Overview
A computer model picked the site: the Bank of Mexico wanted a beach resort to earn foreign currency, and Cancún was a fishing settlement of a few hundred people when construction began. The strip is one road, Kukulcán Boulevard, numbered by kilometre, and every address is a point along it. Beaches are public by law even where a hotel fronts them, and marked public access points exist along the strip.
Highlights
The beaches north of kilometre 9 face the lagoon side of the hook and have calmer water; south of it the open Caribbean has surf and, in some months, sargassum. Buses run the length of the boulevard for a few pesos and are the only sane way to move. For a day away from the strip, the ferry to Isla Mujeres leaves from Puerto Juárez in the town, not from the zone.