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Best Pet Friendly Resorts In Mexico – Young Home Love » Road Trips & Travel » Our Trip to Mexico with Kids…and a Dog!
Last week we vacationed in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with our two kids (ages 8 and 12), and yes, our dog Penny came too! This is our family’s second time traveling internationally, so we certainly don’t qualify as seasoned world travelers or aspiring travel bloggers. But like the last time we went abroad, we wanted to share the details for anyone considering something like this—especially if it’s your first time in Mexico. So here are the answers to the most common questions we get. We’ll also cover where we went, what we ate, and how we navigated the logistics of bringing our pets with us.
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Oh, and as usual, this tour is not sponsored at all. We paid for all our flights, accommodations, meals, and activities ourselves (thanks to a lot of saved credit card points, our favorite way to book big trips).
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We hope our family trip to Costa Rica in January 2020 will be the start of regular trips to other countries with our children. We really enjoy getting out of our comfort zone, observing how others live, having new experiences with our children, and seeing beautiful scenery along the way. Then there was covid.
This summer (June 2022), we finally feel ready for another international trip and Mexico seems like a fun and relatively easy/close destination for our first big trip in over two years (we haven’t been on a plane since). February 2020 when we bought our house!) Two groups of our friends also recently moved to Mexico without their kids – so Mexico was definitely in the spotlight.
Mexico also boasts many of the things we love – stunning nature, delicious wildlife, colorful artwork and (at the risk of sounding basic) a world of great tacos. Really. The food in Mexico is generally excellent. We loved every meal we had there. Hunt sea turtles, but don’t sleep on ceviche.
Overall, we found Mexico to be a very tourist-friendly country with plenty of accommodation options, activities and extremely nice and friendly people – from Airbnb hosts to snorkeling instructors that took our breath away. But more on that in a minute.
Bahia Principe Grand Coba
We spent 6 nights in Mexico and like in Costa Rica, we split our time between two different Airbnbs in two different cities. We loved how it allowed us to experience two regions of Costa Rica, so we’re excited to do it again in Mexico.
Our primary target destination was the town of Tulum, 90 minutes south of the Cancun airport, which we flew in because it was more relaxed and nature-oriented than fun places like Cancun or famous nightlife/party destinations like Playa del Carmen – and our neighbors had them. Just returned from Tulum and loved it. So after finding an Airbnb in Tulum, we found another Airbnb (quite by accident) between the airport and the Airbnb located in the town of Akumal, 30 minutes north of Tulum. It was a blessing because we loved Akumal the most! But more on each in a second.
Although this was the most hectic part of the trip, we rented a car and I’m glad we did. We briefly tried getting around by taxi and shuttle, but both of our Airbnb hosts advised us to have our own car, and they were absolutely right.
We appreciated the freedom and flexibility to drive everywhere and we had no problems. Not one. We had previously booked a car through Hertz and picked it up – coincidentally with Chihuahua license plates! – At Cancun Airport. Note that your US policy will not cover you in Mexico, so you will need to purchase insurance.
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Overall, I find driving in Mexico more difficult than driving in the US. And in some ways, Mexican drivers seem more polite! Although the locals had to pass us in the left lane, we were very careful to obey the speed limit – which was actually lower than the back of the house. There are also a few quirks, such as speed bumps called “tops” that can appear suddenly even on a motorcycle – but they’re all easy to navigate.
Even if we all have a very basic understanding of Spanish (I’d classify us all as “beginners”), it’s nothing that can’t be understood with a smile and a hand gesture. When the cashier asked me if I wanted a bag of food in Spanish, which I didn’t understand, she held up the bag and I said “Look! Thank you!” So overall, we didn’t feel the need to learn Spanish while on vacation here, it was an opportunity for us to learn more simple phrases and have very meaningful conversations (the locals seemed especially interested in chatting with our kids in Spanish). , which they also loved).
Both of our Airbnb hosts, our snorkeling guide, and most of the restaurant staff spoke fluent English, and we all enjoyed learning Spanish for beginners at convenience stores, food trucks, grocery stores, and more. I did it for two years at university, but that was 20 years ago so it seems very old – but I’ve used it many times on the go. Mainly for things like simple greetings, reading signs and understanding numbers. The kids and Sherry also learned some new phrases.
We also downloaded the Google Translate app onto our phones, and I used it a few times and brushed up on some phrases along the way. It also has a voice-translating feature that you can use when chatting with others. You can take an image and translate the text in the image (as shown below) so it’s handy if there’s a sign or menu you need to understand.
Sofitel Mexico City Reforma
Perhaps our favorite story of the entire trip was when our snorkel guide tried to tell us about the giant shell-eating creature he showed us. He spoke English well but did not know the exact word for “snail”. So our conversation went like this.
Honestly, Angel is the best guide, so if you go to Akumal’s Turtle Bay, try to tour with him. This post has more details about his visit.
Mexico uses pesos and we were glad to have plenty of pesos when we arrived. I remember being surprised to learn how many places in Costa Rica accepted or preferred the US dollar, but this was not our experience in Mexico. We used our credit card for most major purchases (car rental, gas, restaurant meals), but it was nice to have pesos for gift shops, ice cream, and tips. We ordered pesos online from our bank before we left and they arrived safe and sound in the mail.
Currency conversion is very easy: 1 USD equals 20 USD MXN, so a meal worth 50 USD would be only 1,000 MXN. We downloaded a currency conversion app, but even our kids are used to speaking rudely, a quick tip is “drop the zero, then cut the number in half.” So if they see a price of MXN $200 in a gift shop, they remove the zero ($20) and cut it in half – meaning the item costs about $10. It’s a quick and easy way to find out how expensive it is to eat or shop.
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That’s right! Everyone we met was very kind and we never felt unsafe in Mexico. We obviously practiced the usual precautions we use anywhere we travel, like locking the car and not leaving bags or other valuables behind – but we do that in the US and basically everywhere we go. The only “safety concern” to be very careful about is walking near traffic in Tulum. There are no sidewalks everywhere, so sometimes you have to be very careful when passing cars or motorcycles. But since our house is not much different from the roads in our neighborhood, our children have learned to walk well in these areas.
I will say that there is a lot of significant security around Tulum (many new houses and hotels have fences, gates and sometimes even electric fences) but time and time again, we never felt unsafe walking or driving anywhere. We got home at 8pm every night, but mainly because we didn’t want to drive on unfamiliar roads in the dark (and because we were old and too lazy to catch any races).
