Trip motivation
In summer 2024, our family visited Merida, Mexico for a 2 week trip. Our kids are school age (6 and 9) and we were excited to enjoy this fun city. We had visited briefly previously in 2021 and wanted to come back to spend more time immersed in the city. We visited with another family and had a blast. We mixed remote work, kid’s spanish camp, and lots of city exploring and day trips to beaches and cenotes. Traveling internationally with kids can be daunting but with a little preparation and research and tips from other travelers, we had a successful trip!
This post covers our flights, itinerary, planning process, and international logistics.
Read all of our Merida posts at the following links:
- Family trip to Merida, Mexico: Logistics for a 2 week Visit with Kids
- Favorite Family activities in Merida, Mexico
- Day trips from Merida, Mexico: Ruins and Cenotes, and beaches
Previous trip:
Planning our Itinerary
I love planning trips, almost as much as taking trips Many online blogs were really helpful! This was our second visit to this city and we were excited to spend more time in the area. When we visited previously, we used Merida as a home base for adventures and our taxi driver mentioned that many ex-pats hire nannys and remote work. We knew we had to come back.
When we’re planning itineraries, one tip for traveling with kids is take a 3-day best of guide and cut out half of it to make it actually realistic to manage in those same 3 days. For this trip, although we were there for 2 weeks, we stuck around town on most days and did most of our exploring on the weekends. We also mixed in some kid-focused/less touristy options like malls, playgrounds, andl pools. We also took several day trips which felt like a lot of moving but our kids loved reading their new kindles on long car rides and this was a great time for just chatting.
Several months before, I sketched out our plan in excel and on google maps with a balance of activities, rest time, food, rest, and fun. We made sure to research how far areas were and tried to schedule several anchor points with a few optional activities so we didn’t overstuff our schedule.
Overview
Our kids attended a half-day spanish camp at Habla that we absolutely adored. This was such a fun experience for the kids to interact with other world travelers and expand their world. They played games and did art and wrote stories in Spanish. They did a few family activities and it was such a cool spot. We are definitely planning to do this again. They have programs for kids, teens, and adults.
While the kids were at camp, the parents were remote working. Lame. But we’re very fortunate that we could do so as we would not have been able to take this 2 week trip otherwise. During weekday afternoons, kids would hang out at the house or if parents were available, cut out early from work to go on some adventures!
Read more about our favorite family activities at this post here including riding our bikes around the city, exploring neighborhood playgrounds, watching night life shows, visiting the zoo, and cheering for the Leons at a baseball game.
In addition to fun city activities, Merida is wonderful because of its proximity to really amazing nature day trips. We made 3 half-day beach trips (about 45 min- 1 hour away) and hired a driver to take us a big adventure to the ruins at Uxmal and a Cenote (underground swimming lake). Read more about our day trips here.
Getting to Merida
After searching Google flights, we found that both United and American offered reasonably timed 1-stop flights to Merida through Houston (United), Dallas or Miami (American). We purchased round-trip flights on AMEX travel. On previous flights, we flew one way into Merida and combined the trip with a Cancun visit (About a 3 hour drive) Cancun sometimes has nonstop options to Nashville, which would make this an appealing option.
The Merida airport is very small and the lines were reasonably short line to get our passports stamped and go through customs. (From landing to leaving the airport took us about 45 minutes.)
Activities for flights
- Our kids were happy playing with the personal screen and alternating between coloring, reading, tv, games, and snacks. Ellie has been loving the Magic Treehouse books and when they were little, they used to love activities in the Magic Ink and small play pack coloring books (Amazon links). We have one Nintendo Switch that the kids love.
- For more on our favorite activities and tips for flying, see our post here.
When traveling with layovers or to new cities, we always check the website of the airport and the lounge website prior to the trip (link here). The Chase Sapphire Reserve card (in addition to others) comes with Priority Pass access which gives you a card that gets you access to lounges at different airports. Often it is more common internationally. In Dallas, we were able to visit a priority pass suite and explore a capital one lounge. A lovely perk to get free food and drinks during layovers.
Another perk we got from several credit cards is Global entry/PreCheck. PreCheck is a program that offers faster TSA lines at airports. There are separate lines for PreCheck travelers, and you don’t have to remove shoes, laptops, liquids, etc. It is amazing and has saved us so much time and makes it SO much easier to travel with kids. For more on this benefit and how to use a credit card to receive it for free, see here. On the way back, we used our global entry benefit to skip the US immigration lines.
Transportation in Merida
Because we had to drive the kids to and from camp everyday, we decided to rent a car. The streets are relatively safe and well-marked in the city. We also used Uber on a few occasions where we went downtown and didn’t want to have to deal with parking. Within the city itself, uber rides were remarkably cheap $3-$10 and even day trips to the beach were only around $20-$30 each way.
For our car rental, we used economybookings to make a booking with Budget. Hertz is probably the largest international brand at the Merida airport. We were a little nervous because we had heard horror stories of places overcharging or trying to claim damage upon return. We used our Chase sapphire reserve because it came with primary insurance. We did have to pay $50 after our return for some damage to the tires but decided not to go through the Chase insurance to reimburse. For more on using the insurance from credit cards, see this post here.
Where to Stay in Merida
We are loyal Hyatt customers and I convinced our traveling group that I really wanted to do a 1-night stay at the Hyatt Regency Merida. Hyatt is our favorite brand, and we had stayed at this inexpensive hotel previously. This was a lovely way to kick off our trip. We have perks such as free breakfast, lounge snacks, evening drinks. The hotel had a great pool and a small fitness center. We packed our swim goggles and dive sticks for lots of water fun. We paid for 2 standard rooms using points. Because of our Hyatt Globalist status, we were upgraded to a suite with a separate sleeping area for the kids. We earned the hotel status through a combo of promotions and credit card bonuses. You can earn Hyatt points from Hyatt stays, the Hyatt credit card, and Chase points which can be transferred to Hyatt. You could earn one of these sign-up bonuses and spend a week here for free. Learn more about points here.
We then moved our group to a beautiful large casita with friends. There are definitely pros and cons to being in a house versus hotel. Although we ran into some problems with water and internet, it was great with a big group to have space to spread out and amazing to have not one but two pools! Our lovely house had separate spaces that was perfect for the adults to work during the day and for the kids to have their own areas to hang out it. The location of our rental house was in the San Sebastian area which was a little south of the main city. There was wonderful market nearby and a really cool playground that had little fair rides on some evenings. Our stay here really felt like we were part of the city, conversing with the locals and enjoying neighborhood walks.
Eating in Mexico
On one of our first days, we stopped by Costco for a few easy cheap meals, breakfast items and drinks for our house. During the week, the kids were fed lunch at their camp while we usually walked to the neighbor market for tacos and tortas. Cost of living was incredibly cheap in Merida with meals costing us $3-$5 and “fancy” meals making it up to $15 per person. On one evening, we went out for all you can eat Brazillian and spent $12 per person. When we weren’t eating tacos, the kids liked getting pizza, pasta, crepes, and burgers. Lots of different options. Kids meals were also abundant with french fries and chicken tenders.
Other unique things to try in Merida:
- Cochinita Pibil: A slow-cooked pork dish marinated in citrus, achiote paste, and spices
- Panuchos: Crispy corn tortillas filled with black beans and topped with meat.
- Papadzules Corn tortillas dipped in a pumpkin seed sauce and stuffed with a hard-boiled egg
- Salbutes: Puffed-up corn tortillas topped with meat (My fave!).
- Relleno Negro: A black stew made from blackened chili peppers and turkey
- Sopa de Lima: A refreshing soup made with lime, chicken, and recado (a Yucatecan spice paste).
There are so many delicious things to eat!
Other International Logistics
Passport: Before you fly internationally, check those expiration dates on your passports! Note that some countries require your passport to valid for 3-6 months after your flight
Phone/Internet Our US phones worked without problem in Mexico. I did get a VPN for doing work while in Mexico but it wasn’t needed.
Language: We worked with the kids to know basic greetings. They do take Spanish at school but only for around 45 minutes a week. We just did our best to be polite and worked with the kids to say, “Hello good morning, Excuse me. Do you speak English?” instead of just rudely speaking English to people. Although Ben knows Spanish the best, he was also the most hesitant to talk to strangers. Many of the people we interacted with spoke okay English. What we have found is very helpful from our other international travels is the Google translate app. You can type in English and show the Spanish translation or try to speak it.
Currency Exchange We had to use pesos at several of the markets and to pay our driver for our day trip. We stopped at several banks and used our bank debit card to pull out the equivalent of $600 over the course of 2 weeks.
More Merida Posts
Read all of our Merida posts at the following links:
- Family trip to Merida, Mexico: Logistics for a 2 week Visit with Kids
- Favorite Family activities in Merida, Mexico
- Day trips from Merida, Mexico: Ruins and Cenotes, and beaches
Previous trip:
