This summer we went traveling through Mexico with the kids. We explored Yucatan and Quintana Roo in two weeks. Mexico is such a lovely destination with (little) kids! We were positively surprised! The costs make Mexico and interesting holiday too! What do you think, does a 2 week road trip through Mexico during summer holiday (everything included) cost more or less than € 6.000,-? In this article “Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids” I will gladly elaborate on this question!
Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids
I always split the costs into 3 different “sub groups”:
- Costs to get there
- Costs to live there
- Costs for fun stuff
Let’s list all the information of our trip to Mexico once more:
Destination: Mexico (Yucatan and Quintana Roo)
Period: 2 weeks during summer holiday
Number of people: 4; 2 adults and 2 children (5 and 6 years old)
Let’s start with the first cost item:
1. Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids; costs to get there
It’s important to know I’ve booked our tickets only 2 weeks in advance. It was a last minute decision to go to Mexico, sparked by the interestingly priced tickets I came across during my daily Skyscanner surf round.
Luckily, I had booked our planned trip to Slovenia with option to cancel so we didn’t have any extra costs with that.
A short list of our costs to get to Mexico:
Costs to get there | |
Tickets | € 2.462,00 |
Bus back and forth | € 30,00 |
TOTAAL | € 2.492,00
|
We flew back and forth to Mexico with Aero Mexico. This flight has a stopover in Mexico City before you’re delivered to Cancun Airport. For us this was fine. If you’re with very small children or children that don’t enjoy flying as much, you can choose to fly directly to Cancun.
We live relatively close to Schiphol Airport so the bus is an excellent and budget friendly way to travel back and forth to Schiphol.
On to cost item number #2
2. Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids: costs to live there
This cost item takes a while longer because this really contains everything you do at your destination, aside from the fun stuff such as excursions and buying souvenirs (cost item number #3).
Let’s take a look as to what fall into this category:
costs to live there | |
Food and drinks | € 700,00 |
Gas/ taxi | € 230,00 |
Shopping | € 265,00 |
Car rent | € 310,00 |
Toll | € 10,00 |
Hotels | € 1.123,00 |
Ferry | € 60,00 |
TOTAL | € 2.698,00
|
As you can see, this cost item is only slightly larger than the costs to get there. Knowing we were in Mexico for 15 days, that means we spent about 200,- a day on stuff such as accommodations, transport, food and drinks.
I’ve booked all the hotels through booking.com. Our kids appreciate a pool so we made sure all the hotels or apartments had one. Also, we made sure all the accommodations had a three star rating and a score of 8 or higher.
We were offered a car by Auto Europe. I did take the costs of a rental into this cost item though. As well as the insurance we paid ourselves. The costs of the insurance were 3 times as high as the rental costs. But in Mexico, an all-risk insurance is no unnecessary luxury.
The “food and drink” cost item is rather diverse. The first 8 nights we mainly stayed in hotels. We often had breakfast in the room but went out for lunch and dinner. The last 6 nights we had an apartment which made us go out less often because we ate at the apartment or brought a lunch package.
Time for the third, last and most fun cost item “fun stuff”.
3. Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids; costs for fun stuff
In this cost item I always list the stuff that’s not necessary (unlike food and a bed to sleep in), but that does make your holiday more fun.
Fun stuff | |
Souvenirs | € 145,00 |
Excursions | € 420,00 |
TOTAL | € 565,00 |
As you can see, this cost item is the smallest of the 3.
But what exactly is listed here? The item “souvenirs” speaks for itself. What we bought? We bought a hanging chair and a hammock that liven up our living room right now.
We went on a couple of fun excursions too:
- Cart rental on Isla Holbox
- Visiting Las Coloradas
- Discovering Chichen Itza with a Dutch guide
- Boat trip on Lake Bacalar
- Snorkeling and swimming at Los Rapidos
- Cycling through the ruins of Coba
- Exploring the Tulum ruins
- Snorkeling with gigantic sea turtles in Akumal
- And we snorkeled and swam at 3 cenotes
Looking at all the stuff we did, I think the cost for the outings and excursions are actually not too bad.
Costs of a holiday in Mexico with kids: the grand total!
Exciting! What were the total costs of our fantastic trip to Mexico with the kids? If you can do a bit of math you will already know, but let me list it all for you neatly:
Costs to get there | € 2.492,00 |
Costs to live there | € 2.698,00 |
Costs for fun stuff | € 565,00 |
GRAND TOTAL | € 5.755,00
|
So to answer the question at the beginning of the article: it costs less than
€ 6.000,-
Let’s not forget that this is a lot of money. On the other hand, I was surprised these were the costs to got to Mexico for 2 weeks during the summer holiday.
How to save on expenses
How to save a little money on a trip like this to Mexico with kids? Here are a few useful tips:
- Travel by public transport instead of a rental car. There is a good infrastructure of busses in Yucatan and Quintana Roo and you can use the little busses called “colectivo” too.
- Book 2 person bedrooms / apartments and ask for an extra bed. This is usually done without any extra cost. Our kids fit into one bed together.
- Go to the supermarket instead of going out for dinner. Have breakfast with self-made sandwiches, fruit and yoghurt with cruesli and make lunch packages for in the afternoon.
- Eat “local”. We grabbed a bite to eat “on the road” a couple of times. You pay less than € 3,- for 2 burritos.
Where did we stay?
We stayed in these hotels during our trip and we absolutely loved all of them all 4 are family friendly places.
- Cielito Holbox – Isla Holbox
- Mayaland Hotel & Bungalows – Chichen Itza (with the secret entrance into Chicken Itza)
- Azul 36 Hotel – Bacalar
- Coco Village – Tulum
So, has Mexico earned a place on your bucket list too? Would you like to read more about our trip to Mexico, you can!
