Looking at doing our own thing and going by bus to Tulum. Want to experience Mexico but not from A Taxi or tour operator. Hows best R1 / R2 into Cancun then what ??
assuming you are in the hotel zone, catch a r1 bus on the ocean side of the hz. this bus will make a sharp rite turn when it gets to downtown. stay on the bus about a half mile after the sharp rite and get off at the mcdonalds. you are now in centro on avenue tulum. cross tulum at the crosswalk which is a raised part of the road and look for a large white building on the left that says ADO. that's the bus station. when in the town of tulum i'd suggest eating at el camello, the camel. when you come back to cancun and leave the bus station, you do not want to cross avenue tulum. catch a r1 on the ADO side of av tulum to get back to your hotel. after i first took this adventure i never went back to the hz for vacations, i started staying at hotels in centro and day tripping from there.
We traveled from Cancun to Tulum for a day on our trip in May. We took the R-1 bus to the ADO Bus station in downtown Cancun. Check out the schedules online for the day you want to travel. The website is in Spanish, but it is pretty easy to figure out if you don't know much Spanish. I believe there are three buses in the AM, we took the earliest one possible. Our bus did blow a tire on the trip down, so we are glad we got on the first bus. There was another bus an hour behind us that they transferred us to. You will find that by the time you get to Tulum that there are not many people left on the bus. Many are getting off at earlier stops like Xcaret and Xplore. There are two stops that can be considered Tulum; Tulum City and the Zona Archaeological (the ruins). Be sure to buy your ticket to the right one and back from the right one. For us it was about $104 peso each way per person I think. We opted to purchase one way fares. The trip there to the archaeological site and returning from Tulum City. After we visited the archaeological site we walked out the back entrance and caught a taxi to Ziggy's Beach Club. We had a great lunch with free use of their beach chairs and loungers. As well as great restroom facilities. We are going to Cancun again next May and wish we could do the trip again, but we will have friends with us that haven't been to Cancun (well one has but many years ago). We think we will just book an excursion to Chichen Itza as one has already been to the Tulum ruins while on a stop during a cruise. If you want to read more about our day trip to Tulum, I wrote about it over on the TUG forums here. You can view the whole thread here as I also posted some photos of Ziggy's as well as a cost breakdown for the day. P.s. Someone did give me a tip about verifying you are getting on the right bus in Cancun if your Spanish is limited. Check the bumper number of the bus to a number on your ticket. They will match. It seems to only work in Cancun and may not work in Tulum. Though in Tulum city knowing the right bus was easy as they seemed to provide more instruction in English at that station.
Cheers Guy's for your helpful Replies and Links, we shall Deffo go this way to Tulum. Thanks again all..
Hi guys. We love the beaches in the south of Tulum. You can also take the bus to Playa del Carmen- it is on the way to Tulum. Just outside the bus station you can catch colectivos- minivans that run back and forth to Tulum. These tend to be faster than the buses but may require you to practice tour Spanish first. Great fun!
Calowie offers the best, most current advice. The R-1 for sure. NOT the R-2. The stop by McDonalds is actually a bit before McDonalds. Rather it is at the grocery Comercial Mexicana. In this parking lot you can get a smaller bus called Playa Express. In Playa Del Carmen, the Playa Express stops a few blocks short of the ADO bus terminal and you can there get the colectivo to Tulum. It stops a short walk from the entrance to the Archeological Zone. There are separate fees for each "ride". Still about $10 US per person. Pay in pesos though.
