Mexico, with its kid-focused culture, is one of my family’s favorite places to vacation. We have found the Mexican people to be ceaselessly tolerant of children and generous of spirit. The country even has a holiday called Children’s Day, celebrated on April 30. We discovered this by accident when we found ourselves in Mexico on Children’s Day a few years ago. My daughter, Tess, then 8, watched as the Mexican kids got gifts just for being kids. She pronounced it a great idea that ought to be imported to the United States—immediately. 

A great destination in Mexico is the Riviera Maya, a sliver of land that begins just 10 miles south of Cancún. The region stretches along the Caribbean Sea on the Yucatán Peninsula from the town of Puerto Morelos south through Playa del Carmen and Puerto Aventuras to the famous Mayan ruins of Tulum, and ending in Carrillo Puerto, with many other smaller towns and sites included. 

One of our favorite stops is the charming town of Playa del Carmen, arguably the most developed of the towns, about an hour south of Cancún. Until recently Playa del Carmen was a sleepy Mexican village, but the tourist trade there is booming, and hotels are sprouting up all along the once pristine white sand beaches.

The number of hotel rooms has grown more than tenfold in the last 10 years—to about 35,000 currently. So there are plenty of shiny new high-rises, but it’s still possible to haggle for a good deal along the streets of Playa del Carmen or to while away an evening sipping cerveza at an outdoor café.

On a pretty walk street right off Fifth Avenue, Ajua Maya Restaurant warmly welcomes children—and their discerning parents. Although drinks arrive atop the waiter’s heads (sometimes as many as six at once), serious dining happens here. Portions are large, and kid’s orders go in right away. Once your lobster tails, chicken mole or flambéed steak arrives, your niños will be well fed and up dancing to the live Latin jazz. Adult entrees average $25 USD, children’s entrée’s are $7-$10 USD.

All-inclusives: A Refuge for Picky Eaters

A growing proportion of the new hotels in Playa del Carmen are all-inclusives—properties that factor into the initial room price all the food, drinks and non-motorized water sports your family can handle—just the sort of resorts I would have eschewed in my BC (Before Children) days. This kind of accommodation has become a key feature of trips for my family with our skinny boy who lived on Cheerios and strawberries throughout his toddler years.

Before we had kids, my husband and I never would have considered an all-inclusive, reasoning that sampling the local cuisine was a key part of the travel experience. But vacations with picky eaters can be exhausting. All that searching for something he’ll eat, only to order the tacos and find out they “don’t taste right” and are therefore inedible. By comparison, our first visit to an all-inclusive was like a gift from heaven. If he didn’t like the food, he simply went back up to the buffet looking for something else—sometimes he even found Cheerios and strawberries.

As an added plus, choosing an all-inclusive means never having to spend more than you planned. You go into the vacation knowing exactly how much it’s going to cost, unless you opt for one of the few extra features, such as a spa treatment. [Read about specific all-inclusives in our Riviera Maya Hotels article.]