Introduction

A favorite Caribbean playground, hosting more than 3 million visitors a year, Cancun draws travelers with its crystal clear waters and shimmering white sands, as well as its proximity to breath taking Mayan ruins, exotic wildlife, and colonial gems.

The resort not only survived recent hurricanes, it emerged from the rubble looking better than ever before, with spanking new guestrooms, lobbies, dining areas, shopping plazas and even a few things nobody had thought to offer before, like cooking classes.

Cancun’s L-shaped Hotel Zone is an island unto itself, flanked by the 18 square mile Nichupte Lagoon on one side and the sparkling Caribbean Sea on the other. The island is a coral based sand bar more than 13 miles long and one quarter of a mile wide.

Downtown Cancun is where most of the resort’s nearly one million residents live. Though it’s patterned more after a US suburb than a typical Mexican town, it’s a good place to soak up some local flavor. Stroll down Avenida Tulum, the area’s main boulevard; visit the neighborhood park, Palapas, festive in the evenings with lighted food stalls and perpetually under renovation (just step around the everpresent mounds of excavated dirt); visit Avenida Yaxchilan, home to numerous restaurants; and browse through Market 28. For a bite of tasty pizzas and other Italian fare, try Trattoria Venezia.

Every few minutes, 24 hours a day, white buses barrel up and down Kukulcan Boulevard on their way to and from downtown Cancun, passing all the major shopping centers and hotels along the way.

Cancun has an average of more than 200 sunny days a year, with daytime temperatures of about 80°F, and less annual rainfall than the Virgin Islands or the Bahamas. Unlike the rest of Mexico, the rainy season is during the late fall and winter months. It can sometimes get chilly at night; lightweight sweaters, jackets or shawls are recommended for cool winter evenings. Summer months are generally hot and humid with frequent but brief showers.