Yucatan
in Mexico

The peninsula has layers and rewards those who go looking for them. Chichén Itzá is extraordinary and deservedly visited, but it is one ruin among dozens, and some of the finest, Uxmal, Ek Balam, Coba half-buried in jungle, see a fraction of the crowds. The colonial city of Mérida runs at its own languid pace, with market breakfasts of huevos motuleños and evenings that end late on the main square. Beneath the entire peninsula runs a network of cenotes, freshwater sinkholes of luminous turquoise blue, which the Maya considered sacred and which remain among the most beautiful swimming holes on earth. Tulum has been discovered. The rest of the Yucatán is still finding its audience.