If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD362.69), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
It’s back to (admittedly, luxe) basics at Encantada Tulum, where life’s simple pleasures – morning bird song, say, as you tuck into breakfast on a private terrace – are placed front and centre. In rooms, every element has been lovingly crafted by local artisans – thatched palapa roofs, driftwood accents, rattan furniture and hand-woven macrame imbue each space with a soulful sense of place. This intimate, earthy stay draws a peace-seeking crowd looking to tune in and drop out and, as luck would have it, there are several opportunities to do so.
12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £354.80 ($439), including tax at 21 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional resort fee of $20.00 per room per night prior to arrival and an additional local city tax of $3.20 per room per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include a Mexican-Mayan breakfast to be taken at the restaurant or from the comfort of your room.
Also
Those with artistic ambitions should book onto the five-day culture lab which includes ceramic classes, life drawing, painting sessions and photo workshops led by local creatives.
At the hotel
Private beach, spa room, bar, two restaurants. In rooms: Crochet beach bag with towels, air-conditioning, purified water, furnished terrace with hammock, hotel’s own reef-friendly bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Spread across four independent towers, all eight rooms are alike, each signposted by Mayan names at the entrance and kitted out with a rustic hanging bed, earthy rattan furniture, driftwood details, decorative macrame wall hangings and an open shower lit by frosted glass tiles. We’re particularly fond of the upper rooms – especially the front two, Cielo and Estrella – which have beautiful thatched palapa roofs, wrap-around terraces and elevated ocean views.
Poolside
There’s no pool at the hotel, but don’t let that stop you from making a splash – guests are welcome to use that of its neighbouring sister Radhoo (the biggest in Tulum, that is), and with a private beach just a mango’s throw away from your room, you’ve got nature’s very own natatorium on your doorstep.
Spa
Wellness is serious business at Encantada, where you’ll find a holistic approach to healing with an index of Mayan-inspired shamanic rituals that sit beside more orthodox treatments. And while there is a dedicated spa room, treatments can take place just about anywhere. Choose from the energising deep tissue massage, collagen-boosting bee venom masks or go all-in with a two-hour mud ceremony. Yogis can align their chakras every which way (Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Pranayama – you name it) or find their zen through meditative breathwork classes.
Packing tips
Come armed with your best swimsuits, beachy reads and a whole lot of energy to channel through your sundeck Vinyasa.
Also
Unfortunately, this hotel is not suitable for guests with accessibility needs.
Children
Leave the little ones with the grandparents – this peaceful stay is over-18s only.
Sustainability efforts
Taking as its name the Spanish word for ‘charmed’, Encantada is committed to keeping things that way with a range of sustainability initiatives designed to preserve and protect the land for future generations. All power is solar generated, and water is purified on site. In the kitchen, you’ll find fresh, locally-sourced ingredients, sustainable cooking methods and a zero-waste approach to leftovers whereby food is composted and any packaging recycled. The hotel has cleverly devised their own brand of sea-life and reef-friendly sunscreen and mosquito repellents to best protect guests as well as the environment.
Grab a table on the beach for a soundtrack of lapping waves and a visual feast of Caribbean blue.
Dress Code
Tarzan and Jane go glam.
Hotel restaurant
There are two. Take breakfast and lunch at Encantada’s main restaurant, where pitched Mexican palapa, low-hanging ceiling fans and a rustic splay of wooden tables extends onto a palm-flanked terrace with organic, driftwood seating. Though if you’d rather dine from your beach chair, or upon your private terrace, that’s fine too. Chef Luis Aguilar has created a menu of Mexican fusion dishes which includes light bites like Yucatan ceviche and shrimp aguachile alongside heartier fare such as chicken breast piccata with lemon, capers and white wine capellini. For dinner, head to Nü, where a modern take on Caribbean cuisine is dished out in a romantic, jungle setting. The menu is a tad more selective to accommodate their focus on seasonal, locally sourced ingredients and sustainable cooking methods (each dish is prepared by slow-burning fire), but every option is artfully considered. Choose from Caribbean fermented cabbage with Cuban mojo macadamia nut cream, stuffed xcatic black bean chilli with grilled boudin blanc or wood grilled Campeche prawns bathed in Tajin bearnaise.
Hotel bar
The hotel’s bar services both the beach club area and terrace, serving local craft beers, wine of every kind and a host of fresh juices and non-alcoholic options. Cocktails? I hear you say. Alongside your bloody mary’s and piña coladas, you’ll be treated to no less than five varieties of the classic margarita as well as a line-up of signature concoctions. Try the experimental Arsena (vodka, campari, falernum, grapefruit, lemon and ginger beer) or get fruity with a Balam (mezcal espadin, passion fruit, pineapple, huana and lemon). For mezcal militants, don’t miss the tasting sessions at Nü, where you’ll be let into the secrets of the sacred agave.
Last orders
At Encantada breakfast is served from 8am to 10pm and you can grab lunch right through to 10pm. Dinner at Nü runs from 6pm to 11pm, and the bar pours it’s last margarita at 10pm.
Room service
Order anything from the Encantada menu straight to your room between 8am and 10pm daily.
Carr. Tulum-Boca Paila Km 8.7, Tulum Beach, Zona Hotelera
Tulum, Q.R.
77760
Mexico
Sandwiched between the beach and the jungle, Encantada Tulum is perched on the bone-white sands of the Yucatán Peninsula, just a 20-minute drive from Tulum town centre.
Planes
Cancun International Airport is two hours and 40 minutes away by car. The hotel can arrange transfers via luxury SUV for $180 one way or $350 round trip.
Automobiles
There’s free parking on-site for those looking to indulge in a spot of coastal cruising.
Worth getting out of bed for
If by miracle you manage to tear yourself away from the silky sands of Encantada’s private beach, you’ll find yourself well placed for all manner of natural and cultural thrills. Art buffs should make a beeline for Casa Malca – Pablo Escobar’s former mansion – which now houses the private collection of gallerist Lio Malca. Here, you’ll find works from some of the twentieth century’s most revered artists and designers from Jean-Michel Basquit to George Kondo and Keith Haring. A twenty-minute drive along the coast, you’ll discover the ruins of a 13th-century Mayan settlement built to face the rising sun. Now draped in exotic flora, these captivating clifftop temples gaze over the Caribbean sea and offer visitors a fascinating glimpse of this ancient civilization. The Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve is hit with nature lovers, a Unesco site of mangroves and marshes, tropical forests and some rather lovely locals – keep your eyes peeled for giant sea turtles, dolphins, exotic birds and the occasional big cat.
Local restaurants
A five-minute walk away from the hotel you’ll find Tulum’s first and only shared dining restaurant, Ocumare, where fresh ingredients plucked straight from the kitchen’s garden are fashioned into dishes deeply rooted in Mexican culture. Start with the fish with guajillo, lead with the tongue in green sauce, and finish with chocolate with a traditional champurrado. A little further down the coast you’ll find Arca, a minimalist micro-seasonal spot encased by thick jungle greens. Watch the team prepare a line up of plates – like sea urchin ceviche, mandarin aguachile, red cabbage kimchi and cucumber – while you whet your appetite with one of their signature mezcal cocktails.
Local cafés
For a smashing avo on toast, rainbow acai bowls, tropical fruit smoothies and vegan takes on the classic charcuterie board Botanica Cafe in central Tulum has you covered. It may not look like much from the outside, so you’ll want to head right through to the back where the cafe opens up into a lush, palm-shaded garden.
Local bars
After-hours activities come in many forms here in trendy Tulum. Wallflowers are best served by Nanà rooftop bar, a laid-back treehouse joint where the shaking and stirring of experimental cocktails is carried out to a soundtrack of vibey deep house beats. If you’re in the market for something a little spicier, Gitano is the spot; come 11pm Friday, DJ’s descend upon the bar’s jungle-cum-dancefloor for mezcal-fuelled dancing and romancing way into the wee hours.
For my Mr Smith’s birthday, we decided to return to Tulum, the very destination where we honeymooned several years ago. This might have seemed like a sentimental decision, but really we wanted to holiday somewhere familiar, and Tulum ticked all of the boxes on our checklist: guaranteed sunshine, a varied landscape of dense jungle and sandy beaches, and a myriad of luxe boutique hotels that provide the perfect terrain for hotel-hopping.
As soon as we arrive in Tulum, we navigate our way to Encantada, an understated adults-only retreat situated on the best patch of beach along the Riviera Maya. Blink and you’ll miss it: the hotel’s discreet entrance is fairly easy to stride past amid the bustle of downtown Tulum, where a concentration of buzzy restaurants and chic hotels jostle for attention. You’ll need to pass through a walkway shrouded by vaulted palapa thatch and through fragrant wafts of Copal incense before reaching the hotel reception. Encantada loosely translates to ‘enchanted’ in Spanish; and, on first impressions, the hotel is certainly very charming.
A brief look around reveals that thatched roofs, woven rattan fixtures and woody accents are the name of the design game here, with earthy strokes of colour running through the airy lounge spaces, and out onto the beach, which is peppered with a handful of squashy cabanas and leafy palms. There are just eight hideaways at this tiny hotel, each of which has a hammock-framed private terrace to admire the sunset from. Mr Smith and I were kindly upgraded to one the beachfront upper rooms to be closest to the spray, and wake up to sweeping views over the ocean from our wraparound terrace. A generous four-poster swathed in floaty linens is the centrepiece of our room, while all eight of the Crusoe-castaway bedrooms come with organic body lotions, open showers paved in sandy stone, and a handwoven tote for lugging your things over to the beach (which is really only a few steps away).
We arrive hungry after our flight, and while there is no formal restaurant on site, guests can nip across the road to sister restaurant NÜ, where flavourful Caribbean cooking and Mexican favourites are on the menu every day: freshly-fished ahi served with creamy yuca mash, and zingy ceviches, all eaten in an open-air candlelit space. We stumble back to our bedroom after one too many margaritas to find homemade sweet treats waiting by our bedside every evening.
The next morning, we skip the hotel’s free yoga classes and breathwork workshops in favour of a lie-in. Breakfast is served wherever you’d like, whether that’s in the comfort of your suite, or in one of the open-air lounge spaces on either side of the property. Breakfast unfolds at a leisurely pace: we start with fresh fruit, granola, and yoghurt, all washed down with one of the hotel’s homemade juices, before moving onto favourites such as omelettes and chilaquiles.
The rest of the day is spent sun-worshipping on the sand and snoozing while sprawled across the sizable beach cabanas. For those who want to venture further afield, Tulum’s Mayan ruins are a worthwhile day trip, and guests could visit a handful of Encantada’s sister properties. Spread-eagle yourself by Radhoo hotel’s palm-fringed pool (which just so happens to be the largest in Tulum, and is just over the road), or sink a cocktail at Nest’s beachside bar. If you’re here for the long haul, Encantada can even arrange a five-day cultural-immersion package for you that includes day trips to ancient ruins, art lessons, and much more. Mr Smith and I chose to work on our tanlines for the majority of our stay, barely moving from our perch on the beach, from where we could order nibbles throughout the day, from zingy fish tacos to fresh guacamole.
In a destination best known for its balance of beach-lazing and buzzy nightlife, Encantada strikes a chord with its distinctly relaxed style. From here, you’ll be in one of the best locations to explore Tulum’s burgeoning restaurant scene, as well as waking up merely steps away from a postcard-perfect stretch of beach. Thanks to the hotel’s compact size, it felt more like a private home than a hotel, with peppy team members just one Whatsapp message away should you need help with restaurant reservations, or arranging massages and excursions. Thankfully, pounding music and party antics are eschewed in favour of some good old-fashioned peace and quiet, and this adults-only retreat mainly plays host to couples looking to secret themselves away in the best part of the region, providing just the tonic that Mr Smith and I had been hoping for.
