When visiting Cancun and the Yucatan Peninsula, there’s no doubt that you must visit the famous Chichen Itza. After all, it’s one of the new wonders of the world for a very good readon!
If you’re in Cancun, there are many tour companies to choose from and we shopped around on Tripadvisor and Viator. At first, we were going to choose the mega package, which included Chichen Itza, Ik Kil, buffet meal, and Coba. However, our goal was to truly enjoy Chichen Itza and get the full experience. So, we ended up going with a tour company that gave an early access tour to the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site.
WHAT TO PACK
Before I dive into the fun part of the experience, we should go over what you should pack.
- Sunscreen – lots of Sunscreen! It starts to get hot at around 10:00AM so if you’re planning to stay a while with your tour group, I recommend packing a decent amount of sunscreen
- Hat
- Sunglasses
- Water – Instead of water, we actually like to pack little packets of LiquidIV. One packet contains enough electrolytes to keep you well hydrated without having to consume too much water
- Snacks
- Iphone Tripod
WHAT TO EXPECT
If you’re not an early bird, you’re in for a treat. Chichen Itza is about a 3 hour drive from Cancun and the tour company that you select will most likely budget around an hour to an hour and a half to pick up other people. Therefore, we left our hotel in Cancun at around 4:30AM!
Once the bus finishes picking up everyone on the tour group, it was full speed ahead to Chichen Itza.
ARRIVAL AT CHICEN ITZA
We arrived at the grounds at 8:30AM. Even at 8:30AM, there were multiple tour groups there already.
Once we arrived, our tour company went to get the tickets for everyone while we used the restroom, put on sunscreen, and enjoyed the last little bit of shade.
TOUR OF CHICHEN ITZA
Our tour guide started the tour at around 9AM and there was around 25-30 people in our group. I have to say that our tour guide was absolutely fantastic! He was very knowledgeable about the grounds and even had a folder of visual aids!
In total, the tour of the grounds was about 1.5 hours and he gave us 40 mins for free time. During this free time, some people decided to revisit some of the pitstops on the tour while others (like me) decided to use this time to take photos.
One tip about taking photos at Chichen Itza is to TRY DIFFERENT ANGLES! Depending on the time that you go, you could be faced with shadows and people in your photos. Therefore, I highly recommend you walk around and get creative with where you take the photos. For us, we were lucky because we started our tour early. Once we finished our tour and started taking photos, other tour groups just arrived at the grounds and were just starting their tours. So, we didn’t have to deal with too many people being in our photos.
END OF THE TOUR
After touring the grounds, we left Chichen Itza right around noon. Our tour company actually took us to a nearvillage for lunch and to pick up some souvenirs. It was super cool to get an authentic look of how the locals lived and how rich the history is around Chichen Itza
At around 2PM, our tour company loaded the buses and we were on our way back to Cancun
EXPERIENCE
Overall, I highly recommend going with a tour company that offers an early access tour package so you can get on the grounds before the traffic piles in. Even though you have to get up at the crack of dawn, I promise that the experience and the photos will be worth it!
