When researching a new state for our annual trip to Mexico, I narrowed it down to the states of Campeche or Veracruz, with Veracruz leading the list. But when I researched the state itself to see what we could do and where we could visit, I found myself with pretty much nothing compared to Campeche which offered a little more. That’s when we decided for Campeche and started planning the trip.

This time around like every year, we visited Mexico City for a few days, then flew to Campeche for another few days, and then flew to Puerto Vallarta to enjoy the Riviera Nayarit. More on all of the destinations later as this post will focus solely on Campeche.

After reviewing several hotels in the city, we decided to stay at the Gamma Campeche Malecón hotel a block way from the Historic Center of the city. There were two other hotels we had been eyeing but not only were they much more on the pricier side, they were a little further out which meant they weren’t really walking distance; something we were looking for. The GAMMA hotel had really great reviews and the rates were great as well. Plus, not only was the hotel walking distance, but it was also located on the Malecon of the city, which meant we would be located in a great area. The reviews were also great, which is something we always look at.

We spent 3 days in Campeche and beforehand, I had already created a tentative schedule for our time there so we wouldn’t waste any time deciding what to do. Here’s a recap of our itinerary there in case you need help creating one for your next trip to Campeche.

For details on my Campeche outfits, click here.

DAY 1

We had an early flight that morning from Mexico City and arrived in Campeche (about a 2 hour flight) around 7am. We took a taxi to the the hotel and were so happy to find out they were going to let us check in early. As most of you know, the usual hotel check in time is around 3pm and if you arrive before, for the most part they make you wait. So considering we were so tired and just wanted to sleep, we were happy the hotel gave us a room at that time. We napped for a couple of hours, got ready and then headed out to the Centro Historico which was just one block away. Once there, we walked around the city center, took a trolley that took us through the city center and the malecon. Once we came back, we had dinner at Restaurante El Bastion. It was a restaurant that had been highly recommended to us so we checked it out. Needless to say, it was delicious; so delicious, we ate there about 3 times during our stay. I highly recommend it! After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and called it a night.

DAY 2

After my research prior to the trip, for this day I scheduled a trip to the Edzna Ruins and a visit to the Hacienda Uayamon. Posts for both of those places will be up soon. We had breakfast at the hotel and then had our driver pick us up and headed to the ruins first. The day trip was arranged at the hotel once we arrived with a driver that we hired to take us to both places. Side note: something we do every time we travel to Mexico is hire a driver to take us to the specific places we want to visit, that way we don’t waste time looking for taxis and negotiating rates. We hire a driver either for the day or a specified number of days that way we don’t worry about our transportation for our time there. We visited the Ruins for a good part of the morning, and then headed deep in to the Campeche jungle to Hacienda Uayamon. I won’t offer too much info here on both of them since I plan on writing a post on each one where I will talk about them more in detail. Once back in the city, we were recommended by our driver a restaurant right on the malecon called Parador Gastronomico Los Delfines. It had a beautiful view of the malecon. This is also another recommended restaurant. After that, we headed back to our hotel which was close by and rested since it was a busy and tiring day. The heat had made it worse so we were exhausted. Fun fact: the restaurant actually offered us a drive back to our hotel at no cost; we obviously just tipped him, but it was nice to see how friendly they are in Campeche. Later that night we headed to the city center and just walked around the plaza and had some coffee and dessert at a coffee place located on the plaza called Frappisimo. We loved that place! Definitely, check out their coffee drink creations!

DAY 3

On our last full day in Campeche, I had planned to tour the historic city center by walking through all the streets and visiting a few places I had added to my list. Unfortunately, we ended up finding out that on that specific day of the week, some of the museums and places we had on our list to visit were closed. Needless to say, I was super bummed since it never occurred to me they would be closed so I never checked for something like that when planning the itinerary. I was also upset because it was our last full day which meant, we could no longer could come back the next day to visit since our flight left early the next morning. We made the best of it and walked around the city center anyway. At a certain fort, which was closed that day, we ended up walking the outside of it and took pics there. Wasn’t gonna let the fact that it was closed, ruin my visit to it. Later that night, we ate once again at Restaurante El Bastion and upon our exit from the restaurant found ourselves with a light show in the plaza. It was so pretty! After that, we walked around a little more and then headed back to the hotel to call it a night because we had another early morning. We would be flying to the next destination of our trip.

Campeche was such a pleasant surprise. I never, ever expected to love it as much as I did. Not only is it super laid-back and beautiful & colonial, but it’s also very low-key since it isn’t marketed as a touristic location in the USA. Upon speaking with several of the locals, we were told that most tourists come from Europe and Canada; we were one of the very few from the USA to visit. Because of that, it remains a very clean and quiet city as well as very cheap. It’s one of the cheapest cities we’ve ever visited in Mexico which is great since your dollar will stretch much more when you visit. I had such a fun time in this hidden little gem that I almost didn’t want to share it with people because I didn’t want anyone else to visit! Campeche is also the safest city right now in Mexico so you’ll feel super safe everywhere you go, even at night. Definitely, a city I can’t stress enough that you must visit!