Two weeks in high season in Yucatan- Mexico for 32€ per day pp, all included!

Our two weeks trip in Mexico included two days during New Year’s Eve in Cancun, three days in Playa del Carmen, two days in Tulum, five days in Merida with a day trip to Uxmal Ruins, one night in Valladolid and the final day in Cancun.

We spent in Mexico a budget of 900 € (17666 MXP) for two people in 14 days. This brings an average of 64€ daily including ALL the expenses like accommodation, transport, food, drinks and the entrance to some attractions for two persons.

Here is the distribution by category:

1. For accomodation we payed in average 600 MXP per night which is almost 30€ .  We stayed in hotel rooms, only one night we booked through Airbnb in Merida and in Tulum we stayed 2 nights in a hostel dorm.Especially for the New Year’s Eve and the next week in Playa del Carmen and Tulum the accommodation was very pricey and pretty hard to find something reasonable in short notice (most of America moved here for the holidays:)
2. Food was good and relatively cheap, especially in local places. In Cancun a taco can be 30 pesos in the touristic places,  while in Merida at a street food stand the same taco is 7 pesos. A sandwich ( torta) on the streets of Merida is 15 pesos. Usually a meal at the restaurant is around 150 pesos/person for one course. We managed to spend on food,drinks ( coffee, water) and snacks  15.5€ /day ( 304 MXP ).
3. Transport is affordable and well organized with plenty of options. The Ado bus company has first&second class buses connecting all the cities . For shorter rutes you can use colectivos( small vans). Our daily expenses for transportation sums 8.5 €/day(167 MXP) and this includes the 24h rental of a scooter in Tulum for 21€ (400MXP).
4. Attractions included the entrance fee for 2 people at the Ruins of Tulum 7€(130 MXP), Ruins of Uxmal 22€(426 MXP) and two cenote near Valladolid for 9€ (180 MXP )
5. Shopping included some beautiful hand embroidered or “bordado” traditional blouses for Anda and some perfume from the duty free shop.
6. The rest of the expenses include entertaining consisting of some margaritas and  local beers as cerveza obscura ( dark beer) and ATM commission, laundry or toothpaste:)

We didn’t feel we missed something, actually we enjoyed much more the authentic Mexico spontaneously than if we would stayed two weeks in all inclusive resorts and book expensive tours :)

THE BEST VALUE
We had the luck to be in the audience of the Empire of the Sun New Year`s Eve concert on the Cancun beach and the Steve Angelo party.
Two entrances worth of 360 dollars for free!
details (in Romanian) here

 Our favourite place was the city of Merida, where we had the luck to participate to MeridaFest, the celebration of 474 years from the foundation of the city with daily free shows of music and dance.   We also loved the beach from Tulum, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and the flavours of the mexican food. We felt all the time safe and welcome and the people are among the friendliest we ever met. 

 For sure this trip opened our appetite for what Mexico has to offer and made us think about another trip in the future, this time to explore the rest of the country.   We hope this article provided you helpful informations for budgeting your next trip to Mexico!