it.

These are generally three day, two-night trips, leaving from the tiny southern Riviera town of Xcalak and travelling out to the remote Banco Chinchorro atoll biosphere reserve. The atoll’s eel grass-filled lagoon is home to the largest numbers of American Crocodiles on the planet. Overnight stays are in primitive fisherman’s stilt huts over the water with the crocs swimming around below.

As well as crocodiles, Banco Chinchorro offers a high chance of encounters with manatees, prolific fish life (including big tarpon) and astonishing stars. There are plenty of opportunities to snorkel over pristine reefs en-route, and you’ll catch invasive lionfish, which are used to feed the crocs. Some trips include optional scuba diving.

Swims with the reptiles are in clear water around a metre deep and a safety diver accompanies at all times armed with a big stick. According to local tour operators at least, the reptiles have too much food to bother with anything larger than a fish.

The UNESCO world heritage-listed Maya city of Chichen Itza is one of Mexico’s most iconic and spectacular attractions – a global must-see worthy of any bucket list.

The site is littered with stunning, monumental buildings – the towering and perfectly proportioned Castillo pyramid, decorated with plumed serpents, the collonaded Temple of a Thousand Warriors, vast ball courts and exquisitely carved palaces. These formed the ceremonial heart of a far larger city – built between AD 750 and 1200 – whose ruins extend into the wild forest surrounds.

Set aside Mel Gibson’s dramatised and inaccurate portrayal of these peaceful people in Apocalypto – and learn how their rich, sustainable culture lived in harmony with – and revered – the natural world.

Understanding a little about the pre-Columbian Maya really brings these sites to life. You could read Michael Coe’s The Maya, and/or Joyce Kelly’s An Archaeological Guide to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula before you go.

This ancient Mayan purification ceremony is designed to cause an intense physical, emotional and mental release – and a transformative, almost mystical feeling of rebirth. It cleanses and reunites the physical, mental and spiritual forms.

The ceremony takes place in a temazcal, or ‘steam house’ – a small, circular dome made of rocks and mud. The structure has several symbolic components: the dome house (signifying a mother’s womb), the entrance, symbolising rebirth when you come out, a burner where wood is set on fire and a bonfire where the water is heated. All four basic elements – earth, wind, fire and water – are represented.

It’s led by a local shaman (X’Men, or Mayan priest). Red-hot lava rocks are placed in the center, and doused with water infused with local aromatic herbs. The searing heat generated causes profuse sweating, which combined with inhaling the therapeutic herbs, promotes detoxification. The complete darkness inside liberates the senses from distraction, enabling deep contemplation and meditation, leading to mental balance and mindfulness (presence from the mind). A group energy is generated through chanting and music. At the end, you’ll cool off in a cold river or pool, which  closes the pores and activates the immune system.

A proper ceremony usually lasts up to 3 hours (though shorter, more touristy ones can be as short as one hour). After, you’ll leave with a sense of inner harmony, enlightenment and rejuvenation. Other reputed benefits include detoxification, skin cleansing, reduced depression, and reduced risk of dementia.

The Yucatan Peninsula is like a giant pumice stone – riddled with tiny holes, many of which are filled with glassy clear subterranean rivers riddled with stalactite-filled caverns, which break the surface as sinkholes called cenotes. There are hundreds dotted over the peninsula – some lost in thick jungle, others surrounded by Mayan ruins. Some pour into clear-water lakes like Bacalar, or the open ocean.

Swimming in a cenote – tiny fish nibbling your feet, vines and strange rock formations all around you is wonderful. Diving is spectacular; especially for those daring enough to qualify as a cave diver and venture deep into the flooded caverns.

These twin cenotes are spectacular: marking the entrance to one of the longest underground rivers in the world – filled with water as clear as ocean air, passing through submerged caverns covered with spectacular cave formations and teeming with strange cave fish, crustaceans and bats. The cenotes are a premium cave-diving location and were used as locations for The Cave movie and the BBC’s Planet Earth documentary.

You don’t need to be a cave diver to visit. Some of the most beautiful caverns are accessible to snorkellers. PADI open water divers can go further and designated cave divers can explore the deeper caverns. Any diving requires advanced booking.

Like great whites and tiger sharks, bull sharks have a fearsome reputation. Getting within metres of these apex predators on a carefully controlled dive is astonishing: and in the clear, calm waters off Playa del Carmen, it’s as safe as any such encounter can be.

While bull sharks are present along the Riviera Maya all year round, dives are possible only October through March, when the more placid females enter shallower waters right off the mainland.

To dive you will need an Advanced Open Water Certification. Choose a responsible dive shop, who don’t use bait – which can be dangerous, and who follow strict distance regulations.

Between May and September, the world’s largest fish visits Riviera Maya waters to feed on the large upswells of plankton from the Gulf of Mexico. Snorkelling with them is an astonishing experience, and takes place in open sea. These giant filter feeders, which can reach over 12 metres are astonishingly well-camouflaged – almost invisible in the inky blue until they are almost next to you, then gently swaying past and back into the depths.

Numerous tour operators in Cancun and Playa del Carmen offer snorkelling and diving trips which usually include reef snorkels and lunch.

Swimming with captive manatees (which you can do in Xel-Ha) doesn’t have the same magic as encountering these gentle animals in their natural habitat – which is possible on the Mayan Riviera. The region has one of the largest populations of wild West Indian manatees in the world; grazing on eel grass in the sand flats of the Banco Chinchorro and the shallow waters of Chetumal Bay. Both locations are protected marine sanctuaries.

To see manatees, you’ll need to travel to the little town of Xcalak in the far south, where tour companies offer trips. Along the way you will almost certainly see turtles, dolphins, huge schools of tarpon and some of the best-preserved coral reefs on the Mayan Riviera.

The Mayan Riviera cannot compare with Indonesia or the Barrier Reef for spectacular corals, or the Maldives for fish life, but there are few locations anywhere which offer a better variety of snorkel experiences.

Reefs lie in swimming distance of the shore, plunging coral walls are a boat ride away, there are underwater art galleries, lakes fringed with jungle and hundreds of cenotes: sink holes filled with terrapins and fish that drop into stalactite-encrusted caverns. You can even snorkel with whale sharks, manatees or crocodiles

Most snorkel excursions are easy to do alone, there are designated family-friendly water parks like Xel-Ha and myriad agencies in the main towns offer boat trips.

The Mayan Riviera offers scuba diving unmatched in variety anywhere else in the world.

The coast is fringed with a long offshore barrier reef dotted with coral islands and with one of just a handful of coral atolls in the Atlantic. The jungle-covered mainland is honeycombed with underground rivers and cenotes, with exceptionally clear water and spectacular cave diving.

You can dive with whale sharks, dolphins and crocodiles, or over underwater art galleries. Sites are rich in species and varied – ranging from spectacular drifts off Cozumel to shipwrecks wrecks galore over the Chinchorro atoll, and while the reef suffers from over-fishing, dive tourism continues to create pressure for the creation of protected areas.

This conglomeration of Mayan towns, linked by extensive paved walkways and centred on pyramid-lined plazas, was one of the most important Mayan trading centres in its heyday between AD 200 and AD 1400.

Set in lush forest near two pretty lakes, it receives far fewer visitors than Chichen Itza or Tulum and consequently feels more authentic and atmospheric. There are wonderful views from the temple tops, the largest of which is almost 130ft tall.

Look for toucans and spider monkeys in the forest canopy, wild coatimundis, agouti and rare peccaries on the forest paths.

Calakmul is unforgettable. The giant pyramids of this 2000-year-old ruined city jut out over the largest stretch of rainforest in the Americas north of the Amazon, the Peten.

Calakmul was one of the largest of the Maya cities, built in around 100 BC and occupied for 1,000 years until it was abandoned to the forest. Much of it is protected as a biosphere reserve and the wildlife is exuberant – macaws and toucans flit through the canopy, jaguars hunt in the shadows.

Only a handful of visitors ever make it to this impressive Mayan city, lost in a vast, pristine rainforest. That’s a shame but a boon too – it’s remained a magical experience. The sense of being an explorer, isolated in pristine nature is exhilarating.

With vast tracts of tropical forest, glassy rivers, lagoons and turtle-nesting beaches, this 2,800 sq km biosphere reserve, is one of the last remaining truly wild areas on the Riviera Maya.

This biodiversity hotspot is home to 103 species of mammal – including all five cat species found on the peninsular (jaguar, puma, ocelot, margay and jaguarundi) and 330 species of bird. There are also 23 known archaeological sites inside the reserve. It is home to rare wildlife including manatees and American Crocodiles and is an important nursery for fish including tarpon and sharks.

The powdery, palm-shaded beaches are spectacular, there’s wonderful swimming in clear-water creeks, kayaking and light jungle trekking and even a scattering of barely-explored Mayan ruins. The reserve lies just south of Tulum so visiting is straightforward.

This beautiful freshwater lake, set in tropical forest and wild orchid meadows, was called ‘the place where the sky is born’, by the Maya. Its brilliant blue, chalky waters – which are fed by a series of giant cenotes – look like a cloud-filled sky. There’s wonderful kayaking and swimming here.

The lake is home to one of the world’s largest numbers of stromatolites, coral-like organisms found in only a handful of places and regarded by biologists as one of the earliest lifeforms on earth.

The best way to explore Bacalar is by kayak. Kayakers should head to the far eastern shore of the lake, where the orchid meadows begin, and to the lake’s southern extremities where there is wonderful shallow-water swimming.

This huge eco-theme park is worth a day out for families, though don’t go expecting western-style water chutes and thrill rides.

There’s a lovely beach area, with a sheltered bay for swimming, a small snorkelling area, some enclosures with local wildlife and even some Mayan ruins. Look out for the swining rope bridge over the jaguar enclosure.

One highlight is the chance to swim with sting rays or dolphins – and whilst it’s never nice to see dolphins in captivity, they delight children and adults alike, and help to engender a passion for marine conservation.

With forest canopy zip-lines, cenote-swimming, light caving, and wildlife-watching, this six-acre nature-based theme park set in scrubby jungle mixes safari park-zoo with light adventure in nature.

There are three separate tours which can be done independently or in combination: a zip-line circuit through the trees, snorkelling in a cenote, and/or a tour through a 5 million-year-old cave dripping with stalactites and stalagmites and coursed by a glass-clear underground river.

Facilities are simple – with little more than a Mexican restaurant – but there are far fewer tourist-bus crowds than at nearby Xel-Há.

This popular water-based theme park with rides, slides, snorkelling and zip lines, comprises a series of broken, crystal-clear bays and glassy streams, teeming with brightly coloured marine life and fringed with low tropical forest. It’s great for families with safe, supervised activities and excellent snorkelling.

It also offers the chance to swim with captive dolphins, manatees and stingrays (though consider the ethics of keeping these animals in captivity before supporting them by participation).

Covered in fragrant lilies, floating on a terrapin-filled pool of water as clear and fresh as mountain air and framed by a dramatic cave mouth, Gran Cenote is a beauty.

But while the cenote extends for miles underground, through spectacular caverns, the part snorkellers can visit is modest. To explore further you’ll need cave diving certification.

This small Maya settlement dating from between AD 564 and 1450, probably served as a port for the larger inland city of Coba.

The buildings, which cluster around a 30m-high stepped pyramid, are modest, but the site has become emblematic of the Riviera Maya because of its magnificent location – perched dramatically on a craggy cliff top overlooking a pristine, white-coral beach and a limpid, aquamarine sea.

It’s heavily visited and spoilt when there are crowds – its appeal is the beautiful setting rather than the undistinguished ruins themselves.

With vertical walls dropping from thick jungle to a deep green pool, and cascades of dripping vines and roots, this atmospheric cenote is set in a 30m-high sinkhole, 60m wide and 40m deep, is an Instagram spectacular.

It’s also very close to Chichen Itza, making it a great stop before or after a visit there – but it does mean it gets crowded. Few of the hordes of swimmers realise that it was once used as a site of human sacrifice by Maya priests. Archaeologists have found grisly remains – alongside jewellery 50m down on the cenote floor.

The water is deep-green, clean and fresh, and inhabited by tiny black catfish. It’s not for divers, but swimming (for all ages) is a buzz, and it’s worth taking your snorkel too.

This unique cenote, also known as Cenote Dzitnup, feels like a secret swimming hole. Set in a low-lit cavern dripping with stalactites, hidden 60ft underground, Xkeken looks like a film set from an Indiana Jones movie. There’s only one small, single opening in the ceiling to allow light in – around mid-morning, a single shaft of sunlight shines through, lighting the cavern in brilliant colours.

With small bats nesting on the ceiling, turquoise water and overhanging limestone formations, it’s an atmospheric place for a swim.

But much photographed and much visited, it can get very crowded. So come early or late and you’ll share it only with the black cave fish, who gently nibble your feet as you swim.

As impressive and as large as Chichen Itza but far less-visited, this ancient Mayan city is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it’s covered in carvings and has a famous round-sided temple.

One of the Yucatan’s prettiest villages, Izamal is known as the ‘Yellow City’, as buildings are painted almost entirely warm-yellow. It’s dominated by a Spanish colonial Franciscan monastery and surrounded by unexcavated temples.

With its eerie masks and a lush, wildlife-filled rainforest setting, this Mayan city dating back to AD 700 is well worth going out of your way for; and you’ll have the ruins pretty much to yourself at any time of day.

This big, open swimming hole – set in low jungle and filled with fish is safe enough for small kids, has changing rooms, life jackets and water-entry platforms. It’s easy to reach, sitting right off the main Cancún-Chetumal highway 15 minutes’ drive from Playa.

A family-friendly cenote adventure park – with cliff-jumps, rope-swings, jungle trails and onsite changing rooms and lockers. Cristalino sits right outside Playa del Carmen, making it easy to reach, and immensely popular.

With a platform jutting into the middle of a turquoise pool under a roof of stalactites, this cenote near Valladolid town is a busy Instagram favourite. Stay at the onsite cabanas and you can book a slot just for yourself.

A big restaurant, a tequila museum and a tour bus car park: this big, open-air pool near Chichen Itza is hugely popular but empty at the beginning and end of the day.

One of a string of less-visited cenotes lying close to more celebrated Dos Ojos, Sac Actun sits in a dramatic cavern filled with stalactites and illuminated by a single hole in the roof. It’s on the Tulum-tour radar but arrive before 10am and you’ll have it to yourself.

Turquoise-blue, set in a low cavern covered with small stalactites and illuminated by soft light through roof holes, this cenote is a beauty. Its remote location at the end of a long dirt road between Tulum and Akumal keeps it fairly crowd-free.

This large, lily-covered pool filled with wispy water weed, terrapins, fish, and the occasional small crocodile, has water as clear as air. It’s easy to visit from Tulum, yet it’s far less busy than nearby Gran Cenote.

British artist Jason Decaires Taylor’s underwater art gallery feels like a latter-day Atlantis – with statues covered with wispy seaweeds and baby coral, fish swimming all around sitting on the sand in vodka-clear water off Isla Mujeres. Scuba diving tours are available for both certified and beginners, and you can snorkel too (great for kids 4 and up).

Visitors flock to this little park for one thing: swimming with dolphins. It’s highly touristy and often overwhelmed with cruise passengers (cruise boats docking at Cozumel sell the dolphin encounter onboard), but there’s no denying the pleasure of swimming with these endearing mammals – especially for children.

You can also swim with manatees and sea lions here, and the Chankanaab Reef, just offshore within the park, offers safe and accessible, if fairly mediocre snorkelling.

Not all cenotes are sink holes in the jungle. Manati (aka Casa Cenote) – tucked behind the long white sands of Tulum beach is the entrance to an underground river, which flows into a winding creek lined.

The cenote is named after the manatees which used to live here until tourism became overwhelming. There are plenty of fish though, including schools of large tarpon and a small Morelet’s crocodile called Panchito. And the water is glassy-clear – running from the creek into caverns fringed with a labyrinthine tangle of mangrove roots. Superb for snorkelling and novice divers.

For an immersion into Mayan culture with the crowds, head to this little-visited Mayan sites near Chetumal. It sits in it own lush rainforest parks, with abundant wildlife and towering pyramid temples.

A must for any culture vulture, this small museum in Chetumal has precious artefacts and state-of-the-art exhibits offering real insight into Maya life and culture.

Cozumel’s best snorkelling is a boat ride from the shore. Most dive shops organise designated snorkel trips or take snorkellers on dive excursions.

But choose trips carefully; many reefs are deep and currents can be strong – especially at the far south of the island.

The first course to host an official PGA Tour event outside of the United States or Canada, this tree-lined championship course was designed by Greg Norman and makes full use of its natural environment. Like the chameleon in the name, the course changes throughout its routing, weaving its way through dense jungle, mangrove forests and along beautiful stretches of white sand.

Its most distinctive hazards are the cenotes – natural sink holes – and water canals. It’s still the host of the annual Mayakoba Classic – it was here, in 2018, that Matt Kuchar caused a stir when he paid a local caddie a measly $5,000 out of his $1.3m for winning the event. The caddie, David Giral ‘El Toucan’ Ortiz, said he wasn’t too upset, but they did later agree on a better fee.