Mérida & Yucatán

Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán and the calm counterpart to Cancún, three and a half hours east. It is a low, white, French-influenced city built on henequen money in the 1900s, with a grand boulevard of mansions, free concerts every night of the week and the lowest crime rate of any major Mexican city.

Around it: hundreds of cenotes, the restored haciendas that are now hotels, the flamingos of Celestún, Uxmal and Chichén Itzá. The food is its own cuisine, Mayan and Lebanese and Spanish at once. Come between November and March; the summer heat is real.