Later in 2019, I still had a few extra weeks vacation that I had to use before year end. I also still had a bit of an itch for the outdoors after my trip to Costa Rica earlier that year. I wanted to see more nature, wildlife and spend some time by the beach. However, I wanted really good food too! As I mentioned, Costa Rican food was good but nothing spectacular. My favourite cuisines that I have had while traveling would be Indian, Vietnamese and Mexican. If I were to rank them, I’d say my starting five would be Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese, Thai and Cuban, with Costa Rican being my 6th man off the bench.

1. Indian (probably a bit of a home bias)
2. Mexican (I like spicy as you may be able to tell)
3. Vietnamese
4. Thai
5. Cuban (granted, this was just a couple meals outside of the resort – I don’t know if that’s enough of a sample size)
6. Costa Rican
7. Hong Kong (not sure if that's a cuisine or if it falls under Chinese?)

I am also biased towards places requiring shorter flights and so Mexico came up again as a potential destination. I had been to Mexico City the year before, so I had a sense of what to expect. Mexico is a massive country and so, through a few google searches, I found that the south had a lot to explore. I also had two weeks which was a good amount of time. I considered going to Guadalajara and Sayulite (more in the north) but realized it would just be too rushed to hit all these spots in two weeks.

I decided to fly to Oaxaca City and fly out of Cancun. Once I was in Oaxaca, I ended up taking a bus to San Cristobal, Chiapas from Oaxaca City and then another bus to Palenque, Chiapas. From there, I flew to Cancun but headed straight to Tulum to avoid the boatloads of tourists/resorts and then took a bus and ferry to Holbox as my final stop. This gave me a good mix of city (i.e., Oaxaca), nature (i.e, San Cristobal’s surrounding area), nightlife (i.e., Tulum) and beach (i.e., Holbox).