EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VISITING THE YUCATAN PENINSULA! 🇲🇽 Budget, sights, foods & more!
Sep 6, 2023
In this video we share ALL THE ESSENTIAL TRAVEL TIPS to help you maximize your trip to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula! We spent 70 days in this beautiful part of Mexico and learned a thing or two you may find useful ;)
Please remember you can always ask us anything in the comments!! Our goal will always be to help you plan your perfect vacation.
Here are the links mentioned in the video organized by city:
★ OUR TRAVEL HACKING NEWSLETTER! https://creative-producer-4467.ck.page/a718ca97a5
★ COZUMEL:
- Blog Post: Cozumel Beaches - https://www.waysoftheworldblog.com/beaches-in-cozumel/
- Blog Post: Things to do in Cozumel - https://www.waysoftheworldblog.com/things-to-do-cozumel/
- Video: Best Cozumel Foods - https://youtu.be/tf5lcllmmXs
- Video: Scuba Diving in Cozumel - https://youtu.be/P1FL7RPZSNc
- Video: Best Beaches in Cozumel (a guide) - https://youtu.be/gT8yiL8jVss
- Night Snorkeling Octopus Experience - https://fave.co/3JK50TH
- Best Scuba Diving in Cozumel: Scuba Tony - https://www.scubatony.com/
★ CANCUN:
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0:00
Hey everyone, we are Gordon and Ayemada. We're a slow traveling couple who started our adventures
0:14
in September of 2021 going all around Turkey and we just got done spending 70 days in the Yucatan
0:20
Peninsula. We have been meaning to make this video for a long time now. We are not in Mexico anymore
0:25
but our last stop in the Yucatan Peninsula wasn't exactly the best experience
0:30
We'll share more later. And then we went to Mexico City and we meant to do the video there
0:35
but we got sick. So right now we're in Albania and we're doing the video now, so let's start
0:55
Let's talk about our itinerary. So as mentioned earlier, we spent 70 days in the Yucatan Peninsula and we do want to
1:03
be clear that this is not like a Mexico travel series, this is just a Yucatan Peninsula travel series
1:09
We decided to do it this way because Mexico has so much to offer and is so close to home
1:13
that we break it apart on like three different trips. So like the next one probably will be Central Mexico and then Baja and this one is just
1:20
the Yucatan Peninsula. So we started on the Yucatan Peninsula's Caribbean coast and there was a total vacation
1:25
And we went diving, explored beautiful beaches, it was just a tropical dream
1:29
And then we crossed over the peninsula to explore some of the Yucatan's most famous colonial cities
1:34
And again, absolutely stunning We visited incredible Mayan ruins along the way, we went into so many different cenotes all across the peninsula
1:42
It was incredible It was awesome So the Yucatan Peninsula is probably the most touristy and popular region in all of Mexico
1:49
And even though there's super touristy places there like Valle del Carmen and Tulam, we didn't visit any of those places
1:55
We went to Cancun because we wanted to write a blog post comparing Cancun and Cozumel to help you pick what's best for you
2:02
But we didn't go to the most popular places in the peninsula
2:05
Yeah, exactly. There were a lot of really cool places in the Yucatan Peninsula that we were very excited to visit
2:10
Like the beaches in Cozumel, the diving and the colonial cities. but part of the goal for the travel series was also to show people that there are other options on the
2:18
Ucventud Peninsula that are much less touristy and off the deep path and to show you that you don't have to go to just Cancun
2:24
Yeah, exactly and we discovered so many great cities that we loved and we can't recommend them enough just because
2:30
they're less busy, like you get to have like more authentic experiences and honestly we didn't know
2:35
that we were gonna find these things in the Yucatan because it's so popular and we did and we're gonna share a lot of that stuff later in the video
2:44
Unfortunately, the first question that people ask when visiting Mexico is, is it safe
2:48
And our experience is that the Yucatan Peninsula was super safe. Yeah, exactly. We never, ever worried about our personal safety
2:55
And in fact, the Yucatan Peninsula is the safest region in all of Mexico
2:58
It does vary a little bit depending where you are. So places like Cancun and Tulum does have a little bit more like issues, let's say
3:05
Those are like the ones that you see in the news. Yeah, exactly. But places like Campeche, Mérida, Valladolid
3:10
like all these places that we visited are safer than most big cities in the US
3:14
Oh, for sure. And we asked locals, we talked to them, like, how safe is it? They're like, don't worry, you can be outside at like 2 a.m. with your camera
3:21
And we did it. Like, we traveled by bus, like, we put your suitcase down
3:25
Like, we never, ever had to worry about our safety. And that's something that you need to know
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And stop, like, looking at the news and thinking that Mexico, something bad's going to happen to you
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Because the farther you go, like, off the beaten path, the safer it is
3:38
Yeah. Yeah. Now we're going to talk about money and budgeting. We're going to share how much we spent in our trip, like for everything, for food, accommodation, everything
3:47
But the first thing is to know that the currency in Mexico is the Mexican peso and $1 equals
3:52
more or less 20 pesos. And you can also pay in dollars in a lot of places that are accepted, but you're not going
3:58
to get like a great exchange rate. So it's recommended that you carry Mexican pesos with you. Yeah
4:03
So it's generally a good idea to have between like $40 and $80 worth of Mexican pesos on hand
4:09
do accept credit card but if you go to like a smaller restaurant or if you're like in a smaller
4:12
town then they may not accept credit card or if they do they will add an additional charge of three
4:18
to five percent so it's always good to have some Mexican pesos in your wallet it's also generally
4:23
pretty easy to find an ATM most towns will have them in convenience stores or like the bigger
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cities obviously have banks where you can pull cash the only thing is like the smaller fishing
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villages that we've visited like Punta Allen no ATMs no credit card acceptance so definitely
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They plan ahead if you go to these types of places and bring enough cash. Yeah, exactly. That's just one thing to keep in mind
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When it comes to tipping, generally 10 to 15% is commonly accepted or expected at restaurants or your local guy
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But in the smaller places, you really don't have to do it unless they have a tip jar and you want to
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Yeah, so for street foods or very local restaurants, they don't expect any kind of tip
4:57
Also cantinas, where the focus is alcohol, there's also not an expectation to tip
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And taxi drivers, there's no tipping for taxis. Now we're going to talk about budget and I have my laptop here because we do keep track
5:08
of every single penny that we spend so we can share this useful information with you
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and we're going to start with the accommodation. We average $50 a night
5:17
This is mostly Airbnbs and usually we're kind of like picky about the places that we stay
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We try to have like a kitchen so we can cook some of our meals. Comfortable, clean, with good reviews
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Nothing fancy but decent. And space for working. Yeah, and working space
5:33
Next is our food budget. So for 70 days we spent $730 on groceries and $1600 eating out
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which also includes our alcohol budget. So our daily average for food for the two of us
5:44
was around $33. The cheapest way to eat in Mexico is actually street food and eating at
5:49
local markets. It's also way cheaper than getting groceries and cooking for yourself
5:53
We had meals there, but it wasn't something that we did on a daily basis. But if you want
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to bring down that food budget a ton, just go to the local market, eat all your meals
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It's super cheap. Or shop there too because that's a lot cheaper than the grocery store
6:05
Now for transportation, these are different subsections. The first one is car rentals and this varies a lot
6:12
The cheapest car rental was $50 a day. The most expensive was $95
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This is expensive. This doesn't include parking or tolls or gas which is very high right now
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So towards the end of our trip, we ended up switching more to conectivos, right
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Yeah, it's a local transportation and a way of the vehicle cars. Yep, because it wasn't cheap and it was also most times a hassle
6:43
Next up is taxis. And taxis are pretty affordable on the Yucatan Peninsula in general
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I'm looking here and apparently we took over 30 taxi rides while we were there
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That is shocking to me. I do not remember 30 rides. And our average payment was about $5
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That was usually from a grocery store or just taking a 10 minute ride
7:00
Also, Ubers are very cheap. They're available in Merida and Cancun, but not many other places
7:06
But if you can't find them, use them because they are super affordable. There's also another way to move around that is called Conectivos, which are the local buses
7:13
They have buses and they have taxis too. The buses are usually $2.50 per person
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They take you. You don't use them that much to move in the city where you usually walk a lot
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they take you to a lot of the touristy places. So for example, from Valladolid, we took a
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colectivo to Chichen Itza instead of renting a car and it was $2.50 per person, which saves you a lot
7:34
of money if you want to visit like this most popular site and you don't have a budget for
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car rental. The last part of this transportation budget is how much we pay to get from one city to
7:42
the other. So there's generally two ways to do that. There's like the tourist buses and there's
7:45
also a colectivo taxis. So for the tourist buses, they're a little bit expensive. So we paid up to
7:50
$21 per ticket to get from one city to the other the ones that were a little bit closer we paid 11
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so it felt a little bit expensive but nothing like too crazy and then there's also a colectivo taxi
8:00
which is where you like wait in the taxi for it to fill up and then you go with like fellow passengers that like an easier way to get around with like less visited cities that are kind of like close to each other and it also pretty affordable Yeah a little bit like more expensive than the bus
8:13
but cheaper than like a private transportation so might be worth it. So let's talk about the cost
8:19
for activities. As a general rule of thumb anything closer to Cancun, Tulum, Playa del Carmen is
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much more expensive than stuff you'll find on the other side of the peninsula. So things like Mayan
8:30
ruins the famous chichen itza and ekbalam which is also pretty close to cancun and those other
8:35
places entrance is like 25 per person and a private guide if you get them by yourself it's
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like 50 per person and if you compare that to some of the less visited places like around campeche
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those are like four dollars to enter the mayan ruins and like a guide like 20 yeah so prices
8:52
vary a ton by where you are and also be careful because they do try to rip you off in some places
8:56
if you're close to like Cancun and like those areas. We saw it, it's in the office
9:01
Yeah, we saw that. And then Sanate, that kind of like ranges from like $2.50 to $8.50
9:06
Again, like the more touristy ones will be more expensive. And like on the low end, it's about like $2.50 per person
9:12
So if you're coming to the Yugoslav Peninsula, you're probably also interested in water activities
9:16
We love the scuba diving in Cozumel, and that costs about $90 for a two tank dive
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The service is incredible. It's totally worth it. It's obviously cheaper than the US
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And then there's also like popular nature tours, which we did in Putz Allen, which are also available in a place called Los Magarritos
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Rio de Magarritos. And for those, it's like nature tours to the mangroves and like looking for dolphins and manatees and those kind of things
9:40
And they charge by like the boat. So they charge $150 for the boat to go out, which can fill up to like a maximum of six guests
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So if there are six guests, then you split the $150 with those six people. If there's just you, then you have to pay the entire $150
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So you can get pretty safe. Yeah. Some things are pretty expensive
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We did a lot of activities like cenotes and Mayan ruins and we made videos about like most of them that are linked in our channel
10:03
But we were also very lucky thanks to this guy here because we did save a lot of money during this trip thanks to our credit card points and travel hacking
10:12
And I know we mentioned this earlier like in our Turkey video that we're working on a course that we're going to launch
10:18
But it has proven to be a lot more difficult than we thought it would be
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So now we're doing a course on how to launch a course to make it better for you, so you
10:28
get the most out of your body. So if you're interested in travel hacking, I'm going to leave a form in the description
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so you guys can sign up and I can send you an email when the course is live
10:37
It's a great way to save a lot of money. It is. It is. Yeah, it is. So let's talk about visas and entry requirements for Mexico
10:44
And we can only speak for ourselves. So I am Venezuelan, but I live in the US, so I have a green card
10:50
So I didn't have to apply for a visa. But if you are Venezuelan and you don't live in the United States
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You do need to apply for a visa and also this probably only is valid for Venezuelans
11:01
But the prorroga which is like our passport extension, it is accepted in Mexico
11:05
For Americans, there is no visa requirement. All you need is a valid passport to enter Mexico, so it's super easy
11:11
But once you arrive to Mexico, you are given a visa card So that's for anyone that enters the country and the person at immigration
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immigration they decide how long that you can legally stay within the country. It's a best practice to be very honest about how long you're staying. We said
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that we might be there for like three months and they let us stay for like a hundred days because if you overstay that amount of time then you can get in a
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lot of trouble. So don't stay like five days when you're intending to stay there for three weeks
11:35
Yeah, exactly. Be honest and just like look at how much time you were given
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That's a good practice because it's an easy thing to like overlook and I think
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maximum that you can say as an American I think is six months. Now we're going to cover how to move
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around the Yucatan Peninsula as a tourist and there are basically four ways that you can move around
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so it's private transportation, a car rental, occasional ferries and buses but we're mostly
12:00
going to cover buses and car rentals because we have like really good tips for you. So the bus
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system in the Yucatan Peninsula really surprised us they have a company called ADO, A-D-O in English
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which is like a luxury bus company that we took to most cities and it was incredible right yeah the
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service is great it's super easy to book it's always running on time a pro tip if you go online
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and book the seats between one and four then you sit at the very front of the bus and you have some
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extra leg room and you can also watch the bus drivers wave to each other every time they pass
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that is just for that reason not the space to see the bus drivers like saying hi at each other
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is like recent enough to book the first like the first round yeah also in most like major cities
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there's an adeo terminal and auto terminal where you can like go in and book tickets in advance
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you can also pay credit card there most of the times if it's like a bigger city but we just like
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to do it on high end yeah it's just easier and we really wanted the front row because it's tall
12:59
when it comes to car rentals we did not have like the best experiences all the time yeah car
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renting in the uconnect peninsula is an adventure it's also pretty pricey most of the times we're
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paying like 60 to like 90 dollars to rent a car for one single day but also like booking it was a
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terrible experience so sometimes we would book online like through like an actual like car rental
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company like a renowned one and then it would show up and the shop was closed or they wouldn't
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have the car and it would just create a yeah we had to wait like hours outside like find another
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car with another agency like it was it was a mess that said if you do get a car it's very easy to
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drive to the Yucatan Peninsula. It is totally safe, like the roads are in good conditions
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Like you can get places very fast because there's no one in the Yucatan Peninsula, so like the
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roads are empty and you just cruise along and it's pretty easy. You've been warm, that's all
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Just be prepared that anything can happen. Now we'll talk more about our itinerary and our
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favorite cities and towns. I'll start with the more like coastal towns that we visited. So we
14:01
went to Cozumel, Cancun, Punta Allen, which is like a secluded fishing village, Bacalar and Isla
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whole bush and the places that we loved were Cozumel for sure the diving there was absolutely
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if you love fish and scuba diving like you have to go to Cozumel. Yeah, Cozumel is amazing and mojitos
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I'm not kidding I've had a lot of mojitos in my life this is the best mojito I've ever had. Punta
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Allen was also an amazing kind of undiscovered gem it is very very difficult to get to and there's
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not a lot going on in the village it's like 500 people that live there and it's super slow but we
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loved it we just like loved getting off the grid and relaxing it was awesome it was a dream
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bacalar is also a really cool town it seems to be changing pretty quickly and becoming more like
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trendy and in the know so get there soon before it becomes like too developed that's like maybe
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like tulum would be right now we loved love bacalar and then we also visited cancun as i
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mentioned earlier to write like a blog post and we visited Isla Holbox to be perfectly honest like
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we're not that type of bloggers that we just like everywhere that we go like including Holbox we did
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not like at all and we wrote about it so you know like what to expect like if you decide to go to
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these places because they're not for everyone after spending some time on the coast we went
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inland and we visited the most like famous colonial cities in the Yucatan Peninsula we went to Mérida
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to Valladolid and Campeche and out of those three if we had to pick one it would be Campeche right
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Yeah exactly, for some reason Campeche just connected with us, we really loved it there
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it was like a slower pace, the people there were super friendly and also a lot of great like day
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trips that we took from there to like off the deep path locations. Campeche was awesome, that's like
15:50
off most people's radar and you do have to check it out because it's incredible, not to say that we
15:55
We didn't like Merida del Paya del Lid. Yeah, all three of them are amazing
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but if we actually recommend one, we recommend Campeche first, but also visit the other two on a different trip
16:06
When it comes to our favorite activities these are not ranked but these are like our top five And the first one is scuba diving in Cozumel Scuba diving in Cozumel is amazing We were so lucky to go like three different days on six different dives including a night dive
16:22
It was a dream. There's so much life underwater, it was incredible. We could go back like every week to Cozumel to go scuba diving
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I would feel very lucky if we get to go back to Cozumel like every year for a week to go scuba diving
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It's incredible. We also loved visiting a ton of different cenotes around the Yucatan Peninsula
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Some of our favorites were located in a town called Homún, which is pretty close to Mérida
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And a lot of them are like undiscovered and they're just so like beautiful and you like have them to yourself. Yeah
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Dive in the cool water. It's incredible. Oh my gosh, cenotes are so, so beautiful
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Like there's this place like as you mentioned like Homún and it's known as the ring of cenotes
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And they have like over 300 cenotes there and you can like arrange these like tours and they take you to like a moto taxi
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and you can tell them where you want to go, what you want to see, and they take you. You can spend the whole day swimming in different zones
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It's also a great way to cool off because the duke pan from inside is hot, very hot, super hot
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Another favorite activity that you have to do if you go to Bacalar is go on a sunrise kayak on your own
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We did it on our own. We share everything in the video. That was one of the most beautiful sunrises
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that we have ever seen. It was incredible to see all the colors in the lagoon
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The lagoon in Bacalar is known as the Seven Color Lagoon, and once the sun starts to rise up
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then the lagoon just changes into all these different colors of blues and creamy whites and turquoises
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and it's just such an incredible place to be in the morning, just all by yourself
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It's beautiful. You have to do the sunrise night in Bacalar. One of our day trips from Campeche was to a place called Miguel Colorado
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This is an eco-park reserve, and it was absolutely stunning. We saw so many monkeys just like climbing in the trees
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and it was just beautiful. We did zip lining over a cenote, which I hated
18:06
And so I think we should take this off the list. I'm super afraid of heights
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and we were like 300 feet over a cenote. And I never looked down
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and I don't actually remember it that well because I think I blacked out. Oh, okay
18:20
Oh my God, we're so high up. I'm not gonna look down
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I can't look down. Oh my god. We're like 300 feet in the air, flying over a cenote. Oh my god
18:40
But Ayman says that we had a nice time. It was awesome. Like the people, like it's inside like a Mayan village and everyone that works there is Mayan and they're like super proud of their culture and they're like so chatty
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and it's great because they also don't get like a ton of visitors so you have this whole incredible
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park like basically all to yourself yeah and you can kayak and swim into an open sanat day
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oh my gosh that day was a dream again we also made a video about it that you have to check out
19:08
i'm going to put it here because you have to go there if you go to campeche and last but not least
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let's talk about mayan ruins we visited like seven different or eight and our favorite one was
19:20
one called it's not that you can visit from campeche and honestly we visited like even
19:26
chichen itza and this this one like is top of our list right like overall experience like prize
19:31
like the guy that we had it's incredible that's not as super beautiful like the main pyramid is
19:37
huge and you can still climb a lot of the structures and get like incredible views yeah
19:41
and a lot of like the time you have the entire place to yourself so it just like feels more like
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I don't know spiritual and special like some of the places like Chichen Itza are very beautiful and interesting
19:51
But there's just so many people that like you miss like I don't know Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true like in like overall experience. It's not go go to it's not it's incredible
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We can't talk about visiting the Yucatan Peninsula without talking about all the delicious foods that we tried
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Oh my gosh, it's a start The cochinita pib. That is probably the most famous dish in the Yucatan Peninsula
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This is like a slow cooked pork that they cook like on the ground with all these delicious like spices
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And it's just delicious. You're gonna see it everywhere and you have to try it in like tacos, tortas
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Like anywhere you see it, try it because it is delicious. We recommend..
20:32
Very often it's a breakfast food so like don't go looking for it at night. It's probably already like run out
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So that's probably true for a lot of like these like Mexican street foods. Go in the morning and look for them because they run out and supplies go quick
20:43
Pro tip. The other one is relleno negro, which is traditionally made with turkey and it's also cooked on the ground with a bunch of ground chilies and burnt spices
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It's black. It doesn't look beautiful, but it is delicious. So wherever you go, we recommend
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It's not great everywhere, so just ask locals where is the best relleno negro and go have it
21:08
It is so good. You can also have it in tacos and torques. Some other famous Yucatan street foods that you have to try are panuchos and salgutes
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These are two things that we had never heard of before arriving to the Yucatan Peninsula
21:20
but they are absolutely delicious. They're like different versions of similar things, but like fried tortillas
21:25
stuffed with refried beans and then topped with usually the typical way is smoked turkey
21:31
And it's just like love and advice. Delicious, delicious, delicious. We, I mean, I don't mean to like plug every video we made about the Yucatan Peninsula
21:39
but we did make three food tour videos where we try all these delicious foods and we share
21:44
like how much they cost, where to have them. So if you visit any of the cities, you have to check out those videos and go and try those
21:51
foods because they're so good. And a personal favorite food from the Yucatan Peninsula is pollo estilo Sinaloa
21:57
So that's from the Sinaloa states in Mexico, but it's very popular in places like Bacalar
22:01
and Campeche and it is just the most delicious chicken like grilled chicken
22:05
like a red seasoning that's like spicy and delicious I absolutely felt like I
22:11
could eat that right now like seven of them like it is really really yeah
22:16
usually this like chicken like you're not gonna find it like fancy restaurants
22:21
or anything it's like an ugly looking like food stall but it's so worth it
22:26
try it, that chicken, like you'll never have like chicken as good as that one
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And last but not least, obviously like tacos, like tropical fruits, like if you see a guy selling mangoes like in the street
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buy them, eat them every day, they're delicious, you'll never have mangoes like that
22:43
And also be sure to check out the local markets and try different fruits that you've never seen before
22:47
We've tried a thing called mamay, which maybe you knew from Venezuela, but I had definitely never tried mamay before
22:52
Or those weird like rosayas, which are these little things that have a texture of celery and taste super sour that they mix with hot sauce
23:00
So a lot of interesting things that you can find in the local market. So definitely make a stop
23:05
Now let's talk about language in the Yucatan Peninsula. Most commonly it's Spanish, but you can also hear Mayan, which is beautiful and super interesting
23:14
And English is widely spoken in a lot of the touristy places, but it really helps if you know some Spanish words
23:22
Here are some basic Spanish words and phrases to help you along in your trip throughout the Yucatan
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Feel free to correct me with my pronunciation. So before starting a conversation with anyone or even when you enter a store
23:34
it's polite to say buenos dias or buenas tardes, which means good morning or good afternoon
23:39
That's just a very common greeting. There's also hola, which means hello, or hola como estas, which means like hello, how are you
23:46
Gracias or muchas gracias, which means thank you or thank you very much
23:50
are also very important to know and si. Means yes. No. No
23:55
Por favor means please. And I think an easy phrase to like learn
23:59
so you ask like in markets and stuff before you pay, it's cuanto cuesta, which means how much is it
24:05
It was definitely very easy for us to move around the Yucatan Peninsula because Spanish is my first language
24:10
I'm from Venezuela and Gordon speaks Spanish as well. But you going to be fine if you learn like this phrases a couple words here and there and English is widely spoken so you gonna be okay in that department unfortunately in 2022 we still have to talk about covid first it important to
24:25
know that there are no like entry requirements related to covid in mexico so like you don't
24:30
have to take a covid test you also don't have to like prove any kind of like vaccination yeah
24:34
so it's easy to get in but one thing you should know is that people in mexico wear masks like
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more than anywhere we've ever seen. You have to wear masks like indoors and like they really like
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check for it. Some places like they spray like your shoes and like your backpack, they give you
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like hand sanitizer. The floor masks with like sanitizer right now. A lot of people walk like
24:57
with masks like outside even. You don't have to but just keep in mind that the mask wearing is
25:02
like strict. They do take it very seriously. We have some tips for you so you can have the best
25:07
experience possible when you're visiting the yucatan peninsula and the first one is go to places
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very early as early as you can become a morning person so you can like beat the heat and beat the
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crowds also don't forget your mosquito repellent at home the yucatan has very aggressive mosquitoes
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and especially in the wet season they come out full force like heat-seeking missiles
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so bring your repellent you have to use it at 6 pm pretty much taken every place in the yucatan
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this one kind of goes along with getting to places early but because it's so hot in yucatan
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it's important to wear hats and like long sleeve shirts to protect yourself from the sun
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Especially also if you're going to cenotes or the Bacalar Lagoon for example because you're not
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allowed to enter with sunscreen or any kind of like lotions just to protect the natural habitat
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When it comes to like drinking water you can really not drink water from the taps and we also
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we're really careful and we can like brush your teeth with like a bottle water just to be safe
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Even though when we ate out, we ate vegetables and we washed our stuff with tap water and we never got sick
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We were never too cautious with food. We totally encourage you to eat street food and eat in the markets
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We never got sick. I got sick once and that was in Mexico City from a hotel room service
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Yeah, exactly. So most of the places are perfectly safe and you don't have to worry about going out there and eating street food
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Last but not least and this is probably the most important tip that we can give you
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it's like go off the beaten path when you're in the Yucatan Peninsula. It has so much more to offer
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than like the main places like Tulu, Playa El Carmen, Cancún like we can almost guarantee right that
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you're gonna have the best experience if you go out of the beaten path right? Yeah it's just way
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easier to connect with like local people and have like more authentic experiences when you get to
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the more off the beaten path places. So you're perfectly transparent like nowhere is like totally
26:56
off the bean pass, so you don't have to be worried about being in the middle of nowhere. If you get away from the very touristy places, then it's just like, I don't know
27:02
It's different. It is way better. We cannot recommend it. So now we will very briefly touch on the history of the Yucatan Peninsula
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The peninsula is famous for its Mayan heritage. So there are over 300, I think
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Mayan sites all across the Yucatan Peninsula. Still today, you'll see people dressed in
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traditional Mayan clothing, and if you go to the smaller villages, you'll get them speaking
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in like the traditional Mayan languages. That was one of the coolest things that we like got to witness because at times, because
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we speak Spanish, it didn't feel like super foreign until we went to these foreign towns
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and we like saw a completely different culture, right? Yeah, exactly. Like it was so cool
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A lot of the foods are also like, have like Mayan origins and you would, like I think outside
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of Mexico and like in the world, like people think that the Mayan culture is like extinct
27:49
somehow and they were very clear about it, so we're not extinct. that when you're there it's obvious that they're not you know like the Mayan culture is like strongly
27:56
present in the Yucatan Peninsula. And in the way the people that lived in the Yucatan they didn't
28:02
really consider themselves Mexican for like a very long time so some of like the traditions
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and like cultural things that you associate with Mexico aren't very strong in the Yucatan Peninsula
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like mariachis and that kind of stuff like you might find it but it's not exactly like traditional
28:15
Yeah because it wasn't like a part of Mexico until like very recently. The Yucatan Peninsula was
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also one of the first places that the Spanish conquistadors landed in the Americas and kind of like developed their own cultures, so like the towns of
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Campeche, Valladolid, and Merida, they were founded in like the 1500s by Spanish
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conquistadors and that's why you have that like beautiful colonial Spanish style. They didn't really agree with the Mayans and there was a lot of like really
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sad history in the Yucatan Peninsula. Yes, it's more like raving about like if we're going there we're not going to bore you with like too many details, but it is
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interesting to know because you can't really like understand like how the Yucatan
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Peninsula like why is it like so different than like the rest of Mexico. We are almost wrapping
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up this video but we didn't want to leave out like some things that we didn't like when we
28:59
visited the Yucatan Peninsula. I think this has to be like more normalized like people usually
29:04
only share like the good and then if you share the bad things like you help other travelers not to
29:10
like fold for this type of things and the first and like saddest one that we observed was like
29:15
We saw Americans being overcharged by a lot. Yeah, so it seemed like the people that were selling activities to Americans in some cases
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were playing off the language barrier and selling them packages that they didn't actually ask for or need
29:30
And because they couldn't ask for what they were getting, they were just spending like 10 times more than they should have
29:36
Yeah, so that's why part of the reason why we always share prices in our videos and our blog posts
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is so you know how much we pay. Like even if we get ripped off, which has happened in like our videos, like people say it, you know, and then you're aware of like how much things are
29:50
So you don't overpay because that is like one of our biggest like travel like pet peeve, right
29:54
That should not happen and Every time that this happens, like I think it's our job as a traveler to like share it and like if you can leave a better review
30:02
If it happened to you just do something so it doesn't happen to like other people
30:06
Another thing that we didn't like but pretty much like only applies like long-term travelers is that there was a lack of
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healthy food options. We even have the supermarket like everything has like
30:17
add sugar like it was hard for us because we do like which we work out we go to
30:21
the gym we try to eat healthy believe it or not especially if you watch your
30:25
food videos for 90% of the time we do try to be healthy and it was hard in
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Mexico. Yeah it's very difficult to get like salads or anything like green if you
30:33
go out like a meal it's just like tortillas and pork and yeah right things
30:38
Which I guess is different if you go to like the touristy places because if you
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go to Tulum, I bet everything is like salads, but we just don't know because we didn't go there
30:46
But in the smaller places, it's going to be a little bit too late. And the last thing is that
30:50
there seems to be a lot of garbage just laying around. So in particular, like Holbox had a lot
30:55
of garbage and that was, I don't know, that was very sad to see when we were there. But just like
31:01
on the streets, like lying around, there doesn't seem to be like very solid infrastructure to collect
31:05
garbage. So people just like throw things on the side of the road. That is it for this video about
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the Yucatan Peninsula it feels kind of weird because we did mean to make this video from Mexico and we
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wanted to do like this whole like goodbye Mexico thank you but now it's been like what like six
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weeks now we're in Albania we're very far from Mexico but we are super grateful to the Yucatan
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Peninsula we had such a blast we saw so many unique and interesting places had delicious foods
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meeting carnival people so we are super grateful and it's kind of weird too because like Mexico is
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like close to home. Yucatan, thank you for the warm welcome. We had an amazing time, it was an awesome 70 days
31:43
Thank you so much for watching. We are getting ready to make a Q&A video, so if you have any
31:47
questions please leave them in the comments. I would encourage you to ask us anything because
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we really want to help you plan your perfect trip to the Yucatan Peninsula and we're happy to help
31:56
Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time. Subscribe to follow the travel series
32:01
because we're in Albania and we're making really cool videos here. Adios, amigos
32:06
Ciao. Ciao
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