Mexico - Itinerary ready - help needed - Yucatan

We need a local experts' honest view for our planned itinerary for Yucatan visit , which will take place very soon (1 month). We booked a car for 5 days and we will be traveling around Yucatan.
We want to see some the most important places (worth to see) , but also have some comfortable time to try local cuisine, shopping ect.
Also we want to visit not only very touristic places but also small vallages with local people, restaurants with very, very local food ect - so to see something but to "feel" Yucatan as well.

Initial itinerary looks like this one:
day 1: evening arrival to cancun airport and travel to Chichen Itza for night stay (hotel already booked)

day 2: relax in the morning and later visit to Chichen Itza till early afternoonand later drive to Valladolid and after lunch visiting the city - walking, relax time for few hours and evening drive to Merida , accomodation

day 3: whole day in Merida - visiting local landmarks and just relaxing day - walking, eating, drinking and again night in Merida

day 4: in the morning drive to Uxmal and on the afternoon visiting local landmarks, and accomodation somewhere here ;)))

day 5: ??? what to do , where to go ?

day 6: in the morning drive to Playa del Carmen for 7 days sunbathing, but also for local trips - Coba, Tulum ect)
So it is our first plan, but I have a lot of questions -
1.first of all we are missing Izamal , which should be placed somewhere between day 2 and 3 because of location ...how to do that ? Maybe my itinerary is not possible because of time of traveling and will be very tiring ?
2. how many hours we should plan for Chichen Itza ? how many hours for Uxmal ? How many hours for Izamal ? Rio Lagartos - initially we were thinking about that , but is it worth and when ?
3. maybe is better to do on day 5th Coba and later during our 7 days stay in PDC only do Xcaret, Tulum, Cozumel ect ?

please give my some your thoughts about that. Also if you have any other ideas what is worth to visit instead of listed places please let me know.

thanks a loooot in advance ;)
Adam (Poland)

How are you getting to Chichen Itza from the airport on the first day?


You say it's an "evening" flight arrival and then to the ruins. Depending on where you are flying from and the length of the flight, you might find the drive to be long and not so easy in the dark.

Just a quick general suggestion ...check out the collection of haciendas that Starwood has in Mexico. http://www.haciendasmexico.com/ Hacienda Santa Rosa is about an hour from Uxmal and could be a good place to stay on day 4. There are some senotas near there that are fun to swim in/explore and also many other ruins that you can have to yourself. Oxkintok was a nearby ruin where you could actually go in the building, crawl around, etc. You will likely be the only person to visit that day. The haciendas have nice guide books and that will be marked on the map, but will still be a bit tricky to find, much more fun than the large ruins though.

Izmal is a cool little town. Hacienda San Jose is close to Izmal.

Three hours at Chichen Itza is plenty, unless you're really, really into staring at stuff. I like Uxmal better as there are fewer people both visiting and trying to sell you stuff. Probably two hours at Uxmal.

You could easily go Chichen Itza in the am, then to Izmal then stay at Hacienda San Jose.

Valladolid is back in the direction of the airport. I would stay there the first night and then go to Chichen Itza in the morning. Valladolid isn't much ...mostly a place for tourists on their way to Chichen Itza to stay. I would not back track to visit it.

Hi,

we arrive at 6.31 pm, so ready fot drive probably at 8 pm . I've heard we need 2,5 h drive to Chichen Itza , so we are OK with that :)
Plan is go go sleep and then next day visit ruins/.

what do you think ?

thanks for that :)

so what we can do in Izamal - just walking around ? how long we should stay there ?

You might want to head a bit down the coast to Tulum. Very laid-back town with its own set of ruins, smaller than those at Chichen Itza, right on the beach in a fantastic location.

If you're driving, especially at night, watch out for topes - killer speed bumps that show up as you enter most towns and lots of other places as well. Some, but not all, are marked. If there's nobody in front of you whose brake lights (if they're working) might clue you in, they can be a nasty surprise. Also, as a money-saving measure, some places just have them on the right side of the roadway. Locals, knowing this, drive around them on the left side to avoid slowing down. You may find a car coming toward you in your lane for that reason.

Finally, you might edit your first post to get rid of all those extra carriage returns. They make it hard to read. Two in a row are all you need.

Thanks also :)
I corrected that ;), sorry I copied my post from another place and it took so much spaces :(

Thanks for your warning according driving in Yucatan - very valid points :)

If you are just starting to drive at 8pm then it might be a bit iffy to Chichen Itza. It will be dark and there are places where the topes will definitely slow you down. If it's dark, you may not see them till you feel them. Again not sure how long your flight is before landing in Cancun. A long flight coupled with a then long drive in a foreign country might not be the best idea.

If you have driven in Mexico and the Yucatan before and feel comfortable doing the drive at night while tired then go for it. If you speak Spanish it might help with directions etc if needed (English is widely spoken but Spanish is the language) If you have not driven in Mexico before and are not sure where you are going then be careful. I would second the suggestion of staying somewhere close the first night and heading out early the next day.

Here is a website that might be of use. www.cancunmx.com

Lots of info on the Yucatan there.

Just one piece of advice about Chichen Itza: visit it as early as possible in the morning. By 11am, it's over-run by pink blobs from the cruise ships. Or maybe late afternoon when they have left.
Izamal is charming just for flaneuring and I like Valladolid too as it is not very touristy. You can drive from Valladolid to Coba and then on to Tulum.