Mexico

Explore the Ancient Maya World

Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula holds one of the greatest concentrations of ancient cities on earth. For over two thousand years, the Maya built pyramid complexes, engineered water systems, carved astronomical calendars into stone, and connected their cities through trade routes that spanned jungle, coast, and mountain. Many of these sites still stand — some restored, some still half-swallowed by the forest — and most receive a fraction of the visitors that flock to the beach resorts just a few hours away.

This is the Mexico we travel to. Not the hotel zones. Not the all-inclusives. The interior — where the jungle canopy stretches unbroken to the Guatemalan border and you can climb a pyramid without seeing another person.

The Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucatán is a flat limestone shelf jutting into the Caribbean, riddled underneath with the largest network of underground rivers and caves in the world. The ancient Maya considered these cenotes — natural sinkholes exposing the aquifer below — to be entrances to Xibalba, the underworld. Today you can swim in them, wade through them by headlamp, or kayak across the lagoons they feed.

Above ground, the peninsula shifts dramatically as you move inland. The Caribbean coast gives way to low scrubland, then to towering tropical forest in the south. It’s in this deep jungle — in the states of Campeche and Chiapas — where the most powerful Maya cities once stood. Calakmul, a superpower that rivaled Tikal for centuries, sits inside a biosphere reserve so remote that jaguars, howler monkeys, and spider monkeys still patrol its plazas. Palenque, widely regarded as the architectural masterpiece of the Classic Maya, rises from the jungle floor where the Yucatán highlands meet the Gulf Coast plain.

The Tren Maya

Mexico’s Tren Maya railway — which began passenger service in stages from 2023 — now connects cities and archaeological zones across the peninsula on modern, air-conditioned trains. For travelers, it changes the game. Routes that once required long drives on back roads can now be covered by rail, with the landscape itself becoming part of the experience. Watching the terrain shift from coastal scrub to interior forest to deep jungle canopy — all from a comfortable seat — is something that simply wasn’t possible a few years ago.

We’ve built our Mexico itineraries around the Tren Maya not as a convenience, but as a core part of the trip. The train journeys are highlights, not just transfers.

Beyond the Ruins

The Maya world is not just archaeological sites. Over six million Maya people live across southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras today, maintaining languages, traditions, and practices with deep roots. In the Yucatán, you can visit communities that still practice Melipona stingless beekeeping — a tradition sacred to the ancient Maya — or watch chicle being harvested from sapodilla trees, the original source of chewing gum.

The region’s food tells the same story. Cacao, once used as currency across the Maya world, still grows in plantations along the Gulf Coast in Tabasco. Jungle communities cook with ingredients harvested from the surrounding forest. Coastal towns serve ceviche and grilled fish pulled from the Caribbean that morning. Every meal is a window into both the ancient and modern worlds.

Why Travel to Mexico with Merakiva?

Most tours of the Yucatán follow the same circuit: fly into Cancún, bus to Chichén Itzá, stop at a cenote, visit Tulum, return to the resort. It’s a fine introduction — but it barely scratches the surface.

Our trips go deeper. We take the Tren Maya into regions most tourists never reach. We spend multiple days in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest protected tropical forests in the Americas. We visit sites like Río Bec that require advance coordination and a machete to access. We build in time with local Maya communities, not as a photo op, but as a genuine cultural exchange.

If you’ve already been to Mexico’s beach resorts and wondered what else is out there — or if you’ve always been drawn to the ancient Maya and want to experience their world firsthand — this is the trip.

Upcoming Trips

Mayan Trains, Pyramids, and Canals

Explore the Yucatán Peninsula by train, van, and foot — from Caribbean canals and underground rivers to the remote jungle cities of Calakmul and Palenque.

We've Got More Coming

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