Beach Travel Tips

Mexico bans vapes and pseudoephedrine outright, and Quintana Roo cenotes reject chemical sunscreen at the gate. Pack mineral SPF, reef shoes, a rash guard and pesos in small bills.

Pay a guide at Tulum, Campeche, Quiahuiztlán and Xcambó. Do Punta Sur, El Rey and San Juan de Ulúa yourself — INAH guides cost 600-1,500 pesos per group, not per person.

Mexico's best beach spas: Sense at Rosewood Mayakoba, SE Spa at Grand Velas, Maroma Spa by Guerlain, NIZUC's ESPA, One&Only Palmilla, Apuane at Punta Mita and Yäan in Tulum.

Mexico's cheapest beach towns are Puerto Escondido, Mazunte, Mazatlán, La Paz, Progreso and Bacalar at roughly US$40–70 a day. Cancún and Tulum cost double for the same sand.

Mexico's best beach nightlife: Cancun's Hotel Zone for mega-clubs, Playa del Carmen's Calle 12 for bar-hopping, Puerto Vallarta for LGBTQ+ nights, Cabo's marina strip. Tulum now closes at 1:30am.

Mexico's beach food splits by coast: Ensenada fish tacos, Mazatlan tacos gobernador, Nayarit pescado zarandeado, Campeche pan de cazon, Yucatan panuchos and marquesitas.

The best beaches from Cancun to Tulum, north to south: Playa Delfines, Puerto Morelos, Maroma, Punta Esmeralda, Xpu-Ha, Akumal, Xcacel and Tulum’s free Parque del Jaguar beaches.

The Caribbean's most secluded beaches are the ones no road reaches: Colombier, Happy Bay, Jack Bay, Batibou, Playa Fronton, Playa Tortuga and Barbuda's 17-Mile Beach.

Solo travel in the Caribbean works best on Puerto Rico, Barbados, Curacao, Aruba, the USVI and Cayman — walkable, bus-linked, Level 1 advisories. The real cost is the single supplement.

Tropical golden hour runs 30-45 minutes, not an hour. Shoot Eagle Beach, Grote Knip, The Baths, Pink Sands and Trunk Bay at dawn — and check drone rules island by island.

The best Caribbean markets: Castries (St Lucia), Marigot (St Martin), St George’s spice market (Grenada) and Willemstad’s Floating Market. Go before 9am, bring cash, skip conch and coral.

Packing for the Caribbean: reef-safe sunscreen (required in the USVI, Bonaire and Aruba), no camouflage clothing, a universal plug adapter for 110V-240V, and DEET repellent.

The Caribbean beaches that actually face the sunset: Seven Mile Beach (Grand Cayman), Eagle Beach (Aruba), Negril’s West End, Ffryes, Playa Kalki, Sugar Beach and Paynes Bay.

The Caribbean beach bars worth the trip: Soggy Dollar on Jost Van Dyke, Floyd's Pelican Bar off Jamaica, Sunshine's on Nevis, Nippers, Sunset Bar and Foxy's. Bring cash.

Four Caribbean ferry chains work without a plane: the Virgin Islands from $25, Guadeloupe to St. Lucia on L’Express des Îles, the Grenadines, and St. Maarten to Anguilla in 20 minutes.

The Caribbean's historical beaches worth a detour: Salt River Bay on St. Croix, Long Bay on San Salvador, Port Royal, Playa Girón, English Harbour, Pigeon Island and Holetown.

Caribbean beach weddings cost about $500–$600 per guest in 2026. Barbados and the Dominican Republic have no residency wait; Jamaica and the Bahamas need ~24 hours.

Eat Caribbean cuisine by the shore: bake and shark at Maracas Beach, flying fish at Oistins, jerk at Boston Bay, Anegada lobster, Bahamian conch and Puerto Rican lechón.

The best time to visit Caribbean beaches is mid-December to April — dry, calm, seaweed-free. For deals, try May–June or November; skip the Sept–Oct hurricane peak and summer sargassum.

The Caribbean's biggest beach festivals in 2026: Trinidad Carnival (Feb 16–17), Barbados Crop Over's Grand Kadooment (Aug 3), Antigua and Aruba Carnival, Reggae Sumfest, and Bahamian Junkanoo.

The history of nude beaches begins with Germany's FKK movement, which opened the first official nude beach on Sylt in 1920, then spread to France, Croatia and the US.

Nude beach safety is mostly sunburn and chafing prevention: reef-safe SPF 50 reapplied every two hours, an anti-chafe balm, water shoes, and the rip-current and stingray basics.

Pack a large towel, a sarong for transition zones, reef-safe mineral sunscreen (required by law in Hawaii and Palau), a dry bag for your phone, water shoes, cash, and after-sun.

Never photograph anyone at a nude beach without explicit consent, and expect cameras and phones to be banned at private naturist resorts entirely. Here is what US and UK law allows.