Trip to Holbox Island
Posted by creining | Filed under Travel
I caught myself saying “what a hidden gem this is” every day that I spent on tiny Holbox Island near the northeastern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. There are no cars, white sand roads and turquoise virgin beaches. The island is somewhat inaccessible and it’s not yet developed. It’s where mexicans go to vacation. And when you eat at a restaurant you feel like you’re eating in someone’s home. It’s very community-oriented and welcoming. Pure paradise in my opinion.
I usually do a lot of research before I travel to a new place and this time was no different. As usual, the TripAdvisor website was a great resource with the hotel reviews and the friendly folks on the forums who have a wealth of information and are happy to share their opinions and answer questions. The posts I found most useful were the one on locally owned businesses and one on how much cash to bring. Of course, there were plenty of other posts on hotels and their differences, how to get there from Cancun and what to bring.
I stayed at two different hotels while on the island. The first was Villas Flamingos which was down the beach about a 20 minute walk from the village and Holbox Dream which was essentially next to the village. Both were wonderful places with their respective pros and cons. My reviews for Flamingos and Dream on TripAdvisor. I would stay at Flamingos again in a heartbeat but a similar cabana hotel on the island is Villa Los Mapaches which I would enjoy trying next time (yes, I am going back).
The best meal I had on the island was at Los Pelicanos, an Italian restaurant run by an Italian guy named Luca. It was an absolutely amazing meal with top notch service. The risotto and tiramisu are world class. The food on the island was always good and fresh. As Holbox is a fishing village, the fish and seafood was always exceptional.
The transfer service was provided by VIP Holbox. Scheduling it was a bit difficult as numerous emails to them went unanswered. Eventually using a different email address for them worked and the service went off without a hitch. There was a pickup from Cancun (CUN) airport in an air conditioned van which went to Chiquila where we were handed ferry tickets for the transportation to Holbox where we were met and led to a golf cart taxi that took us to the hotel. As I am more comfortable with the ground trip now, when I return to the island I would either get a taxi at CUN to Chiquila or try the bus from Cancun to Chiquila. Also, there are a couple other transfer services from CUN, Cancun Transfers and Mexican Caribbean, but they were a little more expensive than VIP Holbox.