During his fourth voyage to the New World in 1502, Christopher Columbus came across a heavily laden Mayan trading canoe near the Bay Islands in Honduras. Packed with cotton from the Yucatán, cacao from Belize and a variety of other goods from faraway places, the canoe is testimony to the size and importance of the Mayan trade empire.

The Maya were shrewd merchants who forged trade links with other Mesoamerican cultures in the Mexican highlands such as the Aztecs, and with their Central American neighbors, as far south as Panama.

One of their principal trade routes was the maritime route that skirted the Yucatán Peninsula and extended south into the Caribbean. Merchants used a network of overland routes and rivers to transport their cargo from the coast to cities far inland. During the Post-Classic period (A.D. 1200-1521), ports on the Mexican Caribbean coast including Tulum, Xaman-Há, Polé, Xel-Há, Muyil and Cozumel controlled the traffic of goods to and from the area.

Archaeologists have identified at least 75 trade goods, including honey, beeswax, salt, cotton, cacao, henequen, stingray spines, cinnabar, natural dyes, shells, jade, quetzal feathers, animal hides and ceramics. Mayan traders obtained obsidian and basalt, used to make knives and grinding stones, from central Mexico; turquoise came from the far north and gold was introduced to the area from Costa Rica and western Panama.

The Mayan deity associated with trade, cacao cultivation and war is Ek Chuah.

Archaeological Sites in Quintana Roo

Admission Fees

Source: INAH, subject to change without prior notice.

When you go on vacaction to Tulum, take a day to drive on the coast road south of the Zone of  Hotels in Tulum that leads to the entrance of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, in the Riviera Maya, Mexico. Straddling northern and central Quintana Roo, this UNESCO World Heritage Site comprises 1.3 million acres of jungle, marsh, mangrove forest, Caribbean beaches and a 110-kilometer-stretch of coral reef, all of which are rich in flora and fauna. The biosphere reserve was established by government decree in 1986 to protect these incredibly fragile ecosystems.
Sian Ka’an, which means “where the sky is born in Maya,” is home to 103 different mammals and over 350 resident and migratory species of birds, including herons, ibis, roseate spoonbills, wood storks and frigate birds. This reserve in the Riviera Maya, Mexico also has a large breeding population of ospreys and protects a tiny colony of the rare jabiru stork, the largest bird in the Americas.
Include a day trip to Sian Ka’an in your Tulum Vacation Itinerary, this will  give you the opportunity to know more than Tulum Beach and ruins only in the Riviera Maya. Visit at least two of the reserve’s 23 archaeological sites, Muyil and Xlapak. You’ll also get an overview of the reserve’s jungle and wetland ecosystems and take a boat ride through the lagoons to see the birds.

A 20-minute drive to the south of Tulum ruins lies Muyil, also known as Chunyaxche, an archaeological site in the forest on the shores of a lagoon that shares the same name. The largest archaeological site found to date in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, Muyil was an ancient trade enclave with links to cities in the Yucatán and Central America. Over 1,000 years ago, Mayan traders were shipping goods to and from the coast by means of a natural canal in the mangroves that they dredged and widened.
Many of the buildings at Muyil are still covered by jungle creepers but the principal temple known as El Castillo has been restored. Wildlife is abundant in the surrounding forest and gleaming blue morph butterflies, the agouti or tepescuintle, a rodent the size of a small dog and flocks of parrots are often spotted. Visitors can follow a nature trail through the trees to the mangroves at the water’s edge and climb a wooden observation tower for spectacular views of the forest canopy and the wetlands.
Getting there: Take Highway 307 to the south, the entrance to Muyil is clearly marked. Local fishermen from the Muyil cooperative also offer boat trips through the lagoons and mangroves of Sian Ka’an to the coast. If you are spending your vacaction in Tulum, this is an incredible day to see more than Tulum beatiful beach and nature.

During your Tulum vacation, embark on your own jungle adventure! Forty-two kilometers inland from Tulum beach, an hour from Playa del Carmen and a 90-minute drive from Cancún, Cobá is one of the Maya World’s largest archaeological sites and has an extension of around 70 square kilometers. The city is clustered around five shallow lakes, which would have provided fresh water in ancient times, and its name in Maya means “waters ruffled by the wind.”
The city reached its peak during the Mayan Classic period, A.D. 250-900, when it was a regional capital inhabited by up to 70,000 people. An important trade center, it also distributed goods to and from the eastern seaboard, Central America and cities in the Yucatán.
Archaeologists believe that Cobá had links with the Guatemalan city of Tikal, pointing to certain architectural similarities in the earliest buildings at the site, for example, pyramids, false arches, lintels, huge, roughly cut blocks and a coating of red stucco plaster. Some later structures at the site also resemble Tulum Mayan ruins.
The most famous building at Cobá is the Nohoch Mul pyramid. Standing 42 meters high, it is the tallest pyramid in the northern Yucatán. Other clusters of buildings at the site are the Cobá group, the oldest in the city, La Iglesia, another 24-meter-high pyramid crowned by a temple, the Ball Court, Las Pinturas, Xaibé or the Crossroads Pyramid and the Macanxoc group which has nine circular altars and eight stelae.
Cobá is also famous for the sacbes or Mayan causeways that radiate from the heart of the city. To date, 45 of these roads have been detected at the site including the longest sacbe in the Maya World, which links it to Yaxuná, a lesser city in the Chichén Itzá hinterland, 101 kilometers away.
Getting there: Take the turnoff marked “Coba” in the Zone of  Hotels in Tulum.

During your Tulum vacation take a day to catch a glimpse of the strange underground world of the Riviera Maya without getting wet by visiting Aktun Chen (very close to Tulum). Located in the jungle two miles south of Akumal, this park is famous for its caves, thought to be five million years old. One of the caves has been floodlit so that visitors can see the stalactite and stalagmite formations and an underground lake. Aktun Chen is one of the most amazing tours around Tulum area.
Getting there: Take Highway 307 north from Tulum Mayan Ruins. Ask your travel Agent for lodging options. Tulum has Hotels for all budgets.

Akumal is a popular spot for divers since the 1950s. It is 20km from Tulum, in the Riviera Maya, drawn by its beautiful offshore reefs and rich marine life. Akumal actually means “place of the turtle” in Maya and wherever you look you’ll see turtles, on sign posts, t-shirts and in the water swimming peacefully amongst the corals. And turtles are just the start of the colorful creatures you’ll spot in the crystal-clear waters. Parrot fish, blue tangs and even eagle rays can often be seen even in the shallowest of water.
Akumal is a great place to visit during your vacation in Tulum. Yet the charms of this peaceful little community of small hotels, condos and vacation homes have a wider appeal. The sheltered, palm-lined beach is perfect for families and local marinas offer catamaran trips, kayak and sport fishing excursions. The track north from Akumal Bay brings you to Half Moon Bay and the Yalkú caleta or inlet, both of which are good snorkeling spots.
Getting there: Take Highway 307 north from Tulum.

During your vacation in Tulum, visit Xel-Há by car. Xel-Ha Park lies a few minutes only to the north of Tulum Mayan Ruins. No matter if you are staying in Cancun or in la Riviera Maya, Tulum-Xel Ha is one of the most popular Tours. Xel Ha is a chain of cenotes, lagoons and inlets nourished by fresh water from underground streams which mixes with the waters of the Caribbean. Fish from nearby reefs congregate in the lagoons to feed and breed and local people proudly call Xel-Ha the world’s largest natural aquarium. Whether the claim is true or not, the crystalline waters are ideal for a close encounter with rainbow-colored reef dwellers such as solitary butterfly, trigger and angel fish and shoals of porkfish and French grunts.
Snorkeling and swimming are permitted in designated areas of the park and you can float through the water on an over-sized inner tube. There are hammocks and palapas, restaurants, shops, restrooms and lockers.
Paths wind through the jungle around the inlet leading to secluded pools, the lazy river, the cliff, the Mayan cave, the dolphin area and other attractions. For a breathtaking view of the turquoise waters, walk back across the floating bridge at the mouth of the inlet. You’ll see larger fish such as snappers and jacks.
Xel-Ha was also a Post-Classic port and trade enclave. The archaeological site is across the highway from the park and you pay a separate admission charge to visit it. During excavations in the park, archaeologists found traces of Mayan occupation on the shores of the inlet, including temples and offerings at a shrine in an underwater cave, thought to be in honor of the Diving God, a mysterious deity that was the focus of a regional cult. There are Many hotels in Tulum to stay.
Getting there: Highway 307 to the north of Tulum Ruins.

Admission Fees

Source: INAH, subject to change without prior notice.

During his fourth voyage to the New World in 1502, Christopher Columbus came across a heavily laden Mayan trading canoe near the Bay Islands in Honduras. Packed with cotton
from the Yucatán, cacao from Belize and a variety of other goods from faraway places, the canoe is testimony to the size and importance of the Mayan trade empire.
The Maya were shrewd merchants who forged trade links with other Mesoamerican cultures in the Mexican highlands such as the Aztecs, and with their Central American neighbors, as far south as Panama.
One of their principal trade routes was the maritime route that skirted the Yucatán Peninsula and extended south into the Caribbean. Merchants used a network of overland routes and rivers to transport their cargo from the coast to cities far inland. During the Post-Classic period (A.D. 1200-1521), ports on the Mexican Caribbean coast including Tulum, Xaman-Há, Polé, Xel-Há, Muyil and Cozumel controlled the traffic of goods to and from the area.
Archaeologists have identified at least 75 trade goods, including honey, beeswax, salt, cotton, cacao, henequen, stingray spines, cinnabar, natural dyes, shells, jade, quetzal feathers, animal hides and ceramics. Mayan traders obtained obsidian and basalt, used to make knives and grinding stones, from central Mexico; turquoise came from the far north and gold was introduced to the area from Costa Rica and western Panama.
The Mayan deity associated with trade, cacao cultivation and war is Ek Chuah.

 If you want another good reason to visit Tulum, in the Riviera Maya, Mexico here it is…from May to October it is Turtle Nesting Season! Every night, after the sun comes down, the amazingly huge mother sea turtles amble slowly up the beach, dig their holes and lay their eggs. It’s a truly spectacular sight which can be seen at most sections of Tulum beach.

Tulum beach and all along the Caribbean coast of Mexico are nesting grounds for two endangered species of sea turtles: the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and the Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas). After mating at sea, mother turtle swims to shore and digs with her flippers to lay her eggs and she covers them with sand.  Then she crawls back to the surf zone and swims out to the Caribbean sea. Baby turtles hatch after 50 or 60 days from the nests and struggle to make their way through the sea. 

To witness such event in a beach of Tulum,  is an amazing experience, but if you happen to miss turtle season, The Centro Ecologico Akumal (CEA) offers weekly slide presentations about sea turtles conservation programs and turtles nesting season including addition printed material. For the past four years CEA has been actively participating in the sea turtle protection programs to protect some of the nests of eggs in the long stretch of beach from Akumal to Tulum.

Environmental care is a rising concern and everybody’s responsibility; all of us can help on the turtle conservation purpose. Here is a quick list of things you can do when you visit Tulum beach to help the  sea turtles reach their goal. They will appreciate it!

1. Don’t make campfires on Tulum´s beach. Sea turtle hatchlings are known to be attracted to the light emitted by campfires. They crawl into the fires and die.

2. Avoid flashlights and flash photography; it may cause mother turtles to abort their nesting attempts.

3. Minimize beachfront lighting during sea turtle nesting season in Tulum, by turning off, shielding, or redirecting lights. You can close the blinds and drapes in oceanfront rooms to keep your indoor lighting from reaching the beach.

4. If you encounter a turtle on Tulum´s beach remain quiet, still, and at a distance. Otherwise, the frightened turtle may return to the ocean without nesting.

5. Leave any tracks left by turtles in every Tulum beach undisturbed. Researchers use the tracks to identify the turtle species and to find and mark the nests for protection.

6. Remove your gear (lounge chairs, cabanas, umbrellas, boats, toys, etc.) from the every beach in Tulum at night. Their presence can deter nesting attempts and interfere with the journey of the hatchlings.

7. After a beach day in Tulum, properly dispose of your trash. Turtles mistake plastic bags, Styrofoam, and trash floating in the water as food. If they eat it, they will die when this trash blocks their intestines.

8.  Celebrate events without helium balloon releases. Like trash, balloons end up in the ocean, and sea turtles mistakenly eat the balloons and die.