Who wants to travel around a sunny place that’s interesting when it’s freezing cold and gray up north in January? Then come take a Mexico tour with me and I’ll bring you around to some of my favorite places.
As you know if you’ve been following me for a while, I live in Guanajuato, Mexico. I’m in the highlands in the middle of the country, with mountains around and very few days without sunshine. In January we sometimes have to break a space heater out on the coldest nights to take the chill out of the bedroom at night, but that’s about as bad as it gets when people are shoveling snow up north. I just took a puffy coat to Alaska and found an old facemask from 2021 because I hadn’t put the coat on since then.
I’m running a tour through my home turf at the end of January.
Before I moved to Guanajuato and made that my base, I owned a beach house for years on the Gulf of Mexico near Merida, in Yucatan state. I’ve been back many times since for work and for fun, probably passing the 20 visits mark at some point. So I know that region almost as well. I’ve won “best travel writing” awards for these two articles I wrote:
Community Tourism and the Melipona Honey Bees of Mexico
And here’s one more:
Yucatan Cenotes, Sisal, and Surprises
Can I show you around?
A Mexico Tour Through the Yucatan Peninsula
January 11 through 19 I’ll be taking people on an excellent tour in the Yucatan region, a tour that you won’t find offered anywhere else. That’s because I planned it with one of the most experienced guides in the region, based in Merida, and we planned this to really show off the best things to see in the area (without running people ragged).
You can see the full Yucatan itinerary on the tour page, day by day, but here’s the overview:
You’ll see Mayan ruins well-known and not, swim in a cenote (underground lake), have a food-oriented local experience in a village, and tour two of the main cities in the region: Valladolid and Merida. We’ll cap it off with a little beach time on the Gulf of Mexico and spend the last night in Puerto Morelos on the Caribbean, close to the Cancun airport.
Yes we’ll go to Chichen Itza–before the hordes arrive–but we’ll also go to less crowded Ek Balam and Uxmal. We’ll swim in a cenote, but not a big commercial one that the tour buses stop at. You’ll eat some traditional food in a village, cooked by people you’re meeting in person. You’ll have time to explore Valladolid, not just in for a few hours and then gone.
We’ll have some time in Merida, a night at a hotel on the beach in Telchac Puerto, and finish up in Puerto Morelos, not Cancun, before you fly back home.
Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, and Queretaro
You’re not dealing with a rookie tour planner here. Last year I took a ski group to Bulgaria and this year I showed a Mexico tour group around central Mexico where I live. We explored three UNESCO World Heritage Cities, two Magic Towns, and an archaeological site.
We also checked out a winery for a tasting and visiting the pottery center of Dolores Hidalgo. In Queretaro we hit a fun brewery and in Mineral de Pozos we strolled through an abandoned ghost town and then hit a mezcal distillery.
And…I’m doing it all again next year. I learned from what didn’t go perfectly and tweaked those things, while keeping most of the rest because we had a great time. See the full itinerary here for this Mexico tour that starts January 25 and check out the photos to get an idea of what it was like. Some of them on that page are from our group’s trip.
I have written plenty about my home base of Guanajuato on this blog, from the tunnels to the Guanajuato City museums and beyond. You’ve probably heard about San Miguel de Allende since it has been in every major glossy magazine as one of the “best cities in the world” or “best small cities,” sometimes claiming the #1 spot. It is quite pretty and there’s some great art and shopping there.
We’ve tried to price these tours at a level where you’ll be staying in comfortable places, but you won’t spend a fortune. If you compare the prices to other tours out there covering the same ground, you’ll find these are in line or lower and we’ll be paying our guide and driver better than those do.
I’ll be doing it all with you, so you can feel free to pick my brain all you want about living abroad, moving to Mexico, or dealing with tourist visas and residency. You’ll have some free time built in for scoping out the cost of housing, shopping, or just sitting in the plaza and taking it all in.
Grab your spot here for our central colonial Mexico tour!
Search flights to Cancun for the Yucatan trip and for the other tour, you can use some combo of Leon/Guanajuato, Queretaro, or Mexico City. Contact me for advice on that.
Jenna
Saturday 28th of September 2024
Those both look like great trips. I need to get someone to come with me. Downloaded the brochure for Yucatan.