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Home > Features > Cancun
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Mark Chesnut’s Report on Cancun
Posted On
03.10.07 |
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By far the most important tourist destination in Mexico, Cancun offers a bit of something for everyone — from mass-market, budget-priced vacations to top-of-the-line luxury getaways. It’s also convenient for exploring some of the best Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsula. This lively Mexican Caribbean beach destination has been renovated extensively since Hurricane Wilma struck in 2005, and now offers more upscale accommodations, dining and shopping. Whether you prefer wild nights out on the town or quiet dinners in an elegant suite, Cancun is the kind of place where you can create the vacation that suits your personality and mood.
What was once nothing more than an unknown spit of sand dunes is now Mexico’s crown jewel of tourism. Chosen because of its natural beauty as well as its geographic proximity to the eastern United States, Cancun was developed in the 1970s — and there has been no looking back, as high-rise after high-rise rose along the white sand and stunning blue waters of the Caribbean. As the years went by, the city earned a reputation for attracting rowdy college students on spring break, and for its sometimes less-than-stellar offering of budget hotels. But in the past couple of years, the city has come to offer some of Mexico’s most upscale vacation options.
Nearly all of the city’s hotels and tourist attractions are located in the Zona Hotelera (Hotel Zone), which is actually a peninsula shaped more or less like the number seven, with miles of impressively pristine sand (although after the hurricane, some spots of beach are still not as wide as they once were, in spite of a major beach recovery effort).
Aside from the clear waters and powdery sands — as well as the Nichupte Lagoon, which is great for water sports — there isn’t a whole lot of natural beauty in the Zona Hotelera itself. But for what it is, this neighborhood works remarkably well; it’s clean and safe, with excellent hotels, nightlife, and even a tourist-friendly public bus system that makes getting around a cinch.
The destination is also noteworthy for the access it provides to some of Mexico’s most treasured Mayan archeological zones — including Chichen Itza, a massive complex of pyramids and temples that rose to prominence sometime around 600 A.D., and Tulum, which dates to 564 A.D. Day trips are available from a variety of tour operators.
With a healthy combination of natural beauty, luxury, excitement and culture — not to mention easy accessibility through its recently expanded international airport — Cancun continues to please a wide variety of travelers.
Mark Chesnut is the Mexico/Central & South America Editor at Travel Weekly, the national newspaper of the travel industry in the United States, a contributing editor at Passport Magazine and contributes to a variety of other media. “There are some stereotypes and misconceptions about traveling to Latin America,” he says. “But the region is so incredibly diverse, you can pretty much pick any kind of vacation you want — and you’ll find it somewhere in the hemisphere.” |
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Mark Chesnut, Travel Writer
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