City Benito Juárez, Quintana Roo Municipality of Benito Juárez Cancún
Quintana Roo's largest city: a planned 1970s resort town with real downtown life, markets, taco stands and ferries to Isla Mujeres.
From Playa del Carmen: 55 min by car (67 km by road) How to get there ↓
Near here
Plan your visit to Cancún
Where to stay near Cancún
Compare hotels, posadas and guest houses in Cancún.
Tours to Cancún
Day trips and guided outings from Isla Mujeres often include Cancún; with a local guide you can get there without a car.
Cancun Jungle Tour: Drive Your Own Speedboat & Reef Snorkel
★ 4.9 (3,445) · From US$69
How to get to Cancún
- From Playa del Carmen: about 55 min by road (~67 km)
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Popular tours to Cancún
Tours, prices and ratings from Viator, checked weekly. We may earn a commission if you book.
About Cancún
Cancún is the biggest city in Quintana Roo, spread over the flat limestone coast of the Yucatán Peninsula's northeast corner, facing the Caribbean. The 2020 census counted 888,797 people in the city and just over a million in the metropolitan area, which makes it the fourteenth-largest city in Mexico. It is the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. Most visitors know only the beach strip of the Hotel Zone, but the city proper, called El Centro by locals, lies on the mainland behind Laguna Nichupté and is where almost all of its residents live and work.
The city is young. When surveyors arrived in January 1970, Isla Cancún had three inhabitants looking after a coconut plantation, and the fishing settlement of Puerto Juárez on the mainland had about 117. A Bank of Mexico study of new tourist zones had picked the site a few years earlier, and the federal tourism trust that later became FONATUR built the resort as a planned project, financing its first nine hotels itself. The anniversary is celebrated on 20 April, although the decree that formally created the town dates from 1971. Growth was explosive: in the 1970s the population rose by more than 60 percent a year. Hurricane Gilbert hit the city head-on in September 1988, and Hurricane Wilma passed just to the west in October 2005; both stripped beaches and shut hotels for months.
Downtown is laid out in numbered supermanzanas (superblocks) rather than traditional street grids, and its spine is Avenida Tulum, with the city hall, the ADO bus terminal and the shopping streets. The life of the centre is around Parque de las Palapas, where families come out in the evening for marquesitas, tacos and live music, and in the two markets: Mercado 28, aimed at visitors and full of souvenir stalls, and Mercado 23, a working market for groceries, flowers and household goods. A pre-Hispanic past survives at the edges: El Meco, a Maya site inhabited until the sixteenth century, lies a few kilometres north on the Punta Sam road, and the El Rey and San Miguelito ruins sit inside the Hotel Zone.
In practice Cancún is the hub for the whole Mexican Caribbean. Its international airport is one of the busiest in the country, the Tren Maya has run from a station near the airport since December 2023, and ferries leave Puerto Juárez for Isla Mujeres every half hour. The city recorded some 21 million tourists in 2023. Peak season runs from December to April, when flights and rooms cost most; the rainy months are late August to November, and hurricane season lasts from June to November.
How to get to Cancún
Drive from Playa del Carmen: 55 min, 67 km
Cancún International Airport lies south of the city; ADO buses run from the terminals to the downtown ADO station on Avenida Tulum in about 30 minutes, and a free electric shuttle links the airport with the Tren Maya station. ADO long-distance buses connect downtown with Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Mérida and the rest of the peninsula, and Highway 307 runs south along the coast to the Riviera Maya. City buses cost M$12 a ride (2025): route R-1 runs from downtown along Boulevard Kukulcán through the Hotel Zone, and some R-1 buses continue to Puerto Juárez for the Isla Mujeres ferry.
Directions to Cancún on Google Maps
Distances are in a straight line; the road is usually longer.
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From the nearest cities to Cancún
- Playa del Carmen · 67 km by road, 55 min
- Valladolid · 160 km by road, 2 h
- Tizimín · 200 km by road, 2 h 40 min
Drive times by road from OpenStreetMap, without traffic or stops. Times marked ~ are estimated from the straight-line distance.
What to see in Cancún 3
Sights with their own page, closest to the centre first.
Lagoons
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Laguna Nichupté · Lagoon · 8 km from the centre
The mangrove-lined lagoon system cupped by Cancún's Hotel Zone, a Ramsar wetland of crocodiles and herons best seen by kayak or boat.
Nature reserves
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Punta Nizuc · Nature reserve · 15 km from the centre
Rocky southern tip of Cancún's hotel zone with the reef closest to the city, MUSA sculptures and mangrove speedboat tours.
Archaeological sites
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El Meco · Archaeological site · 6 km from the centre
Maya ruins on the mainland near the Punta Sam ferry, with a pyramid among the trees; reopened in 2024 with a bridge to the beach.
Map of Cancún
Neighbourhoods and villages of Cancún
Part of Cancún or just outside it, closest first.
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Puerto Juárez · Town · 3 km from the centre
The old fishing village north of downtown Cancún that predates the city, now the main ferry port for Isla Mujeres. -
Zona Hotelera de Cancún · Town · 9 km from the centre
Cancún's 23-km, 7-shaped barrier island of resorts between the Caribbean and Laguna Nichupté, with public beaches, Maya ruins and the Museo Maya.
Day trips and tours from Cancún
The closest Pueblos Mágicos and places to visit, with the drive from Cancún and tours that leave from it.
Popular day trips from Cancún
Tours, prices and ratings from Viator, checked weekly. We may earn a commission if you book.
All 5 Pueblos Mágicos within a weekend of Cancún →
Times marked ~ are estimated from the distance. Links open a partner site. We may earn a commission if you book, at no cost to you.
Before you go: getting to and around Cancún
- The nearest airport is Cancún (CUN).
- The best months to go are February, March, April, and July.
- 4 of the places on this page are more than 3 km from the centre: take a taxi, a ride-hailing app or a local bus.
- For day trips a rental car gives the most freedom; the tours above leave from Cancún.
Before you go to Cancún: hours, prices and tips
- Hours
- Mercado 28 is open daily 09:00–20:00 and Mercado 23 daily 07:00–19:00. Food stalls at Parque de las Palapas open in the evening and most close around midnight. Wikivoyage, Cancún (2025) · checked Oct 2026
- Best time of day
- Peak season is December to April, when flights and hotels cost the most; prices drop in the northern summer and early autumn. October is the rainiest month. Wikivoyage, Cancún (2025) · checked Oct 2026
- Best season
- Cancún celebrates its founding anniversary on 20 April with weeks of concerts, parades on Avenida Tulum and cultural events (10–29 April in 2026). Carnival, in February, opens with the burning of bad humour at Parque de las Palapas. Hurricane season runs June to November. Ruptura 360 (2026) · checked Oct 2026
Hours and prices change, especially around holidays. Each fact links to where we checked it.
Visiting Cancún: what to see and do
Evening at Parque de las Palapas, with food stalls and live music
Mercado 28 for crafts and Mercado 23 for a working local market
Avenida Tulum and the city hall plaza with its big CANCÚN letters
The Maya site of El Meco on the road to Punta Sam
Ferry from Puerto Juárez to Isla Mujeres
The beaches and Museo Maya in the Hotel Zone, a bus ride away
Plan your trip
Places to stay in Cancún
Compare hotels, posadas, and rentals in and around Cancún.
Tours & activities
Day trips and guided outings from Isla Mujeres often include Cancún; with a local guide you can get there without a car.
Rental cars
Pick up a car at CUN (Cancún), 26 km from Isla Mujeres as the crow flies; Cancún is 12 km beyond the pueblo.
Flights
The nearest airport with scheduled flights is Cancún (CUN), 26 km from Isla Mujeres, the base for Cancún.
Mobile data
Signal can drop away from Isla Mujeres: download a map of the way to Cancún before you set out, or carry an eSIM with data.
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Photos
When to go to Cancún warm
Cancún shares the climate of Isla Mujeres, 12 km away. The best months to visit are February, March, April, and July.
See the month-by-month climate of Isla Mujeres
Weather in Cancún now and the next 7 days
Live forecast from Open-Meteo. Chance of rain is the day's highest.
The closest Pueblo Mágico: Isla Mujeres
Isla Mujeres is the Pueblo Mágico closest to Cancún, with places to stay, food, and more to see.
Also close to
- Cozumel · Quintana Roo · 76 km away
Near Cancún
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Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) · Landmark · Quintana Roo
1 h: drive to Cancún hotel zone marinas, then 35 min by boat
Drive times by road from OpenStreetMap, without traffic. Times marked ~ are estimated from the straight-line distance.
Location from OpenStreetMap. Written by Puebloteca.