How to get around Cancún without breaking a sweat

05.10.2023 - 22:49 / lonelyplanet.com

One of Mexico’s tourism megastars, Cancún is a city with two very different faces.

There's the Zona Hotelera, the long, thin island curving along the edge of the Nichupté lagoon, with its glorious Caribbean beaches and high-rise hotels. Then there's Cancún Centro, the city's somewhat gritty downtown, packed with shops and offices and broken up by some welcome leafy plazas.

It’s not difficult to get around either area but they are very different when it comes to getting around. Cancún Centro is compact and often congested, and easiest to navigate on foot. Shaped like a giant number 7, the Zona Hotelera stretches for some 24 km (15 miles), so hopping on a city bus or hailing a cab is the way to go. It's just a 15-minute drive between the two parts of the city, along the wide and busy Boulevard Kukulcán.

Here's a guide to the best ways to explore Cancún, regardless of which side of the city you stay in.

Cancún Centro’s popular southeast quadrant – where most of the restaurants, bars and shops are located – is bustling and relatively small, making it easy to navigate on foot. Avenida Tulum cuts through the middle of the shopping district, with wide sidewalks and giant speed bumps that are used as pedestrian crosswalks. Another good option for walkers is the network of pedestrian-only streets around Parque de las Palapas, a plaza popular for its food carts and free cultural events.

Beyond these two areas, sidewalks downtown leave much to be desired – most are narrow and uneven, and few have curb ramps. Nevertheless, walking will get you where you’re going and it certainly beats sitting in traffic.

While it’s possible to walk from Cancún Centro to the Zona Hotelera (the sidewalk eventually becomes a paved jogging path), it’s a long way to walk in the baking sun. Playa Langosta, the closest public beach to downtown, is 7km (4.3 miles) away, while Playa Delfines, the furthest, is 20km (12.4 miles) away. With the effort involved, most people just take a bus or cab.

Sidewalks in the Zona Hotelera are much better: wide and well-maintained, flanking both sides of Boulevard Kukulcán. Pedestrians congregate around Km 9.5, the "elbow" of the Zona Hotelera, where most of Cancún’s glitzy nightclubs, open-air bars and shopping centers can be found (there's also a public entrance to the beach). Elsewhere in the Zona Hotelera, pedestrians are few and far between. For a long, leisurely leg stretch, most people stick to the beach.

Riding city buses is the most popular way to get around Cancún; within the Zona Hotelera, the fare is M$12. The R-1, R-2 and R-27 bus routes serve most of the main tourist destinations. These buses run along Boulevard Kukulcán, making stops every couple of kilometers, providing easy access to hotels,