Playa del Carmen is the main town of the Riviera Maya, about 68 km south of Cancun along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. It started as a small fishing village and departure point for ferries to Cozumel, and while it has grown considerably since the 1990s, it retains a more manageable scale than Cancun. The beach is excellent — long, white-sand, with clear water — and the reef offshore is part of the Great Maya Reef, the second-largest in the world.
The town centres on Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue), a pedestrianised street running parallel to the beach, lined with restaurants, bars, and shops. It is pleasant to walk but increasingly touristy; the same souvenirs sold there can be found for half the price on the side streets. If you want to stay close to a lively scene without being locked into a resort, Playa is a good base — you can walk to the beach, catch a ferry to Cozumel for the day, and reach Tulum or Chichén Itzá by bus.
The diving is the main reason many visitors come. Cozumel, a 35-minute ferry ride away, has some of the clearest water and richest reef diving in the Americas. The cenotes — freshwater sinkholes fed by underground rivers — are scattered throughout the surrounding jungle and make for memorable snorkelling and diving, with visibility sometimes exceeding 100 metres. Río Secreto, an extraordinary underground cave system south of town, offers guided wading tours through stalactite chambers. The eco-park at Xcaret, built around a Maya harbour site, is expensive but genuinely impressive for a full day.
Few visitors realise that ancient Maya ruins lie just blocks from Quinta Avenida. Avoid the all-inclusive resorts if you can — a small hotel in town costs a fraction of the resort price and gives you freedom to eat where you want, explore the neighbourhood, and actually see Mexico.