Tulum

Dinner in Tulum gets cheaper the further it is from the sea. Tulum Beach is one sandy road between the jungle and the Caribbean, lined with the low-built boutique hotels and restaurants that made the place's name. It is the dearest area to stay in, and the one we would choose. Tulum Town, about ten minutes inland, is a main road of taco stands and hardware shops under overhead cables. The cheap eats are there, and so is the better value for anyone after a big villa. Between the two, Aldea Zama is a newer grid with some of the beach road's design for less, and La Veleta's quiet residential streets have filled up with wellness studios and coffee roasters.

On the beach road you can stay in Pablo Escobar's old house. Lio Malca, a New York gallerist, bought it in 2012 and made it Casa Malca, a hotel hung with his collection, KAWS and Keith Haring among it, with a swimming pool in a cavern underground; its restaurant, Philosophy, sets its tables facing the sea. Nomade, further south, gives its days to yoga and a long beach of grey daybeds under the palms, and Papaya Playa Project is where the party is, round thatched casitas in the jungle behind its sand and international DJs on a Saturday night. We stayed at Rosa del Viento, on the same road.

We normally go between January and March, which we think is the best time to be there, and even then it rains a good deal. May to October brings the rains properly, and the hurricanes, and the sargassum seaweed that washes up from June is worst in July and August. We have had trouble with it on the beach ourselves. The clearing is done well; the smell is another matter.

Two days will not cover it. Tulum grew up around a walled Maya port of the 13th century on a limestone cliff above the sea. The site opens at 8am, and a path inside goes down to a beach only ticket-holders can use, so the history lesson ends in the water. The rest of the swimming is inland, in cenotes, the region's freshwater sinkholes. Gran Cenote, about three miles from town, has clear water and a cave section easy to reach, and at Dos Ojos a passage about 400 metres long joins two cenotes, with a bat cave at dusk. Car hire is expensive, and the topes, the speed bumps on the coast road, are severe enough to be taken at a crawl.

The beach road's restaurants run from the very expensive to the fairly casual, and its taco places on the sand are very good. Tulum also draws superb international DJs, and we love that; the party crowd that comes with them will put some people off. Two dinners on the road are great, and they have nothing in common but the road. Posada Margherita cooks the Genoese recipes of the owner's mother and grandmother, and its pasta maker came over from Italy. Hartwood is off the grid, on solar power, and cooks everything over open fire, in a wood-burning oven and grill made by hand, to a menu that changes daily. It opens Wednesday to Sunday, so on Mondays and Tuesdays the fire is out. For a dinner that turns into a party, Rosa Negra serves South American cuts to live music and fire shows. For tacos on the beach, La Zebra: al pastor and ceviche on the sand.