These Side-by-side Hotels in Tulum, Mexico, Are My Favorite Place for a Girls' Trip

I like a solo adventure, family trip, or romantic getaway with my husband as much as the next person, but there’s one drama-free, laugh-filled vacation that will always top my list: a girls’ trip. Is there ever a time you feel happier than when you’re laughing uncontrollably with the gal pal who just gets you?

I recently found the answer to be yes — doing exactly that in the barefoot bohemian paradise of Tulum. This trendy beach town on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula has been all the rage in recent years; truthfully, I expected to find it overhyped when I finally paid a visit, but after jetting off for a long weekend at The Beach Tulum and Cabañas Tulum Beach Hotel & Spa with my best friend, I’m smitten. 

 Located side-by-side on a quiet (a precious rarity) stretch of Tulum Beach in the southern end of the Hotel Zone, these two boutique hotels share amenities including a spa, gym, yoga palapa, pools (one in full sun, one winding beneath tropical trees), and two restaurants, Ziggy’s Beach Club and Fresco’s.

The main difference is that Cabañas is ever-so-slightly set back from the beach, with sun-drenched rooftop rooms, while The Beach sits closer to the lapping waves of the Caribbean Sea — but if you didn’t know they were separate hotels, you might never notice. Our trip began in a beachfront room at The Beach and we thought life couldn’t get better, but after switching to Cabañas for our next two nights, we were hard-pressed to play favorites.

Upon arrival, we ditched our shoes, because permanently sandy feet are part of the Tulum experience — and we were whisked away to salsa-making class, where we helped make (OK, taste) five different varieties, including a fire guacamole.

You could stay on property throughout your stay in Tulum and be perfectly happy — they also offer classes in ceviche-making, salsa-dancing, tequila-tasting, and even a weekly sound-healing ceremony — but we opted to wander and work off the fresh-baked chips and lip-burning spices. 

The main road running parallel to Tulum Beach isn’t walker-friendly (there’s a lot more cars than sidewalks), so learn from our mistakes and walk the beach; you’ll see stunning examples of Tulum-style driftwood architecture housing everything from moonlit cacao ceremonies to open-air massages to thumping beach bars. The hotel has bikes available for guests, but we found the congested street too daunting to pedal.

 By the time you reach a landmark like Matcha Mama, you’ll be sweaty and ready for an iced matcha. Hydration in hand, we ambled back to the hotel for a private hatha yoga session in the hotel’s upstairs palapa. It was 75 minutes of stretchy bliss, the perfect antidote to our early travel day — by savasana, we both fell asleep, nestled by gentle breezes, chirping birds, and swaying palms in every direction.

 I’d hoped to hit a nearby must-eat restaurant, but we ended up with energy for nothing more than a casual feet-in-the-sand dinner at Ziggy’s. Happily, we couldn’t have chosen better for ourselves. We actually returned for round two of the requesón-stuffed short rib tlacoyo and beef barbacoa tacos.

The next morning, we arose early for breakfast at health-conscious Fresco’s — the locavore menu here is exactly what you’re in the mood to eat in Tulum, with colorful smoothie bowls, savory chilaquiles, and more — to fuel up for a half-day Mayan Jungle Expedition with Living Dreams Mexico, arranged for us by the hotel.

If you’re not sure what to do in Tulum but want to experience a little bit of everything, this tour is it. A local guide brought us to four uncrowded cenotes (we swam in three and zip lined over the largest) in the private Maya community of Tankah, then the adventure wrapped with a lunch of rice, beans, grilled chicken and pork, and refreshing hibiscus tea, all handmade before our eyes. Pay a few pesos extra for dessert: the chocolate-and-cheese marquesita is worth sampling, and there’s also fresh-fried churros.

While a day of adventure is vital to do Tulum right, so is at least one day of absolute non-adventure. The Beach and Cabañas make that easy: swim through The Beach’s maze of a pool, with bridges and palm tree swings providing lots of cute photo-ops, or hop to the Cabañas side for more vitamin D, interrupting your sun-soaked bliss only to order another round of fresh watermelon juice and coconut water. You can also reserve a complimentary slot to complete the hydrotherapy circuit at on-site Naj Naay Spa, where you’ll alternate between sauna, steam room, hot tub, and cold plunge until your body feels invincible.

No matter what you get into on your trip to Tulum, follow our lead and start each day with a session in the treetop palapa — yoga is offered every morning at 9 a.m. and guarantees a great day from the get-go — followed by a nourishing breakfast and fresh juices to hydrate. 

Another day, we shelled out $35 (each way) to taxi into Tulum Pueblo for mojitos at Batey Mojito and Guarapo Bar, which are made with freshly crushed sugarcane from a converted VW Beetle, and dinner at Negro Huitlacoxe. The elote dorado and birria quesadilla served in this beautifully lit, pink-walled spot were phenomenal, but overall, our time in the city reminded us how good we had it on the beach.

Unlike most vacations, we didn’t head home from Tulum feeling drained and depleted — we returned sun-kissed, hydrated, and happy, like we had just been on a wellness retreat. Between the soul-food of quality time together, the mental break of time off, and the physical provisions of daily yoga sessions and ever-available healthy food, we might as well have been.