Explore Playa del Carmen

Playa del Carmen is a popular tourist destination located on the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea, just 60km south of Cancún in the state of Quintana Roo. Playa del Carmen arguably has some of the most diverse diving of anywhere in the world. It is a great place to visit to take advantage of the abundant cave-, wreck-, shark-, and reef-diving opportunities, and the spectacular diving at Cozumel Island is just a 40-minute ferry ride away (or just 20 minutes, if you take the luxury ferry!). Not only does Playa del Carmen offer shallow reefs, it is also home to a complex system of cenotes—around 10,000 of them! Cenotes are exposed pools of water that are part of an underground network of interconnected bodies of groundwater. Cenotes form when limestone bedrock collapses, leaving natural sinkholes behind. Cenotes have great visibility because the water comes from filtered rainwater and thus has very few suspended particles. This feature makes cenotes a great diving environment, not to mention the underground cave systems and features that can be explored as well.

If cenote diving is not your cup of tea, there are also shore dives and daily boat trips out to wreck- and drift-dive sites. Encounters with pelagic species can be expected at these sites; the best-known for this area is the bull shark, which migrates to Playa del Carmen in the wintertime.

Dive shops and dive resorts are aplenty in Playa del Carmen; some specialize in trips to cenotes, while others like to focus on the marine sites. Since Playa del Carmen is close to various culturally significant Mayan ruin sites such Tulum, many of the dive resorts offer land excursion packages to these destinations as well. If you feel like you need a break from the nonstop diving, exploring the remnants of ancient Mayan cities may be just the thing you’re looking for. If, as a non-diver, you find yourself on vacation in Playa del Carmen and decide you don’t want to miss out on Playa del Carmen’s underwater realm, dive shops offer certification courses and Discover Scuba Diving as well. Liveaboard dive operators are not common, since all dive sites are either shore dives or are only a short boat trip away from shore.