The beach road — Carretera Tulum–Boca Paila — runs south from the ruins for around ten kilometres along the coast, and almost everything you have seen in glossy photographs of Tulum is on it. Boutique cabaña hotels, candle-lit jungle restaurants, yoga retreats, beach clubs, cocktail bars: a continuous low-rise strip just behind the dune line, with public access paths to the sand at regular intervals.
This is where prices are highest and the aesthetic is most calculated. Electricity is patchy — many places run on generators or solar — and the road floods in heavy rain, but the photogenic, jungle-meets-Caribbean atmosphere is unmistakable. Stay here if you want to walk to the beach; eat or drink here even if you stay in the pueblo. Cycle or take a taxi between the two.