Playa del Carmen with kids (and on a backpacking budget!)

 

We spent a week in Playa del Carmen, staying at the Hotelito del Mar apartments slightly away from the centre.

The list of things you can do with kids in Playa is pretty much endless, however, many of these things come with a pretty hefty price tag attached which our budget just didn't stretch to.

We still had a brilliant week though and managed to include a couple of pricier activities here and there. 

Where we stayed

Firstly, we were fortunate that our little apartment hotel (Hotelito del Mar) had a small but perfectly formed swimming pool on the roof which we had almost entirely to ourselves every time we went up there. Given the sheer heat and humidity (which the boys have never really experienced before) this was a bit of a godsend for us - both boys can spend hours and hours in any form of water so they were happy here splashing around while we had a bit of a chill!

The beach!

We were also only a 10-15minute walk from the beach, where again the boys were happy to wile away hours in the surf (mostly pretty small waves but much stronger on a couple of days so we did need to keep an eye on them). There are beach clubs aplenty where you can rent sun loungers/beds from but (given the budget) we just opted for a towel on the sand, and despite the relatively narrow stretch of sand there was always plenty of space. It's definitely a beach with a bit of a party atmosphere - there's music playing from the various bar/beach clubs and a whole assortment of vendors plying their wares up and down the beach. I quite liked this vibe though so enjoyed hanging out there for a few of our days in Playa.

On first arrival I was a bit concerned that our little hotel was quite far away from the centre- but after a couple of days I quickly realised that this wasn't a bad thing. Playa del Carmen has a main stretch of shops/bars/restaurants called Fifth Avenue which stretches through most of the town parallel to the beach. This is PACKED with people trying to sell you stuff/tours/drag you in the bars and restaurants - this is OK for a while but the boys were definitely a bit overwhelmed by it all (especially in the evenings) and it was a bit tiresome to walk through at times. I quite enjoyed being close enough to walk to the beach/centre but far enough away to be a bit removed from all the madness.

Stuff to do

Whilst there isn't really any snorkelling off the beaches at Playa del Carmen it is only a short drive from Puerto Moreles or a ferry ride to Cozumel (see separate posts on these) if you want some world-class snorkelling. It was also only about a 45-minutes drive up to the Zona Hotelera in Cancun where we visited Ventura Park (again, see separate post!); Xcaret is about 20mins down the road towards Tulum if you plan on a trip there as are loads of the other big eco-theme parks.

There are a whole heap of beautiful cenotes a short drive from Playa del Carmen - we visited Cenote Azul, which was about a 20-minute drive away and was absolutely beautiful. We spent about 3 hours there while the boys swam happily in the crystal clear water with the fish and jumped in from the edges (and some pretty high rocks!). There's a great blog post here on the best cenotes in and around Playa del Carmen that I read through several times when deciding which would be best for the kids. 

So all in all it's a really good central spot for theme parks/waterparks/snorkelling trips/cenotes etc - we did hire a car for two days, which allowed us to do Ventura Park/Cenote Azul/Puerto Morales fairly easily (and was actually cheaper than the cost of bus fares for the four of us to all these places!) but you could easily get a taxi or collectivo to most places.

Food and drink

We did a mixture of eating out and self-catering during our stay to keep costs down. There wasn't much in the way of street food in Playa (apart from the ubiquitous marquesita stands - like crispy crepes stuffed with various fillings, obviously the boys loved these!) but there were the odd couple dotted around if you walked further out away from the central area. 

The boys loved the ice-cream tacos from Get Rolled but they were a bit pricey. We ate twice at a little place called Resaka's opposite our hotel and this was a big hit with all of us - giant burgers for the boys, burritos for the grown-ups and amazing fruit juices. There was so much food that on our second visit we only ordered three meals between the four of us; really good value.

The verdict

Overall, Playa del Carmen turned out to be a pretty good pick for us - I knew I didn't want the high-rise experience of the Zona Hotelera in Cancun or the party town of Tulum further down the coast, and whilst Playa was way busier and more commercial that I expected it still made a great base for trips elsewhere and provided a lovely beach for us and the boys to hang out on during downtime.