If you're trying to work out your budget for an epic road trip around the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, then you're in the right place. Here are the full details of what we spent on our toddler-friendly Mexican adventure, including our total spend and a breakdown of what we spent on car hire, accommodation, excursions and food.
You can get all the details of our Mexican road trip itinerary here.
How to plan your budget
Pre-baby, we had some budgeting rules that helped us plan holidays and keep track of our spending while travelling. While some of these have gone out of the window now that we have a toddler in tow, some of them are still very helpful. For example, flights to Asia are generally more expensive, but costs are lower at the destination. Flights to Europe and the USA can be cheaper, but things are typically more expensive once you’re there. This being said, we historically aimed for:
Flights for £500 or less per seat (long haul)
Accommodation for £100 or less per night
Food and activities for £100 or less per day
We have found that some travel expenses have changed drastically post-pandemic and due to the cost of living crisis (for example, car hire has soared), so some of these rules can be hard to stick to.
Our travel budgeting style is best described as moderate. We prioritise reputable airlines over budget where possible and often choose to fly direct - but will always fly in economy and pack light to save money. We don't tend to stay in hostels, but equally don't splurge on hotels. We definitely prefer to spend big on excursions, wanting to experience each destination in the best way possible.
So, how did these rules apply to Mexico? And how much did we spend in total?
Overview of our budget for 2 weeks in Mexico
The total cost for this trip (in May 2024) was £5,120. This covered everything required for two adults and an 18 month old, who flew as a lap infant. Here is a breakdown of costs, with further details below:
Flights: £1625 Accommodation: £1884 Car hire: £350 Airport transfers: £110 Food and activities: £1151
Flights
Flying to Cancun got us off to a rocky start from a budgeting point of view. Living in Edinburgh, the only direct flights local to us were from Glasgow with TUI. We considered flying down to London to increase our options, but this would have incurred additional costs and flight time to marginally reduce the overall spend, given most short-haul flights don’t include baggage as standard. Plus we were keen to keep things simple on our first long haul flight as parents!
Even buying with a holiday discount, the basic TUI flights were £680 each, plus £40 each way for an infant on a lap. We also booked specific seats (£30 per seat each way) to ensure we were seated together and had access to an aisle, a necessity with a baby! Add on a large hold bag (pushchair and car seat for baby were included, but no cabin bag) for £66 and the total flight cost came to £1,625. Ouch.
(Top tip – sign up for cashback with either Quidco or Topcashback and it can really add up on large purchases. Expedia offered 10% on all bookings, and TUI at 2%.)
We saw some amazing last minute discounts on TUI flights - with some as low as £320 - so if you're flexible on dates and happy to book late, you could save a lot of money.
On the flip side, once Wren is two years old, she will need her own seat, so we may need to get used to £1,500 flight costs in future!
Accommodation
We booked all of our accommodation through Expedia prior to leaving the UK. As we were both driving and travelling with a toddler, we generally stayed 2 or 3 nights in each hotel so that we weren’t packing and unpacking every night, which tends to reduce per night cost slightly.
We were so impressed by the quality and value of hotels in Mexico, and found an excellent selection of toddler friendly boutique hotels - further details here.
Below is a breakdown of our hotel costs per night:
Adhara Hacienda, Downtown Cancun - £81
Hotel Puerta Chichen, Piste - £83.42
Casa Valladolid - £62
Tulum - £60
Akumal - £90 (we then upgraded for an additional £60 per night)
Sandos Caracol, Playa del Carmen - £202.50
We made the spontaneous decision to upgrade our pool view room in Akumal, upon learning that we had a strong chance of seeing turtles nesting on the beach at night. Not wanting to miss out while we sat in dark room with a sleeping toddler, we splurged on a beautiful one bedroom condo, complete with a terrace that led onto the beach.
The all-inclusive Sandos Caracol Resort in Playa del Carmen clearly broke our £100 per night rule, but also covered all our food, drink and activities. As sporadic drinkers we did not get full value from the unlimited alcoholic drinks on offer, but could generally get non-alcoholic equivalents from the bartenders (despite their incredulity).
We have never stayed in an all inclusive resort before, but we planned this at the end of our trip as a form of insurance - in case our road trip was stressful and exhausting. (Side note: it was not, it was amazing). We also wanted to make sure that Wren had some toddler-friendly activities during the trip – there was no guarantee she was going to enjoy hours in the sun at Chichen Itza or waiting for us on the beach while we took turns snorkelling.
Overall, accommodation could be done cheaper if you are either prepared to forego air conditioning (a non-negotiable for us after sleepless nights in 100% humidity in Asia) or if you were taking your own travel cot (this limited our hotel selection significantly). We also chose to stay in hotels with a bit of character and high customer satisfaction ratings, as all still fell within our budget.
Car hire and transfers
Figuring out how, when and where to hire a car in Mexico was tricky (read our tips here) but it ended up being very cost effective. We hired our car from America Car Rental and, including insurance, spent only £350 for a 10-day rental (we returned it before we checked into Sandos Caracol).
By contrast, we were surprised by the relatively high cost of airport transfers! We shopped around and compared prices, but all companies charged very similar rates for private transfers. We booked with Happy Shuttle and the service was exceptional. However, this is definitely somewhere you could save money by opting for a bus or shared transfer.
Food
We didn’t track food costs overall across the trip, but generally the local loncherias cost around £20-30 for the three of us, including a non-alcoholic beverage or a bottle of water each.
Food wasn't as cheap as we anticipated coming from the UK, but portion sizes are larger and the local cuisine tends to focus on hearty, nutritious meals (beans, rice, corn tacos and meat) which limited our snacking between meals.
Drinks can be pricey, particularly if you’re partial to an iced coffee or smoothie which generally come at a premium. If you’re happy to drink bottled water, local drinks or, cheaper still, bring your own water from your accommodation, you could save £100 or more across the trip.
Our main snacks on the trip were ice creams or cold drinks given the heat – shop bought ice creams were roughly £2 and the drinks slightly less depending on size.
Activities
We found that the cost of activities and excursions varied widely depending on popularity and location. Chichen Itza (an obvious must-see) cost around £60 (£30pp, toddler free) as you pay both a local entrance fee and a regional tax. As this is the most famous landmark in the area, you’re not quibbling over the price, but might feel steep if you get there later in the day when it’s both hot and busy and you need to queue to get in… By contrast, Tulum Ruins and Coba Ruins both cost us around £30 in total.
The price of cenotes also varied widely, so you may wish to prioritise some locations over others if you're on a tight budget. Cenote Zaci, in the centre of Valladolid, was excellent value at £10 total. The popularity of Tulum's Gran Cenote is reflected by a higher price point of £60 total - which almost put us off from visiting, but in the end it still felt worth it.
Overall, our total spend of £5,120 for two weeks in Mexico with a toddler felt like decent value. We would have preferred to spend less on flights, but we didn't want to book late and prioritised convenience, so this pushed up the price a lot. We probably won't stay in all-inclusive resorts on a regular basis, but it worked really well on this trip and Sandos Caracol was moderately priced compared to many others. The level of customer service, quality of food and overall experience was exceptional, and we definitely felt like it was money well spent!
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