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Mahahual - the quiet pearl on the Riviera Maya, close to Belize's border. Travel there before it's too late!
Welcome back guys!
Very often I hear that you guys want to travel to “less touristy”, cheap and authentic places. You demand short ways everywhere and beautiful crystal clear water. No problem! I got you covered! Today we gonna talk about such a place namely Mahahual. It’s a small Mexican village at the end of the Caribbean coast called Riviera Maya.
But Before that you should definitely check out how to travel during covid-19 restrictions together with the post:
Everything you need to know about traveling to Mexico during covid-19!
If you intend to go to Mexico in the near future from your home country.
Also don’t forget to check out my Mexico posts containing a short summary about the Riviera Maya including Cancun (Where you most likely gonna start your travel), Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Moreover, in this post will get to know the lifestyle, transportation services, medical services, my cost of living for the coastline Riviera Maya and much more!
Mahahual
Like said earlier Mahahual is a quiet and small Mexican paradise close to the border to Belize, the lagoon village Bacalar and the next bigger city Chetumal (right on the border to Belize). It’s a perfect place if you want to escape “mainstream tourism” aka backpackers/holiday people in Cancun and Playa del Carmen and have the luxury to stay at an affordable price at the Caribbean beach, unlike in Tulum (accommodation in Tulum at the beach are not affordable for backpackers anymore so you will need to stay in downtown Tulum! See my post about that).
How to get to Mahahual?
There are bus connections once or twice per week with ADO buses from Playa del Carmen for around 378 Mexican Pesos (download and check out the ADO app in App Store!), but I highly recommend making a road trip by car. In that way to will get the most of Riviera Maya and Mexico as you can combine many places together (see the map).
For example, you can start either from Cancun or Playa del Carmen. That way you will cover already all of Riviera Maya. Not to mention you can stop wherever you want and discover all even smaller unknown little villages, while driving all the way down to Mahahual. Once you are in Mahahual you can continue to Bacalar and/or Chetumal which most likely would be the last destination before you’re heading back eventually!
What to do in Mahahual and where to stay?
Like said before, Mahahual is a very quiet place. Not commercial at all. I mean, you won’t even find any OXXO, but small little local shops instead. People come to Mahahual to snorkel (bring your own equipment already before travelling, everything you need to bring in this Post HERE) and relaxing. You will see people smoking weed and just hang out at the beach or their accommodation.
The cheapest places to stay are Maha Suites and Blue Kay. The latter has small little cabanas (highly recommend), while Maha Suites has dorms as well. You can even stay at a tent if you wish, which is the cheapest option of course. The Price for the dorm is around 250 Mexican Pesos (Stand March 2021) and around 500 Pesos for a double room in the cabanas in Blue Kay!
Needless to say that you just check accommodation at the common booking platforms booking.com, Agoda.com and Hostelworld.com (always check all of them!). You while find all the links and much more in my travel resources at the header of this page!
Tip: If you don’t reserve on these platforms you will save the booking taxes, but be careful as at least the dorms are quite popular and can be booked out eventually!
Impressions from Mahahual
Click on the pictures to make it bigger!
