Dirty thirty. The big 3-0. My third decade on Earth. I just said goodbye to my 20s, and I was lucky to be able to celebrate my birthday in Tulum, Mexico with Ray and two other couples.

With everything that’s gone down in 2020, Tulum was our first international trip in over a year. In this post we’ll talk Tulum — where to stay on Tulum beach, the best bars and restaurants, activities, and how you can make the most out of a Tulum birthday.

When we went: Early December. Rainy season in Tulum wraps up in October, and January through March is the biggest tourist season, so December can be considered shoulder season. We were scared when the forecast predicted rain every day, but ended up getting beautiful, sunny, 80s weather with only a couple brief showers.

What we listened to: Tulum is like Bali vibes in Latin America, so my inspiration for this playlist was chill, tropical, mystical Spanish tunes. Eventually I strayed away a bit into some of my favorite Spanish jams, along with some crowd-pleasers (hello, Despacito), but this playlist made a perfect soundtrack to getting ready for dinner out on the town, reading at the beach, and dance parties in our rooms. Listen to it on Spotify here.

Use the table of contents below to jump around and dive into our Tulum birthday itinerary!

GETTING TO & AROUND TULUM

We flew from Denver to Cancun and hired a driver through our hotel to drive us from Cancun down to Tulum.

The flight from Denver is around 4 hours. On Google Maps, the drive from Cancun to our hotel in Tulum looked like 1 hour 45 min. The thing was, we arrived on a Friday evening, it had just rained, and little did we know, Tulum’s popularity has really outpaced its roads and infrastructure, so it’s now known for terrible traffic. The drive ended up taking a little over 2 hours.

🔥Pro tips:

Groups on different flights: We had two groups flying in on two different airlines, but arriving around the same time. We failed to realize that we’d fly into different terminals, which led us to a whole ordeal finding the driver. Very specific situation, but if it happens to pertain to you make sure you sort out the terminals beforehand with the shuttle company.
Cabs: I’ve heard some people warn against taking cabs in Tulum, but honestly, just like anywhere else in the world where ride sharing isn’t readily available, cabs are a totally viable option for getting around as long as you’re careful. Just make sure to take trusted cab companies and negotiate the fare with the driver upfront before you get in. We took cabs to get from the beach to Tulum town and back.
Traffic: As mentioned, traffic can be terrible and varies from day to day based on conditions. When arranging our pickup time to head back to the airport, our driver recommended leaving 5 hours (!) ahead of our flight. We ended up leaving 4 hours before which was just fine and even gave us time to hang out at the airport (embarrassingly, at Margaritaville) before boarding.

TULUM BUDGET BREAKDOWN

Conversion rate: At the time of this post, 1 USD = ~20 Mexican pesos

Our biggest surprise of the trip: the private beach area of Tulum is really pricey. Like, NYC or SF prices at the nicer spots. Since this was a 30th birthday trip we weren’t necessarily on a budget, but we also booked the flight on a credit and the hotel on points, so we felt justified in splurging on food and drinks. Here’s how our expenses broke down — all prices are per person:

Flight: United Denver >> Cancun - $445

Hotel: “Rounded tower suite” at Kanan Tulum, 2 people per room - $312 / night
Airbnb Experience: Cenotes, lunch, and snorkeling 9am - 2pm - $130
Food / drink: Honestly probably $150+ per person per day. Our biggest splurge. As mentioned, food and drinks in the private beach area are U.S. prices, but you can totally get cheap delicious meals in Tulum town or even at cheaper spots on the beach.
Total per person (5 days): $2105
Total per person per day: $421

WHERE TO STAY IN TULUM

There are a lot of options about which area to stay in in Tulum — Tulum town, the private beach area, or the Zona Arqueologica / public beach — each offering a different vibe.

Tulum town: About a 20 min drive from the private beach area (probably more at any given time due to traffic), Tulum town is a mix of local and tourist hangouts. You can definitely find places to stay that are more inland, near Tulum town, for cheap — including some gorgeous, jungly Airbnb options.

Public beach / Zona Arqueologica: The public beach is the beach hangout for locals and tourists alike, located within the archeological park that’s home to the Tulum Ruins. There are plenty of hotel and Airbnb options here, but it’s less of a “spend a day lounging under umbrellas being served drinks” situation and more of a normal public beach.

Private beach / Zona Hotelera: As its name suggests, this is 100% a tourist hangout. A gorgeous, white-sand beach lined with nice hotels and trendy bars and restaurants. At some points in the morning and night, we were one of the only groups on the beach and it was absolutely gorgeous. We spent plenty of hours lounging beachside drinking margs, playing in the ocean, and walking around to the other hotels, beachside bars, and restaurants. The private beach is definitely the bougiest place to stay in Tulum, but you can still find some good deals on hotels, at least during shoulder season during a pandemic that is.

Where we stayed: Kanan Tulum Hotel and Spa

Our hotel literally looked like a wild jungle gym, or the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. It made all of our childhood dreams come true. Everything was made out of rattan and wood. There were secret passageways, tunnels through trees, swings from treetops, and beachside lounge “nests.”

We chose the “rounded tower suite” rooms, and during this pandemic year, we paid around $300 per night. The rooms were out of this world treehouse vibes too. We didn’t snap photos of the rooms before our suitcases exploded all over them, which I’m really sad about.

There are tons of nice hotels on the private beach in Tulum, from mid-range to super high end, but overall we are 100% glad we chose Kanan Tulum. It’s right in the middle of everything and such a magical spot that really takes you away to a different world.

WHERE TO EAT & DRINK IN TULUM

So many good spots! We mainly ate breakfast at our hotel, lunch (and copious drinks) on the beach all day, and fancy birthday dinners in the private beach area at night, but we did venture into Tulum town on a couple different occasions. Here’s everywhere we ate, including some of the best bars and restaurants in Tulum.

Zona Hotelera / Private Beach

Kanan Tulum

Boca Paila Road Km 8 Tulum, 77780 Tulum, Mexico | Website

Our hotel was right in the middle of a bunch of other nice hotels and restaurants and has its own restaurant and bar on the beach. We actually loved the drinks, ceviche, tacos, and breakfast offered at the hotel, so we recommend stopping by for a bite and a drink with a relaxing beachfront view.

Ukami

Carr. Tulum-Boca Paila km 6.7, Tulum Beach, Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Website

Our first night in Tulum was our friend Cate’s 30th birthday and sushi is her absolute favorite, so Ukami was our clear pick. They offer fresh fruit cocktails, sake, and omakase for $50 per person (which is actually a killer deal for Tulum). Omakase in the U.S. typically involves one piece of sashimi or nigiri at a time, maybe like 12 total, for a high price tag. So when Ukami literally kept bringing out platter after platter of food we were blown away! Everything was amazing — rock shrimp tacos, tuna tostadas, plenty of sashimi, nigiri, and rolls, and then to our pleasant surprise...pork fried rice at the very end just in case we weren’t already full enough. It was so good we actually went back on our second to last night!

Gitano

Beach Road Km. 7, 77710 Q.R., Mexico | Website

One of Tulum’s jungle dining essentials. Gitano is a beautiful outdoor space set among giant trees all strung with lights, complete with enchanting live music. We ate upscale Mexican food quite often during our trip, and I’d have to say Gitano was my favorite in that category. The “Jungle Fever” and “Kisses in the Car” cocktails were probably our favorite mezcal cocktails of the entire trip too!

RosaNegra

5, Tulum Beach, Zona Hotelera, 77503 Q.R., Mexico

So, we need help interpreting our experience at RosaNegra. Maybe we’re just not cool enough to understand.

RosaNegra is known for birthday celebrations. If you peep their Instagram, it’s filled with beautiful people posing with sparklers, smoky drinks, and giant desserts. There’s a DJ, a champagne bar in the women’s bathroom, and the whole restaurant stands up and spins their napkins around at 10pm. It’s a definite party vibe.

We told them it was both my friend’s and my 30th birthday. The first strange thing was our ordering choices, which was totally on us. We literally all ordered these giant crab bisques that mostly filled us up, and then shared the most random array of other stuff including Caesar salad (basic but delish), squid ink pasta (yummy), the house truffle bread (which was bomb), ceviche (not my favorite one of the trip), and short rib tacos (not my fave either). Our order was honestly all over the place and I didn’t like it as much as Gitano, but some of the group may disagree!

Then the really strange stuff. The birthdays were just too many to be true. Literally every table there had multiple birthdays. At some tables, every single person got the birthday sparklers. One table of girls stood up and danced the entire night — not even sure they ate. Our server kept verifying that it was both of our birthdays and asking us to get on the WiFi for some mysterious reason. We got our sparklers. We got our giant desserts. Then he comes over, makes sure we’re on the WiFi, and Googles this place in Tulum on Cate’s phone. He asks us if we know what sacred geometry is and we play along asking him to explain it and pretending we’re into it. The conversation just kind of stalls and we’re not sure why he made us Google this sacred geometry art exhibit, so we ask him if we should go there after dinner, thinking maybe there was a party there. His response: “Oh, I thought you were asking for a white party. Never mind! Forget about it!” He literally runs off and doesn’t come back and a different server brings our check.

Like, white party could clearly be a not-too-veiled reference to a couple different substances which is chill. But we’re just so confused. 1. Was saying it’s our birthday code that we wanted something? 2. Was every table saying it was their birthday for that reason, and we were the only ones not in on the code? 3. What did Googling the sacred geometry place have to do with it and what was our response supposed to be?

The whole experience just left us confused. But hey, if it’s your birthday, your “birthday,” or you love “sacred geometry”, maybe you should go to RosaNegra and you’ll have better luck figuring it out!

Mojave

I think this bar might be new because I can’t find it on Google maps, but it’s literally right across the street from Kanan Tulum, and was our nightcap spot several times during the trip. This cute outdoor spot had a perfect lounge table for six people that seemed to beckon to us every time we walked home. First, they won us over with free birthday shots. Then, espresso martinis, a forever crowd-pleaser. Then, they made these refreshing cocktails with tequila, mint, lemon, and some other deliciousness. A kinda small, quiet spot with amazing drinks that we absolutely loved.

Raw Love

Tulum Beach, 77500 Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Instagram

Did you even go to Tulum if you didn’t take a picture in front of the “Ven a la Luz” sculpture and didn’t get a smoothie bowl at Raw Love? Though we didn’t get any particularly Instagram-y photos, we did walk just a short jaunt down the beach from our hotel to get breakfast smoothie bowls at Raw Love, and they did not disappoint!

Tulum Town

Antojitos La Chiapaneca

Calle Acuario Nte. 3, Tulum Centro, Tobiano, 77760 Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Facebook

One of the two taquerias you’ll hear most recommended in Tulum town, and a favorite among locals and tourists alike. We visited Antojitos La Chiapaneca after swimming in four cenotes so we were nice and hungry, and partook in plenty of tacos al pastor, chicken empanadas, tostadas, and more.

Burrito Amor

Av. Tulum, Tulum Centro, Col. Centro, 77780 Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Website

Burrito Amor is a bit more touristy and trendy spot rather than a local spot in Tulum town, but the prices are still great, especially compared to the private beach, and the food is too bomb to pass up. We all got burritos (go figure) — al pastor, chicken, fish, and more — along with some fresh cocktails.

Batey Mojito and Guarapo Bar

Calle Centauro Sur, Tulum Centro, Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Facebook

Batey is one of the main fixtures along the party street in Tulum Town, along with tons of other bars and late night taco stands. It’s a big, somewhat divey bar with live music that’s known for fresh mojitos of all different flavors. You can even see them grinding fresh sugar cane in the back of the bar for the drinks.

If we had more time…

Taqueria Honorio

Satélite Sur Sm10 lote 3, Centro, 77760 Tulum, Q.R., Mexico | Facebook

The second taqueria you’ll always hear recommended in Tulum Town. Unbeknownst to us at first, Don Honorio is known for “breakfast tacos” — which in Mexico are more like regular tacos, just eaten at breakfast time. They’re open in the morning, and close when they sell out, so we never made it to Tulum Town in time to try it though we definitely would have liked to.

Street taco bliss, and probably my favorite photo of the trip 😅

WHAT TO DO IN TULUM

With only four full days in Tulum, we spent a lot of time relaxing at the beach. But we couldn’t go without exploring some of the main sites to see around the area. We didn’t have a rental car, so we chose to do an Airbnb experience to easily get around and see several different areas.

The Airbnb Experience we chose was called “authentic tour Tulum ruins and cenotes” and at the time of this post, you can find it on Airbnb here.

We’ll break down our activities in Tulum below, but the other thing to note was that our tour guide, Julio (aka Cesar), was a blast. He greeted us in the AM with mimosas, brought a full cooler of beer and tequila that we shared throughout the day, and was an all-around chill and funny guy who tailored the day to what we wanted to do. Here are the main things you should check out in Tulum:

Explore the Cenotes

According to Wikipedia, cenotes are “surface connections to subterranean water bodies.” There are over 6,000 cenotes in the Yucatan peninsula, many of which appear as clear, gem-colored, spherical exposed pools, and many that are fully or partially within cave systems.

Cenotes are visited for swimming, cave exploring, scuba diving (though cave diving is some of the most dangerous and not recommended for anyone less than expert level), snorkeling, and more.

If you rent your own car in the Yucatan, you can choose which cenotes you want to visit and make your own adventure. Just be aware that the most attractive ones get pretty crowded with people trying to get that well-known IG pic. Also keep in mind that most are privately owned, so you’ll have to pay a small entrance fee for each.

On our tour, we visited four different cenotes on the Casa Tortugas property — two cave cenotes and two open cenotes. They weren’t the most well-known ones, but they also showed us a perfect mix of different cenote types and were absolutely gorgeous! We went around 9:30am and really avoided the crowds.

Visit Chichen Itza and the Tulum Ruins

If we had more time, we would definitely have taken the 2-hour drive over to Chichen Itza, the ancient archeological site developed around 750 AD that’s been named one of the New Wonders of the World.

But, if you can’t make it there, there’s an ancient Mayan seaport city located right in Tulum.

At the beginning of our Airbnb experience, Cesar gave us the choice between entering the Tulum ruins on foot and seeing the entire thing, or hopping in a boat and viewing it from the backside and then snorkeling. After hearing about the crowds at the ruins themselves, we chose the boat + snorkeling trip which we were super happy with.

Fishing, Snorkeling, Scuba Diving, and Jungle Adventures

That brings us to water and jungle activities! We had a fun afternoon snorkeling off the public beach area. While we didn’t see any sea turtles, we saw some cool coral and tons of sting rays. The sad part is that the reason we saw all the rays was due to them being fed from the boats :( You could tell that a bunch of tour guides all brought their groups out at the same time to watch the feeding.

From what we were told, diving isn’t huge in the area. While some people choose to dive in the cenotes, there isn’t truly a ton of sea life there, and in the ocean where we snorkeled, we wouldn’t have seen much more had we been diving instead because we were right on top of a reef.

Cesar also mentioned that we could join him for additional fishing, zip lining, monkey viewing, and ATV adventures if we wanted to...but we ended up only doing one adventure day.

If we had more time…

We’re not really the yoga-travel type group, but there are plenty of yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and wellness experiences in Tulum that would be amazing to try. One of our friends did get an ayurvedic healing massage while we were there that she absolutely loved, so if you’re intrigued by any of those experiences, Tulum is the place!

TULUM TIPS & TRICKS

We’re perfectly happy with the way we spent our 5 days in Tulum, but if we had to give some tips it’d be these:

Budget: The private beach area is way more expensive than we expected, so it might be helpful to think about a daily food & drinks budget, make some reservations for nice restaurants in advance, and save other nights to eat street tacos or explore less expensive areas like Tulum town.
Transportation: If we didn’t go with a group, we might have looked more into getting a rental car so we could explore cenotes and drive to Chichen Itza on our own without having to rely on a tour or anything. We didn’t look into the cost of parking a rental car at our hotel, but they had a parking area so it would have been possible — driving through traffic in the beach area would have been a little crazy however. That said, we’re totally happy with the way we did it — renting shuttles to and from the airport, taxi-ing to Tulum town, and doing an Airbnb experience — so that’s a totally valid way to structure your transportation too.
What to pack: Since you’ll be in a swim suit most of the time, it’s great to pack a few different ones for different days. Here’s a high-waisted two-piece one I’ve been eyeing, and some solid or patterned swim trunks for the guys. In Tulum, woven / wicker / rattan is the name of the game, and this cute bag will fit in perfectly. Outside of the beach, you’ll want a couple outfits to go out and enjoy a fun dinner in. Don’t forget the cute, quality sunnies, travel size reef friendly sunscreen, maybe a beach hat, and you’re set!

CELEBRATING A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY IN TULUM

And finally, a quick note on closing out my 20s and celebrating my 30th birthday in Tulum.

The past decade has brought so many opportunities and experiences I’m truly grateful for. I met my soulmate and best friend, I studied abroad and caught the travel bug for life, I moved to San Francisco and met my lifelong friends, we built our careers, we traveled a whole bunch, we moved back to Denver and built a home...and most of our friends happened to move here too.

Even among all the uncertainty and anxiety of 2020, we’ve found so many moments of pure joy and adventure — getting married surrounded by our closest friends and family, and forming even closer bonds with those around us through time spent both at home and on the road.

On our first night in Tulum, we enjoyed a nightcap of espresso martinis at Mojave and then ventured out to the private beach behind our hotel, only to find it completely empty. The moon and stars were bright in the cloudless sky and the waves were crashing calmly.

We stripped down and literally frolicked in the waves under the moonlight. After such a rough year, it felt like such a joyous and healing way to close out both 2020 and my 20s.

Whether you’re looking for a party, a relaxing and meditative experience, or something in between, Tulum can be a truly special place to celebrate a birthday.

Questions? Tulum experiences of your own? Comment here or on our latest IG post.

Happy travels!

Hey there!

Dec 23 Celebrating A Special Birthday in Tulum, Mexico

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GETTING TO & AROUND TULUM

TULUM BUDGET BREAKDOWN

WHERE TO STAY IN TULUM