Yucatan Peninsula Dos and Don'ts

okay so I decided while visiting cancun area that i wanted to have a taste of the real mexico, and took a bus from ther about 4 hours, luckily bus had a toilet and my Spanish is good enough. So anyway, Merida is a nice local town, I didn't see another tourist while visiting. Really great mexican food there, there are many nice musuems, spanish sytle homes. I'd recommend it, but not strongly, only unless you are coming near to Merida to see ruins at Coba

Have to go to the town square for local art and Senor Frongs for frosty beverages.

If you find yourself in Cancun, but you absolutely despise the drunken college kids and the party scene, this tip is for you. You should take a whole day excursion trip to one of the oldest and most important archaeological sites in the Maya people's history - Chichen Itza. It is about 4 hour bus ride if you travel by a Gray Hound-type bus. If you get one of the locals to take you, it is a slightly less comfortable 2 hour ride in a beat up van or a car, wihout air conditioning. During the day, you should try to see all of the ruins and durng the night, you should stay for a spectacular fire show, performed on the main structure in the place. The cost is about 60 dollars American and worth every penny. Again, if you go with a local and don't book a tour, the price significantly decreases to 20 dollars per person

The best known part of Cancun is the hotel strip which is a man made sand spit full of mostly 5 star hotels. There are precious few shops and restaurants and ATMs and the expectation is clearly to remain in your own resort for entertainment. There is a shuttle bus service into "town" - note that this isn't really Cancun town which is many more miles away and houses mostly the workforce in the tourist industry but another man-made town full of Hooters, KFCs etc Avoid anyone offering you legal or illegal drugs. The pimps are also rather blatant but I found more amusing with their catalogues than caused offence. In all Cancun is pretty convenient for popular excusrions into Chitchen Itza, Tulum, Merida etc. I hired a car and did my own sight-seeing which I highly recommend; plus it's cheaper, more flexible and completely easy and safe

well it's more of a family place, do not come here to party, come here to lay on the beach all day, go diving, boating, you can rent jeaps and go cruising through the jungle which is allot of fun, if you see the military patrolling around just wave and keep going, they seemed pretty harmless.