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Welcome to the Yucatan Peninsula

Are you planning to visit the Yucatan Peninsula? Will this be this year's destination for your family vacation? Are you thinking about spending your retirement here or writing a paper on ancient civilizations?

Whatever your interest in the region may be, business or beach (why not both?!), history, golf, diving or fishing...,

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." (St. Augustine)

I wish you a warm Mexican welcome, or as we say in Spanish:

Bienvenido!

From AllPosters.com

On this website you will find information on Yucatan people and culture, the specific geology of the region, history, food, lots of practical information like where to stay, top things to see and do besides getting a suntan, the current weather and mucho, mucho mas!

Have a visual snack at the Movie Gallery and watch some great movie clips about various Yucatan issues. To see for yourself how the surf is today take a look at one of the webcams. Pictures are always a good way to communicate and I love taking them. But you know what they say about pictures: their quality depends not as much on how good your camera is as on how good a photographer you are. Sooo, why stress myself out when their are others doing such a great job? That's why I decided to join forces with AllPosters.com. They have thousands of posters available online on any imaginable subject.

The Yucatan Peninsula is distinctly different when compared to "Mexico". The overall ambiance is more Caribbean. Want to have an afternoon nap in a hammock under a palm tree looking out on the turqoise surf? I could say this is the place, but you can probably do that on any Caribbean Island and many other places too. Yucatan however, has a variety of places and activities for you to combine at will.

Ancient Mayan culture
World heritage
Colonial cities
Churches and convents
Haciendas
Golf

Diving
Cave Diving
Fishing
Birdwatching
Hunting
Kitesurfing

Just take your pick and leave the rest!

Cancun has become a major tourist destination for people from all around the world. Its' main market though is the US. Coming from Europe or Asia you may find everything very Americanized and feel that you are not in Mexico at all. At least that was my first impression. Don't expect huge cacti and people riding donkeys. Cancun is far away from Central Mexico and the city itself is not picturesque like, for example, the old part of Puerto Vallarta. Plastic surgery is ongoing though, with a new marina and a boulevard. Soon we'll be able to stroll along the laguna at sundawn.

To the south of Cancun Airport begins the Riviera Maya with Playa del Carmen as its' hub. Here, important projects like Mayakoba with its' luxury hotels now attract upscale tourism. The Riviera Maya International Golf Tournament is another way of putting the Yucatan Peninsula on the world map, moving away from the mostly annoying springbreaker towards a more evolved clientele.

View at AllPosters.com

The Yucatan Capital of Merida is the Grand Dame of the peninsula. The city itself is a mix of 18th-century colonial buildings, turn-of-the-century French joie-de-vivre, some Lebanese influences and Mayan couleur locale. On Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings the whole city gathers around the Zocalo to enjoy a local beer, eat panuchos or a torta and dance in the streets to cumbia and salsa music. Important Maya sites like Uxmal and Kabah are only one hour drive away. The region is considered a birdwatchers' paradise with over 200 endemic species. A large colony of flamingo birds wades the waters at Celestun.

So, who am I to present myself as your virtual guide?

This site is not owned by any travel agency or government organisation. Nor is any real estate agency behind it telling you how wonderfully fantastic it all is. My name is Annet van de Mortel and I happen to live here. In Cancun of all places, where I work as a free-lance tour guide. My office is a touringcar, my workspace the ancient Mayan ruins of Tulum and the Well of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza (where nagging tourists end up!) My collegues are spider monkeys and iguanas!

Please know that Beautiful Yucatan Peninsula is a one-woman project, so bear with me. I will be adding information on a regular basis, but sometimes life gets in the way and I'm sure I'm not the only one who suffers from a severe case of writers' block now and then.

If you don't want to miss out on any new information I suggest you bookmark this site or add it to your RSS feed. Just right-click the RSS/XML button under the main menu to get automatic updates from this site. It's really a simple way to control the information you want without giving away your e-mail adress. What's this RSS?

I hope this site contributes to your vacation pleasure. Hasta luego!

your webmaster