Alumni Stories

Playa del Carmen is another great beach destination alongside Cancún for tourists that want plenty of beach clubs for which to enjoy the clear skies, blue water, and soft sand.

The blue Playa del Carmen beach.

There’s something for non-beach lovers, too: Playa del Carmen flashier than Mérida, but less crowded than Cancún, and walking down Quinta Avenida – the main “happening” street for pedestrians – one has dozens of restaurants, bars, and shops to choose from (I shamelessly spent over $50 USD on vanilla). It’s very tourist-friendly, and in just two blocks from our hotel I spotted an H&M, Forever 21, and an American Eagle – I drank a tea from Starbucks while I waited for my classmates outside a Hӓagen Dazs.

A blur of lights from Quinta Avenida.

After Cancún, formerly virtually uninhabited, was developed into a tourist destination in the ’70s, Playa del Carmen grew from a small fishing village with the dock to catch the Cozumel ferry to its own tourist destination in the late ’80s. However, this is not to say that Playa del Carmen consists completely of tourists. I had my hair braided by a girl who had moved from Cozumel, only a 45-minute ferry ride away, and at a Japanese restaurant my last night there I talked with a man who’d moved to the city all the way from Munich, Germany. After the days of exploring Mexico city; winding through Mérida, and traversing Teotihuacán, Chichén Itzá, Uxmal; and the preserved hacienda Yaxcopoil; Playa del Carmen offered a whimsical respite complete with palms lit by fairy lights. I completed my time in Mexico lounging on the beach during the day, and using up the last of my pesos at night!