Last Updated on December 30, 2023 by Natalie
We decided to visit the Merida, Yucatan area and ended up basing ourselves in a beach house in Chicxulub, Yucatan, Mexico. In this, I’ll tell you about our highlights of this trip and what is was like visiting Chicxulub and Progreso, Mexico with kids!
Visiting Chicxulub and Progreso Mexico with Kids
It seemed like a great idea to base our family in Chicxulub, Mexico while hanging out in this area. We were able to rent an entire beach house for the week. It’s a fairly affordable location in that regard. What makes it less affordable is that you do have to rent a car in order to be able to do much of anything from that area.
We spent a lot time chilling out on the beach or the pool in our beach house. Chicxulub is a laid back beach town. It’s a great place to visit for those who want to relax.
Disclaimer
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Posts on this site might contain affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission.
Chicxulub, Mexico
Chicxulub is a small town and there isn’t a huge amount to do there. This really isn’t a big problem when you have a house on the beach with a pool!
There are a handful of restaurants, but a lot of them were either closed or had odd hours during the time of our visit (2021). I imagine the tourism in that area will gradually increase over time allowing the community to expand what they offer. Even if they don’t, it’s a great place to visit for travelers looking to chill out.
If you rent a beach house off of one of the booking sites, I recommend finding out what they will charge for extra power usage, as electricity can be pretty expensive. We only ran the air conditioning during the night in one bedroom, so we didn’t run into any problems with that in our rental.
One place to visit in Chicxulub is Chicxulub Pier. This is where you’ll find the Chixculub letters and the dinosaur statue, a reminder that this is the site where the meteor hit way back when that marked the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Images from Uxmal, Chicxulub, and Progreso.
Progreso, Mexico
We walked on the Progreso Malecon from approximately Crabster restaurant (which I highly recommend) to the pier. Progreso has a lot more beachfront development than Chicxulub, including fancier restaurants. Crabster is one of those restaurants and the food was excellent at the time of our visit. We opted to cross the street to Progreso beach from there and walk towards the pier. We kept to the beautiful, wide beach for awhile, before walking on the malecon. That is where you find the white statues of people staring at their phones. If you keep walking under the bridge to the cruise ship port, you will find the Progreso pier. This is where many people and birds, are fishing.
Day trips from Progreso and Chicxulub
The following trips are easily done with a car, especially if you have kids along. For us, renting a car in cases like this where we aren’t staying at an all inclusive resort, is so helpful.
Uxmal Ruins
We drove approximately an hour and a half from Chicxulub in order to visit the Uxmal ruins. This is a beautiful Mayan site and I recommend it if you’re visiting the area. It was a peaceful and lovely visit. I recommend hiring a guide when visiting the archeological sites in Mexico. They are knowledgeable and you learn so much interesting history.
Visiting the Uxmal ruins was one of my favorite activities we did while in the Yucatan on this trip!
Merida
We took a day trip to Merida on our very last morning. It took a bit to find parking. Once we did, we ended up eating in the closest restaurant to our parking lot. It was fantastic and actually super cheap! At the time of our trip, some of the things we wanted to do in Merida were still closed, so we wandered around the centro. Whatever you plan to do in Merida is going to be fun and I do recommend the centro. It’s a great place to buy souvenirs and Mexican made crafts.
Flamingos
I didn’t get to see the flamingos that live around the area, sadly. However, this is a fun and easy day trip.
We did drive along the coast to see if we could see some anyway, but we were unsuccessful. The place to see them on the north coast, called Rio Lagartos, is over 2.5 hours from Chicxulub and we hadn’t planned accordingly. The other spot to see them is Celestun (west coast), which is an hour and a half from Chicxulub. My friend, Mexico Cassie, has information about seeing the flamingos in Celestun on her blog. She has really great advice about it and I recommend following it for your flamingo viewing.
Overall thoughts on Chicxulub and Progreso, Yucatan
Our vacation there didn’t go how I expected or hoped at all. We were able to visit Progreso, Uxmal, and Merida, all of which were great and we enjoyed it. However, in our particular vacation rental, we felt a little housebound. Luckily, it was beautiful and right on the beach for easy access. I’m also glad we had the private pool. That made it a lot better. We also got a few days of rain, which is to be expected in a tropical climate. Overall, it was relaxing.
If you head over to Progreso area, I do recommend renting a car. It makes life easier and you can explore a lot more places!
Have you visit Chicxulub with kids? The best feedback comes from readers. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, questions, and suggestions. Thank you!
