Riviera Maya Trip Recap

In an effort to share a bit about my life outside the kitchen, I thought it would be fun to share some pictures from my recent trip to the Riviera Maya with my boyfriend, Daniel. We were there for about 9 days and found the perfect balance of exploring and relaxing.

We stayed in Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum, but took day trips from each homebase. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Morelos (my first experience with an all-inclusive) and took a cab one day to Cancun for the ferry to Isla Mujeres.

I really liked Isla Mujeres because it was so small that we managed to take in most of the sites in just a few hours. We walked around, got some gelato, and had lunch overlooking the beach. We also ran into some monkeys hanging from trees (just stuffed animals- I wish they had been real!).

My coconut obsession continues to rage.

From Playa del Carmen, we took a day-long tour to Chichen Itza, and stopped on the way to swim in a cenote. If you don’t know what a cenote is, I’m not going to do it justice by trying to explain, but I highly recommend you look it up and then come to Mexico to experience one (or lots) for yourself. They can only be found in the Riviera Maya because of the type of stone there and I wish we had gone to more!

This is us at Chichen Itza- our pictures usually come out either with Daniel not smiling or not opening his eyes. This day, it was the eyes.

Of course there was lots of food to be had. Top left was some fuel before a long day of shopping. Cochinita Pibil is a slow roasted pork dish from the Yucatan Peninsula and I tried to eat as much of it as I could. It is cooked with orange juice and wrapped in a banana leaf, then it is shredded and put in, on, and between tortillas. My kind of meal! I got an acai bowl twice while we were in Playa del Carmen, because why aren’t they sold everywhere?! We also got gelato on the beach more than once. I think it’s funny that Daniel has the chocolate and I have the vanilla, which both match our skin colors perfectly.

Sorry for the profanity, but these are words of wisdom.

Our last stop was Tulum and the beach there is gorgeous! There are no touristy boats making tons of noise, and just super soft sand and palm trees. I want to go back one day for sure.

Don’t know what’s going on with Daniel’s shirt here, but avert your eyes.

We got to the Tulum ruins early Easter Sunday morning before the crowds and it was so serene.

Last but not least, we took a trip to the Cobá ruins on our last day in Tulum and I’m so glad we did. We were debating whether or not we should go because the transportation there was limited, but when we got there we rented bikes for 40 pesos and it was so cool to bike around ancient Mayan ruins. We also climbed the big pyramid, which gives you a view above the treeline of the horizon that never seems to end.

Viva México!

What these pictures don’t show is that we got seriously burned on the first day, we were sweating pretty constantly the entire trip, and got poured on one day before snorkeling off Cozumel. Just a reminder that people (myself included) often choose to share the best on the internet.

*Most of these pictures were edited with the A Beautiful Mess Mini Collection Photoshop Actions, which I’m officially obsessed with. It is great deal if you don’t want to spend the money for one of the full collections. I’m so glad I finally bought it and I love how my pictures turned out. A few of the pictures were edited with vscocam or Instagram filters. If you’re not already following me on Instagram you can see some other pictures from our trip there.

I’m curious: do you want to see more posts like this about my life outside the kitchen?