Ultimate Experiences: Swimming With Sea Turtles In Akumal, Mexico

If I could repeat just one of our experiences during our time in Mexico, it would be swimming with the sea turtles in Akumal.

This was hands-down my favourite experience during our trip to Mexico, and probably one of my top 10 travel experiences – ever!

I haven’t categorised this under travel with kids because, although kids can do this (and lots were doing this) I actually did this experience alone. I love turtles (tilly turtle is a nickname my granddad gave me before I could even walk, although no one really knows why) and this was an experience I have always wanted to have.

Booking A Turtle Tour

You can book your turtle snorkeling tour in advance, via your tour operator, or you can book when you arrive.

We like to DIY to save money, so we took a taxi to the beach and then booked my tour directly with the vendors there. We arrived at 8.30 knowing the tours started at 9am and got on the first tour of the day. This cost 400 pesos.

I booked onto a small group tour (there were supposed to be 6 of us with one guide) and was walked to my designated waiting spot on the beach. Where I waited, and waited… and waited. After around 40 minutes we called the company who couldn’t have been more apologetic – a misunderstanding meant my group had gone without me.

Frustrating? A little! But as a result, they sent me my own guide and I had a one on one tour, which was probably the best thing that could have happened.

If we went again, I would pay extra for a one on one tour (top tip!) because the guide didn’t have to slow down to match the pace of the group. We were able to go apart from the other tour groups, see things at my pace (and I have a fast swimming/snorkelling pace) and even go into the deeper water to look for bigger mammals.

My guide was amazing. He made sure I saw as much sealife as possible, and did so without attracting the attention of the other groups.

It felt like I had the whole ocean (and the turtles) to myself, even though this is an incredibly popular tourist attraction and there were a lot of other groups in the water.

We saw several turtles, several shoals of fish, and went as far as the coral reef which was a beautiful attraction in its own right.

There are clearly designated areas on the beach here where you can and can’t swim, and most of the areas are only accessible if you are with a guide.

Entering Akumal Beach

Even if you don’t want to swim with the turtles, Akumal is a beautiful beach and one that we think is well worth visiting.

You can’t enter the beach without paying an admission charge, which is 120 pesos per person. We paid this for all 4 of us so the boys could swim in the water and play in the sand while I took my tour. They actually saw a small turtle themselves from the shore whilst they were playing in the ocean here!

The water was the clearest blue and an amazing place for paddling and spotting small fish.

The admission charge covers entry and use of the facilities: namely toilets and changing rooms. There are a couple of small cafes and a beach bar you can access that’s attached to one of the hotels on the beach front.

My snorkel tour lasted just over an hour, and then we spent another hour and a half on the beach here before jumping in a taxi back to our hotel.

We would have stayed for longer, but there were no umbrellas to hire and no shade, so we couldn’t spend the heat of the day here in mid-May, it was just too hot!

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