Family friendly not horrid tourist town Mexico please!!!

[DeliveredByKiki]

Without going into details Dh is convinced if we go to Mexico we'll get abducted and murdered despite all the proof I've given to the contrary, BUT I have convinced him to at least look for a trip at Christmas as we live only a 2 hour flight away and have no family visiting this year so am trying to come up with some options.

So, safe (ugh) and good for families but I reeeeeeeeally don't want to do a massive AI hotel only surrounded by other hotels, would rather stay in a smaller place and be able to get out to Mayan ruins and eat legit food etc - ideally I'd stay in a private house or something but need to convince DH on going in the first place

Any recs on general areas and specific places before I start the Google search? He feels better about "personal" recommendations. DC will be 4&7, good swimmers and eaters. Budget probably $2K not including flights (which would be from US anyway) so I suppose £1300 ish? Not a huge amount I know but I'm hoping that will steer us closer to small places than giant resorts

I quite like playa del carmen. You have many types of hotels and lovely restaurants if you are doing self catering. You'd be near Tulum and other ruins.

Another nice place is Isla de la Mujer in front of Cancun.
Definitely do not stay in Cancun.

I think the Yucatan is the only safe place in Mexico.

Why not cancun? I'm heading there next week, I live in Texas, everyone hops to Mexico for quick beach breaks (don't know anyone who has been murdered yet!) and cancun is very popular. Hoping that going after the USA schools have started (we are at a british school with a later start date) that it will be quieter.

Staying at club med, all inclusive, may not even leave the resort in 5 days, we will all snorkel and scuba, dds will do some trapeze skills, we'll hope to see some turtles, weather will be good, looking forward to it.

Rivera maya is said to be nice

Second playa del Carmen.

Cancun is def off my watch list anyway....even more at the thought of AI beach resort you wouldn't leave for 5 days, sorry MyFriends! I live in SoCal so we get our fill of decent beaches

Never been but I've heard Tullum is gorgeous.
It's on my wish list.

Not Cancun - the hotel zone is just wall to wall hotels it hugely built up and touristy.

Puerto Morelos is nice or playa deal carmen which is bigger.

Riviera Maya is the stretch between Cancun and Playa del carmen. The problem are the sea grass. It is not very pleasant to swim in the sea. And you can't really go anywhere. There is the main road, and resorts by the sea. You don't have a village.

In Playa del Carmen and Isla de la mujer, it is very nice to wander around, you have café, shops. You feel you are in Mexico.

I stayed in playa deal carmen, we was in a hotel within a gated community but there was lots of nice houses there that I can imagine some rent out to holidaymakers.

I've heard Cabo is nice too.

Playa Car, which is a gated community in Playa del Carmen. Very safe, near enough to visit Tulum andhas lots of private rentals and hotels. Right on the beach. Beautiful.

Tulum is lovely, fantastic beqch, ruins, short hop to akumel for swimming with turtles. Personally I prefer to relax in an all inclusive hotel and then explore the area but everyone is different! Not sure why people assume that all inclusive means you don't leave the hot, we use it as a fab base for exploring. Xel-ha Eco park also fab near tulum, denotes, diving, snorkelling lots to explore can go to coba or chichen itza

Definatly Tulum, it's a really lovely place and a good balance of authentic Mexico but with tourist comforts. Plenty of small independent hotel to chose from too. Not sure if the one I used is still in business but I loved the location and staff were great, think it was EcoTulum

Well I'm in Texas, not known for its beaches so we are going purely for that. No seaweed at cancun for the last few weeks according to trip advisor and the resort we're going to, we can get to Mayan ruins if we want but my 10 yo is desperate to get her padi which will take a few days, we want to swim with whale sharks, there is a reef just off the beach which is what we specially wanted etc. it's only a few hours away and it's a quick trip to the beach like Brits have a quick hope to France or Spain. We've had other trip to Mexico (Mexico city etc), just need to relax for a few days

Totally fair enough MyFriends, as a pp said it depends what you're going for, we live at the beach so I'm specifically going for Mexico.

Have been looking up Tulum and that looks a plan, especially as you can also get to other inland ruins easily. Have discovered a great sounding B&B in Vallolidad which is about an hour inland, might be too much for DH so Tulum a good mix? Did folks tend to drive from Cancun airport or take a shuttle?