Uaymitún, Mexico
Our AirBnB in Uaymitún shortly after sunrise
Well if you know anything about us, then you probably already know that we love adventures. Both Sonny and I work a lot, and our motto is if we are going to work this hard we need to reward ourselves with some relaxation and family time. Oftentimes the places we like to escape to are tropical destinations, but we also enjoy the mountains.
Since our kids get a week off for Thanksgiving we decided this would be the perfect opportunity to take a quick little family vacation. We already knew that we wanted to go somewhere tropical and we wanted to get another stamp in our passports! That said taking three out of four of our kids plus ourselves is a bit pricy. In the end, we felt that travel time and price point Mexico was the place for us.
Mexico holds a special place in our hearts. Sonny traveled to Puerto Vallarta every year as a kid with his folks, while my grandparents had a spot near Ensenada in Baja that we would visit when I was young. On top of our early childhood experiences, back in 2016, Sonny proposed to me on top of the pyramid in Coba. On top of the many memories we hold in our hearts, we both love the rich flavors, bold colors, beaches, ceñotes, culture, and history that Mexico offers.
Sonny and I reading and drinking margaritas in the pool
One thing I strive to do when traveling, is to visit as many new places as possible. Sonny and I have already traveled pretty much all of the south side of the Yucatán Peninsula along the coast, so we knew we didn’t want to stay in that area on this trip. That said, we both have a love of the Yucatán Peninsula and seeing that the temperatures in Humboldt County are steadily dropping we knew we wanted to go some place warm.
Knowing that we had not stayed on the North side of the Yucatán this is where I started. I knew of Mérida, but I do not know anybody that has personally been there. Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán and has an international airport. Boom I am sold.
Next part, before I book any tickets, I need to figure out where we are going to stay. Both Sonny and I knew we wanted a beach front property. Since we were bring our three teenage daughters we thought it would be smart to have a pool. Other than that we didn’t have any other parameters.
At this point I logged into my AirBnB account and began the search. I moved the map to the coastline and then began looking at accommodations that were big enough for our family and met what we were looking for. I started off looking in Progresso, it did not take me long to establish that I did not want to stay in this town, but knew it would be nice to be fairly close. The reason I didn’t choose Progresso is because it’s a port town. The big cruise ships dock there which means lots of people. Covid is a thing right now and I after visiting Progresso it was not as full as I imagine it was pre-Covid.
After that my search led me to the west of Progress on the map in Celestún. This area is a biosphere reserve and looked absolutely amazing. The problem with this region it looked to be substantially less populated (which would be ideal for Sonny and I, but trying to keep three teenagers engaged you definitely need some sort of nightlife).
My focus now shifted to the East of Progresso. This is when I found a nice AirBnB about 20 min. outside of Progresso. Uaymitún, did not have a town, but instead was pretty much a strip along the peninsula lined with beach houses. There were other spots further to the East that I looked at in San Benito, Telchac Puerto & San Crisanto. In the end based on our arrival in Mexico we opted to stay in Uaymitún. After driving further to the East there was a town that was super cute filled with coconut palms and had a small town that I think would have been amazing to stay in. It was more isolated though and would have added an additional 40 min drive time onto some of our bigger adventures.
Sonny doing what he does best!
Uaymitún ended up being the ideal location for this vacation. Having the ability to make a quick 20 min. trek into Progresso was ideal. There were two big supermarkets right off the highway so that we had the ability to stock up on food and water for our house. Also, being this close to town we were able to take the girls to town for dinner, lunch or just to walk around (which we did a couple of times). This also allowed us to stay in a spot not surrounded by other people. To the right of our house was an empty lot and to the left there were a handful of vacant beach houses.
Using this as our base we were able to go explore ruins one really close by and one that was about 1 hour and 40 min away. We were close enough to drive to some ceñotes in Cuzamá and Homún. We also ventured into Mérida a couple of times to walk around and have dinner. I will be sharing our pyramid adventures and ceñote adventures soon.