December 2021 was our first trip to Holbox in 15-years. While on the bigger stage of the entire world, Holbox still remains a relatively pristine, laid back destination, compared to what we found in 2006; it is now a wide-awake bustling resort city with lots of new construction and a restaurant/bar scene with a growing reputation.
I don’t want to make it seem like Holbox has been engulfed by the growing Cancun megalopolis. There are no high-rise hotels or condominiums. It’s still hard enough to get to that it hasn’t been completely overrun by the hordes (at least not yet.)
The beaches are still wide and beautiful and the vistas still border on endless. The Gulf waters are still calm and relatively unspoilt and shallow enough to allow long walks out from the shoreline, while never taking a stroke.
In certain seasons of the year the thriving marine life still attracts the gentle giant whale sharks and pink flamingos and provides a year round bounty to local residents and visitors. But man-oh-man have some other things changed.
The atmosphere felt kind of similar to what we found in Tulum 10-years ago; kind of hip and cosmopolitan, which certainly isn’t a bad thing on its own but and our fear is that in no time at all, it will be more like the overrun and jaded Playa del Carmen of today.
If interested, you can compare then and now through various reports and links from our prior trip can be found on our July 2006 visit to Holbox page.
Given the timing of this trip; trying to travel safely during the pandemic was top of mind for the entirety of this trip. But we understand that you’re likely more interested in the “fun part” of the trip than our moments of covid angst so this report attempts to separate those elements.
See our Travel During Covid page for some of the thought process and experiences specific to Covid but for those more interested in the highlights of the trip than the angst of travel during a pandemic, continuing reading below.
To be perfectly honest, we really didn’t do all that much on this trip. While we were staying at the Para Ti we fell into an easy routine of doing just what we wanted, which was mostly just relaxing and getting away from the real world. On 3-days, we walked to Carritos de Golf Holbox Monkey’s (Monkeys Golf Cart Rental) in the town center and hired a golf cart for 4-hours.
The beaches are really the crown jewels of Holbox with wide expanses of soft white sand rippled by rise and fall of the tide and shallow tidal pools. And our desire to mostly just chill on this trip afforded us the luxury of sitting under a cover on the beach and just observing the world pass by.
After we picked up our golf cart on our first day we drove around the town exploring a bit and saw the first of many of the charming colorful murals painted on walls around the town.
We then headed to the beach driving in the direction of Mosquito Point. The road won’t take you all the way to the point so when we reached the end, we back tracked towards town and stopped at one of the beach massage huts where I got a very aggressive massage. I like a deep massage but what this lady did to me bordered on assault and I came away feeling worse than when I arrived. I’m sure there are some better experiences to be had but this one cured me of the desire for another for this trip.
On the following 2-days we drove back out the beach road to the same general vicinity and stopped at a nice unpretentious beach club with 8 lounges (but thankfully no massage tables) set up in groups of two under shade cover.
We enjoyed the beach watching tourist and courteous vendors walk by, contemplating the very calm water and the restaurant/bar just across the sand road where we eventually ordered lunch, which was served on the beach at a small table the waiter set up between our lounges. The food was surprisingly good.
It wasn’t the season for Pink Flamingos, and as noted above we didn’t make it all the way out to Mosquito Point, where you are most likely to spot them but we did see some interesting bird life on this trip; sometimes in surprising places; like from our table at a hotel restaurant.
We ate 3 meals (2 lunches and a breakfast) at The Fresco Bar & Grill, the Mystique Hotel restaurant. The restaurant is an open sided tent on a wooden platform raised up about 6 feet over the beach very near the shoreline. There is some native beach vegetation on one side and hotel landscape plantings on another. At different times and from our different tables there we saw Sea Gulls, Pelicans, Hummingbirds, White Herons, something similar to a Gold Finch and Great Frigatebirds with their red neck pouches. We wondered just how many birds a dedicated bird watcher might be able to collect.
It was also not the season for snorkeling with the Whale Sharks. That had been our primary mission on our trip in 2006 and we would love to do it again but that didn’t happen this time.
However, we did make time to watch the sunset from the beach out in front of the Mystique. it was time well spent.
See the following pages for additional information on our December 2021 visit to Holbox:
Holbox Hotels
Holbox Restaurants
Getting to Holbox
Holbox Tips
Travel during Covid
A look back at our Holbox visit in 2006