Getting to Isla Holbox from Cancun

We flew into Cancun from Costa Rica (San Jose International Airport) via Volaris air and purchased all tickets required to get us from the airport to Isla Holbox from an ADO stand located at arrivals (can’t really miss it, it’s right in the middle of it all). This included:

• Bus from airport to downtown Cancun + bus from downtown Cancun to Chiquilá: MXN 414 each
• Ferry from Chiquilá to Holbox: MXN 220 each

The bus ride from Cancun airport to downtown Cancun took around 20 minutes. There’s an OXXO right outside the ADO bus station in downtown Cancun which is where we bought our Mexican sim card for 150 MXN + another 300 MXN for 4GB of data and unlimited calls to Mexico, Canada, and the US.

The bus ride from downtown Cancun to Chiquilá took around 3 hours. Next up was the ferry from Chiquilá to Holbox which took around 30 minutes.

Getting to the center of Holbox from the port is pretty much a 5 minute walk. This of course didn’t stop people from forming long lines to catch taxis/golf-carts into town. 

Things to do in Isla Holbox

Walk around town

I guess the thing we enjoyed the most about Holbox was simply the charm of the town. It’s a small town with hard packed sand for streets. Golf-carts are the main transportation vehicles, but we found that just walking around and visiting stores, markets, and trying different street food is what did it for us. There’s also a sports arena right in the center of town where we spent quite some time watching random matches organized amongst the locals.

Nightlife

You wouldn’t visit Isla Holbox for the party scene – you won’t find any nightclubs. Having said that, we truly enjoyed the laidback nightlife that Isla Holbox had to offer. You will find plenty of chill bars and restaurants in the most popular streets of Isla Holbox.

Playa Punta Cocos

Accessing this beach is a nice 45 minute walk from town. The main beach itself is ok, but we enjoyed a more secluded area which was an additional 5 minute walk beyond the main beach. 

2 islands + Punta Mosquito

2 islands + Punta Mosquito is a popular tour which most tour stands around town offer. It cost us MXN 600 each and we used a tour office right next to the Holbox sign. 

Upon arrival at the dock, we were told that we will not be visiting Punta Mosquito because of bad weather. A few of us complained that the only reason we decided to go on this tour was because of Punta Mosquito. The captain made a quick call and came back telling us that it’s ok and that we will be going to Punta Mosquito. We joked that the call must have been a weather negotiation conversation with the powers that be.

Our first stop was the Yalahau Lagoon. Nice lagoon but a little too crowded. It was pouring rain by then so that didn’t help. The main highlight here was actually seeing a crocodile on our way to the lagoon. At this point, the captain told us that we won’t be going to Punta Mosquito because of bad weather again. Our next stops were Isla Pasión and Isla Pájaros. There was really nothing to see to be honest. Too crowded and I think we only spent 5 minutes and we were back on the boat. 

All in all, we wouldn’t recommend this tour but then again, we were mainly looking forward to Punta Mosquito. Things may have turned out differently if the captain was more convincing on that call earlier. Who knows 🙂 

Tour company did offer to give us a bicycle for an hour for free as compensation but we weren’t really interested.