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A huge, circular pit filled with a beautiful underground pool – now the center of a private nature park. You can swim in the cenote pool and dine in the restaurant up above it.

This remote village 50 km (30 miles) south of Valladolid was where the great Mayan revolt of the Caste War began (see 1847: Caste War Begins); it still bears the battle scars. A small museum tells the whole story.

An ultra-sleepy little town in the woods that surprises with a very imposing 18th-century church, with a unique three-tower façade and a beautifully carved wooden altarpiece.

Between Valladolid and Tizimín, this is another hot country town that has a fine church (1749) with a magnificently ornate Baroque altarpiece.

The hub of Yucatán’s “cattle country” is a market town where tourism usually goes unnoticed. At its center are two spacious squares, divided by the massive walls of two Spanish monasteries.

At the end of a lonely road through savanna grass, forest, and sand flats, this tiny fishing village is a place to escape the crowds and sample miles of Gulf coast beaches.

This vast area of uninhabited mangroves west of San Felipe is remote and wild. There are no regular tours, but boatmen in San Felipe or Dzilam may offer a trip.

Alongside the north coast road is a long, narrow sand-spit island, El Bajo, with deserted, coconut-palm shaded beaches. In the tiny village of Santa Clara you can find boatmen offering occasional trips to the island.

This ruined city west of Izamal is a great mystery, as its thick, drum-shaped columns and huge ramp-like stairways are unlike any other Mayan buildings. The local village church was built on an ancient pyramid.

The atmospheric ruins of a small Mayan town on the coast, probably an outlying settlement of Dzibilchaltún. There are great sea views from the top of its main pyramid.