The Coastline Issue

Tulum has changed faster than almost anywhere we cover, and April is a good month to take its measure — dry and warm, before the summer heat and before the sargassum, the brown seaweed that can pile up on this coast in the hotter months. What was a backpacker beach a decade ago is now a glossy strip of design hotels, and the reputation runs a little ahead of the place.

The whole decision is the beach road versus the pueblo. The beach road is the image: thatched cabanas and candlelit restaurants strung along one sandy lane behind the dunes, barefoot, off-grid in parts, and expensive — many of the hotels run on generators and well water, which is worth knowing before you book. The pueblo, the actual town a few minutes inland, is where the value, the taco stands and the everyday life are.

Plenty of people split the difference, or base in the pueblo and drive out to a beach club for the day. Either way, rent a car or plan your taxis; the two Tulums are not walkable from one another.

The land behind the beach is as much the reason to come as the sand. The cliff-top Mayan ruins reward the first entry of the morning, before the heat and the tour buses; the flooded limestone cenotes inland are the great escape from the afternoon sun; and the vast Sian Ka'an biosphere just south is a reminder of what this coast was before the hotels.

— Vivienne Hartwell, Editor-in-Chief