Papaya Playa Project

Papaya Playa Project builds its casitas with rounded walls, which the hotel says allow positive energy to flow, and in the Ocean View casitas with a pool it flows upstairs: a white stair curls round the outside of the palm thatch to a round dipping pool on the roof, with the Caribbean beyond. It all stands among palms and jungle on the Tulum coast road, about four kilometres south of town, behind a stretch of white sand the hotel puts at 900 metres. Emilio Heredia conceived the place in 2011 for creative people, and it is made mostly of thatch and timber. The Cabañas, in the jungle a few steps from the beach, are what the hotel calls Tulum's classic; the Lofts are the newest, 88 square metres on the seafront with the bedroom upstairs, and the Villas keep to the far north end, over the sea.

Recommended for grown-ups who want Tulum's beach and its best-known party in the same place. By day Playa Solar holds daily yoga under a palm roof, spa treatments, a temazcal and Elysium, a pop-up bar for juices and elixirs. Breakfast runs from seven until noon, homemade granola or huevos rancheros, and lunch brings ceviche; the clifftop Maya ruins are five minutes away by car and Gran Cenote fifteen. On Saturday nights the restaurant and beach club become a dancefloor for international DJs. After dark Playa Solar turns into Playa Lunar, and once a month the full moon gets a party of its own, which under the circumstances is only polite.