Cancún & Riviera Maya

Cancún is the most visited destination in Latin America for a reason: the water really is that color, the airport has direct flights from everywhere, and the all-inclusive model is polished to perfection. The hotel zone is a fourteen-mile sandbar of resorts; downtown is a normal, affordable Mexican city where the people who work in them live.

An hour south, Playa del Carmen is the walkable alternative with Quinta Avenida, the ferry to Cozumel and hundreds of cenotes in the jungle behind it. Our advice: fly into Cancún, spend two nights on the sandbar, then go south.