You would think, the twenty-something-year-old party girl with braids and slightly visible tattoos who asks to read your astrology chart and flexes on Instagram would have ended her Mexico trip with repacked suitcases and a one-way ticket back to Tulum to become yet another digital nomad dodging a 9 to 5 with a newly awakened third eye, simply GLEAMING of this beautiful, Caribbean paradise.

Sadly, it’s the complete opposite. Tulum, after Tamarindo and Berlin, has successfully slid its way to the top of my “Least Favorite Cities” list. I vow never to visit Tulum unless someone else is footing the bill.

Now, you can easily take my opinion with a grain of salt because I am the same girl who will trash Berlin at any given moment. I also have no interest in attending Burning Man. So if you love Berlin and you go to Burning Man every year, you’re probably going to love Tulum and tell me I have bAd ViBeS.

Let’s also preface this blog by saying that I had no expectations of Tulum, nor do I have the highest of standards when it comes to picking travel destinations for shorter periods of time. I didn’t come to discover my spirituality, nor did I come here to visit history museums my entire trip either. The truth is, I had about two months to spare before working, flights to Cancun were cheap, and I just wanted to fuck around and have a brief hot girl summer before teaching. That’s it. I’ve avoided Mexico for so long because it’s always been “right there”, and I think I’m slightly past the ’19-year-old-Spring-Break” crowd.  And because Mexico is such a huge country, I knew six weeks would not be enough time to do everything I would have ideally liked to do while visiting. I try not to be one of those snobby bloggers who brags of going off of the beaten path, speaking only to locals and eating onlyyyyyyyy local foods, calling myself a ‘traveler’ instead of ‘tourist’… Seriously, after a long year of restrictions, a toxic work environment, no social interaction, and a quarantined 25th birthday, all I wanted to do was eat tacos and drink strawberry margaritas on the beach in peace. But after three weeks, I had to GTFO.

 

Tulum is a Cesspool of Hippies with Credit Cards

I’ve been to tourist traps and I’m from Las Vegas, so I get it. For a girls’ trip or bachelorette party, Tulum is perfect. And I’m not even here to complain about the prices. I’m in Central America, I have enough money to be here, if I get got, I get got. I’m not going to go to Dubai and complain about how much money I’m spending.

The issue is the level of pretentiousness the average foreigner in Tulum exudes. Tulum, to me, is a more interestingly decorated Ibiza. But Ibiza wasn’t filled with coked-out yoga instructors with God complexes, they were just coked out and happy to be there. It is what it is and I know how to avoid those types of crowds. But, when every single person you talk to wants to tell you how to manifest your life with a $300 Citrine crystal they bought from a vegetarian, organic, wellness boutique jungle commune that offers discounted mushrooms used to awaken all of your chakras, I start to think that I’m the crazy one for thinking it’s all bullshit?!?! The whole city simply reeks of white privilege and the annoying toxic positivity mindset the average millennial traveler demonstrates. If the mushrooms you took really gave you a third eye, you wouldn’t be clutching your bag whenever a brown person tries talking to you. All I’m asking is for a little bit of self-awareness. The travel community can be annoyingly toxic at times– we’re all carbon copies of one another, so everyone just hasssssss to be the most important and interesting person in the room like they are in their hometowns, resulting in everything turning into a ginormous dick measuring contest. 

I’m not here to tell you how to spend your vacation or trash your hobbies, but the air of superiority I’ve seen from tourists and expats is the most heartbreaking. You travel thousands of miles from your country, only to turn your nose up at the locals and insult the street vendors selling home-cooked food because it’s uNeThIcAlLy fried in pig fat and might give you food poisoning? So instead, you only support foreign-owned businesses (I’m not saying this is a bad thing at all, to clarify) that do almost nothing to help the actually disenfranchised, contributing to the cycle of gentrification from rich yuppies like yourselves who not only drive cartels into the city to disrupt the lives of everyone living and visiting with your desperate need for cocaine (all while complaining about the lack of safety and taxi mafias), but continue pushing locals out of their own homes. I am in no way saying that it is your responsibility to fix the problems overtourism causes, but respect for the locals is the least you can do when visiting. IDK man, I’d just rather give my money to the source rather than pay 10 USD for a non-fat, vegan coffee owned by some rich European or Argentinian.

Things to Do

I’m shocked to say, Barcelona, Paris, even Cancun, aren’t as obnoxious as Tulum. Tourism is obviously important to Mexico, but not acting like a complete asshole will probably make this city better for everyone in the future. Anyways, here are some of the main things you can do in Tulum.

Visit the Tulum Ruins

Duh.

Swim in the Cenotes

The cenotes are stunning, and if you come during sargassum (aka seaweed) season, cenotes and hotel pools will be your only options for swimming. You can access most of them from both Tulum and Playa del Carmen. A few of my favorites include Escondido and Casa Tortuga (I preferred Casa Tortuga over Dos Ojos, if you’re contemplating which one to choose).

 

Relax in Kaan Luum Lagoon

I enjoyed Laguna de Kaan Luum because it’s big enough to disregard how crowded it is, and it’s not so segregated. I can’t tell you how to get there because I kind of hitch-hiked, but it’s not too far from the Escondito cenote.

Go on an Instagram Scavenger Hunt at the Hotel Zone

I’m cheap, so there was nothing there for me. After standing in line for thirty minutes to take a picture with the sculpture in front of the Raw Love restaurant, I kind of just stopped taking photos my entire trip. If you read my Quintana Roo blog, you’ll see my photo game seriously lacks because I was just so disappointed in myself for contributing to the exact superficiality I’m ranting against now. Maybe Tulum was the awakening I needed, says the wannabe travel blogger.

 

Hang out Downtown

The restaurants and bars are cheaper in the centro, and it’s much more walkable. I partied mainly here at other hostels, which got old after a while, but it’s definitely more backpacker-friendly.

 

Lie on the Beach (except from May to September)

This seaweed is not playing with y’all. It’s my fault for not doing research because I had no idea this was even a problem. Literally, just don’t go to Tulum for the beaches during this time. I was trying to thot around on the beach, but it killed the vibe.

Culturally-Appropriate Indigenous Mayan Culture

This is not my culture, so I cannot condemn nor defend the amount of cultural appropriation done by all of the white people here. If they like it, I love it. Get money. I just take issue with a bunch of white people calling themselves witches, empaths (LMAO), and healers. The spiritual community IS being gentrified and colonized (like it always has), and Tulum is just another prime brown location to use brown people as props for their journies to self-realization.

Don’t go to Tulum. Or do. (I wouldn’t)

All of the things I did in Tulum, I could have done elsewhere in Mexico for half of the price surrounded by less annoying people. Tulum itself is beautiful geographically, but the types of people attracted to the city is what ruins it (for me). Maybe I wasn’t cool enough to gain membership into the Tuluminati. Maybe attending Cacoo ceremonies and live-streaming the whole thing on Instagram, captioning it “namaste” is of no interest to me. Maybe I was too cheap to pay 100 dollars to go to a jungle rave and I’m salty I didn’t have a plug for free entrance. I had high hopes that Tulum would have been the highlight of my 2k21 dumb bitch trip, but realistically I probably would have had more fun elsewhere in Quintana Roo if I knew I’d be spending so much money. Tulum ain’t it.