After our bus adventures, we decided to take a taxi to Tulum this time. The fact that our bag broke just when we had to go to the bus station, made the decision very easy! Jam packed with our bags and pushchair, the boot was closed with cord and we squeezed into the seatbelt-free car.
We decided not to stay by the beautiful beach (which we definetly can recommend if you have a bigger budget and not travelling with 3 kids for 6 weeks!), and since we are renting a car we booked a lovely appartment through airbnb in the outskirts of Tulum. It was lovely with a big pool and even a hammock on the balcony, which the kids spent hours fighting over. We finally had split bedrooms, where the older kids had a twin room and we had a double bed with cot for Alex. Finally everyone didn’t need to wake up with Alex!
Having an apartment is really nice with kids as dining out 3 times a day loses its excitement when you have 3 children. So we now eat maximum 1 meal per day out and cook the rest of them ourselves. It also saves money on food!
We can recommend however breakfast at El Jardin de Frida where the Healthy Smoothie bowl was really yummy! We met a Swedish lady who had lived in Tulum for 12 years and gave us lots of great tips. This was how we used to backpack: vague route planned and share tips with strangers along the way!
The beach is split between the North Side (public) and the South side with hotels and restaurants. It is so beautiful with white sand as thin as flour, that doesn’t get hot (made of fine coral), with coconut palmtrees and turquoise sea.
After spending some time scratching at coconuts with a crab claw we found, the kids put on their armbands and absolutely loved being thrown around by the waves. It was quite rough though, so hard to leave them out of your sight. Also the beachgard was lying down in his watchtower, chilling with his phone…
One day, we followed our Swedish friend’s tip and went to Kaa Luum, a lagoon in the middle of the jungle, 10 minutes outside of town. It was one of the most magical places with a long pier going out into the water with a few tourists and locals hanging out and swimming.
The water was crystal clear, really warm and only waste deep, so couldn’t have been better for teaching Elisa to swim.
Alex slept brilliantly in his push chair, we had a picknick we had prepared, Julian took the older kids for a jungle adventure hanging on trees, fanning with palm leaves and feeding exotic birds with bread crumbs. It was the perfect day!
Our last day in Tulum, we went back to the beach on the Hippy Chic South side. The road along the beach is so beautiful with tropical trees on both sides, and the hippiest, ecolodges and yoga retreats you could imagine scattered all the way along. We had the pleasure of seeing brown pelicans diving into the sea to catch fish, they were HUGE!
And spent the whole day in hammocks at the most chilled out Taqueria El Eufemia (Tack Åsa för tipset).
Lunchtime classical music was a bit weird but after asking for better music (they explained that this was still the breakfast calm vibe); the vibe quickly became much more beach chill and the place was packed with very cool tourists and locals, all at least 10 years younger than us! (and definitely no kids!)
The nice thing travelling with small children is that most people are warm and friendly, even if you are cramping their style! Overall, we really liked the vibe of Tulum, and loved our apartment. We would probably have preferred 1 day less in Valladolid and 1 day more in Tulum, but we’ll be going to Holbox after Puerta Aventuras, which should also have a chilled out beach vibe, so who’s complaining!
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