A Frustrating Day Trip To Chichen Itza From Merida Mexico

I love day trips when we travel. And when we decided to spend the month of January this year in Merida Mexico, taking a day trip to Chichen Itza immediately topped our list of things to do. After all, Chichen Itza is one of the most-visited archeological sites in Mexico, and one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. But, after we arrived in the Yucatán, I really struggled figuring out the best way to tour Chichen Itza from Merida. And once we did go, we experienced frustrations. So let me share our Chichen Itza experience with you, along with some retrospective advice. Hopefully this will help you plan your ideal day trip to Chichen Itza from Merida.

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Why Go To Chichen Itza?

Chichen Itza ia the most famous of the many Mayan ruins that dot the landscape of Yucatan Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. And it’s one of the best preserved too. Its various structures were once at the center of a great Mayan city, when at its peak around the 10th century AD, was the largest and most important in the Mayan world.

Its most impressive and most photographed structure is the Temple of Kukulcán pyramid. But it also boasts the largest Ball Court in all of ancient Mesoamerica, and an astronomical Observatory. It’s also famous for its Sacred Cenote – a large natural limestone sinkhole, filled with water, that was used for sacrificial worship (both objects and humans).

Chichen Itza is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a federally-managed Archeological Site. 2-3 million people visit every year.

Where is Chichen Itza Located?

Chichen Itza is basically smack dab in the middle of the northern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It’s within a few hours of the Yucatan’s most popular tourist cities of Cancun, Playa del Carmen, & Tulum; and also from Merida – the Yucatan’s capital city. Consequently, day trippers from all of these places flood Chichen Itza every day.

How to Get to Chichen Itza From Merida

One major frustration with our Chichen Itza day trip was figuring out how to get there from Merida. We generally don’t rent cars when we travel, and depend on public transportation. This philosophy helps keep us on budget. But public transportation in the Yucatan has its challenges. And we used Uber in Merida for most of our local transportation needs.

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the best way to tour Chichen Itza from Merida without a car. More so than any other day trip we’ve ever taken. And there really isn’t a perfect answer. Here’s a look at the options.

Tren Maya

When I finalized our trip to Merida, and started Tripping our activities, I saw that there is a recently completed train line across the Yucatan called Tren Maya. It connects the peninsula’s major cities, and has a station at Chichen Itza. The journey to Chichen Itza from Merida takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We love train travel and I presumed this would be our transportation choice to Chichen Itza from Merida.

Once I started looking closer however, I decided that it’s not really an ideal option.

First of all, the schedule is not the best for day tripping. In the morning, Tren Maya only offers a 7am and a 9:20am departure from Merida. And then, only two afternoon return departures from Chichen Itza at 1pm & 5:40pm. Most combinations with any of these departures results in either too much or not enough time at the Site.

Second, the Merida train station is a 20-30 minute Uber ride away from the city center. And then once you arrive at Chichen Itza, you need to take a shuttle to the Site entrance. So the 80 minute train journey is in a practical sense much longer.

(If you do decide to travel to Chichen Itza from Merida via Tren Maya, then I would strongly recommend buying your tickets online ahead of time. The train is popular for long distance travel across the Yucatán and can sell out. The current second class round trip ticket between these two stations costs $34.)

ADO Bus

So then I looked at taking the Bus. But the Bus schedule is even less convenient. The fastest bus to Chichen Itza from Merida is with the ADO – Mexico’s premier long distance bus company. The journey takes two hours, and ADO currently offers three morning departure times at 7, 9, and 11am. However, there is strangely only one return bus from Chichen Itza, and it departs at 5pm. So if you leave Merida early in the morning, you will have way too much time at the Site. And if you leave later in the morning, you will be dealing with peak crowds at the hottest time of day.

(If you decide to take the ADO bus, tickets are best purchased ahead on BusBud.com, and the current round trip cost is $32)

A different bus company named Oriente reportedly offers more frequent connections. However, it is more of a local bus and makes multiple stops. I read that the one-way journey to Chichen Itza from Merida can take 3 hours. That did not sound fun at all. (We later rode an Oriente bus on a 1.5 hour day trip journey. Trust me…3 hours is too long.)

What About a Rental Car?

I did give it a lot of thought. Even though I avoid car rentals generally, I will consider day rentals for day trips (like the time we visited Meteora Greece).

However, after a lot of research, I decided not to do it. With full insurance (which I concluded was necessary in the Yucatan), it would’ve cost about $80 for the day, plus gas, plus road tolls, plus parking costs, plus a large credit card deposit. Plus stress….driving in the Yucatan seemed a bit of an adventure to me.

However, if you are renting a car for your entire trip, then setting your own schedule and driving to Chichen Itza from Merida is a no-brainer.

Or if you have the budget for it, arranging for a private driver or private tour would be another option offering good flexibility.

An Organized Chichen Itza Tour

So that left me with the option of taking an organized tour. And if you get on sites like Viator, you will see that there are many options for touring Chichen Itza from Merida. You’ll also see many agencies offering Chichen Itza tours as you walk through central Merida too.

I generally don’t love taking organized tours for our day trips. I feel that they provide much less freedom to explore. And this whole blog is basically about DIY travel. But, I will consider them if I see no other viable option to visit a Site I really want to visit. Here are two perfect examples – Why A Palenque Tour is the Best Day Trip from Cartagena Colombia and Taking an Elaphiti Islands Boat Tour in Dubrovnik.

So I sifted through all the options on Viator, GetYourGuide, and Airbnb Experiences. And I found that it’s very difficult to find a reasonably priced tour that visits Chichen Itza exclusively. Most combine visits to popular Cenotes and/or nearby towns. But I didn’t have a problem with that, as long as the tour offered a good amount of time at the famous Mayan site.

Ultimately I settled on a tour that included 2.5 hours at Chichen Itza (included 1 hour of free time), swimming in a private Cenote, lunch with a Mayan family, and visiting the town of Izamal. Our total cost was $120 per person, which included the $35 admission price into Chichen Itza. I thought this was a reasonable price for all it included.

This particular tour company also touted their early morning departure as a major advantage to visiting Chichen Itza. A 5:30 am departure (from our apartment) meant arriving at the Site upon opening – beating both the crowds and the Yucatan heat (a high of 93 degrees on the day of our visit). While we didn’t really love the idea of leaving so early, we did see the potential value in it, and set our alarms.

Our Day Trip

Early Departure

Our tour was scheduled to leave for Chichen Itza from Merida at 5:50am. The tour company picked us up directly from our Airbnb at 5:30. This saved us a dark 15 minute early morning walk to the departure point at Merida’s Plaza Grande.

We joined the rest of our tour group directly in front of Merida’s historic Cathedral and loaded into our tour van. Our group was comprised of 13 participants and our driver/guide. We departed just a bit late at 6am (we had to a wait for a straggler.)

The van was completely full and a little cramped, but reasonably comfortable. The drive to Chichen Itza from Merida took 1 hour 40 minutes. We arrived 20 minutes prior to the Site’s opening, and the parking lot was empty.

Because we were with a tour group, our guide could purchase our tickets before the general admission ticket booth officially opened (where a long line of tourists had already started to form). Consequently, we were standing at the main gates when the Site opened at 8am. And we were the second group of people inside.

So far so good and no regrets.

Inside Chichen Itza

We then spent the next 2 hours and 15 minutes with our guide. The Temple of Kukulcán is the first thing you see at the end of the entry pathway. And we did have it mostly to ourselves for a little while, with plenty of opportunity to take photos.

But then the frustration started. One reason I don’t love organized tours is the lack of freedom. We spent the next 45 minutes, standing facing away from the Pyramid, while learning about Mayan and Chichen Itza history from our guide. And while I do think it is valuable to learn that history, I watched in disappointment as the grounds started to fill with people. I felt the advantage of our early morning departure completely slipping away.

For 75 more minutes after that, we moved slowly along to a few of the nearby Mayan platforms, walked over to the Sacred Cenote, and then ultimately finished up in the Great Ball Court. We gradually learned more Mayan and Chichen Itza history along the way.

By this point, I was absolutely dying to explore the grounds myself and take a lot more photos – I’d hardly taken any, as I was trying not to be rude during our guide’s presentation. And I knew that the online itinerary had indicated an hour of free time.

But when we finished in the Ball Court (pictured above), our guide announced that our time in Chichen Itza was completed. He asked if any of us felt the need for additional time, or if we all just wanted to move on to the next activity.

And everybody else in the group wanted to leave!

I usually don’t speak up in situations where I’m in the clear minority. But I did in this circumstance. And asked for more time.

We were given only what amounted to 20 more minutes inside. That’s all!! And I literally took off running, desperately trying to photograph as much as I could. It was so disappointing!

We basically ended up with no time for true self-exploration. And then even worse, when I started doing some research for this post, I discovered that we weren’t even made aware of an entire section of Chichen Itza! A section situated away from the great Temple. The section featuring the famed Observatory and several other important ruins.

We were inside Chichen Itza for 2 hours and 35 minutes, and only got a taste of the great Site. So so so so frustrating for me and Mrs. TT.

Cenote & Lunch

We loaded up into the van and drove 1 hour, back towards Merida, to our next activity. It was located in a small Yucatan town called Sotuta. Here we spent two hours at the private residence of a Yucatan Mayan family. As our tour van parked in front, their property looked quite unassuming…

But after we passed through their front door, we entered their huge backyard, with an underground cenote and an outdoor kitchen/dining area.

I mentioned the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza already. And as a reminder, a cenote is a water-filled limestone sinkhole. Some of these are underground caverns. You’ll find them all over the Yucatan. And swimming in picturesque cenotes are a popular touristic thing to do. (There are even organized tours focused solely on visiting cenotes.)

The particular cenote featured on this day trip to Chichen Itza from Merida was a small underground cavern, underneath this family’s private property. Taking the steep narrow stairs down into this cavern, and then floating around the stalactites and stalagmites, was a very enjoyable and unique experience.

The family also cooked us a typical Yucatán lunch in their outdoor kitchen…

And we ate in their outdoor dining area…

The menu featured many of the items I talk about in my post about Food in Merida, and included lime soup (sopa de lima), guacamole, and three types of tacos.

We were also served plates of local fruit for dessert. Two of which I’d never eaten before – Sapote and Mamey.

Honestly, the two hours we spent in this family’s backyard was my personal highlight of our day trip to Chichen Itza from Merida. And as you probably noticed….I had plenty of time for photos.

The Town of Izamal

After we ate, we loaded back into the van for a 1 hour drive north to the city of Izamal….and towards more frustration.

Izamal is known as the Yucatan’s Yellow City, since most buildings in its historic center are painted yellow, including its historic Franciscan Monastery. During Mayan times, it evolved into the second most important city in the Yucatan (second only to Chichen Itza) and an important center of the Mayan religion. The Yucatan’s largest Mayan pyramid was built here around 400 AD….and it still exists…in the middle of the town….and you can climb it!

As we drove into Izamal, I was immediately struck by its beauty, and was excited to see more. We were scheduled to spend 90 minutes.

We spent the first 50 minutes at the Monastery – called the Convento de San Antonio de Padua. The invading Spanish built this Monastery on top of Izamal’s most sacred Mayan pyramid. They then coerced the locals into Christianity by blending elements of the Mayan religion with Catholicism. And that history was interesting to learn about, but took longer than I would have preferred.

When we were finished, our guide asked if we wanted to then spend free time exploring the town and perhaps climb the pyramid. And again, no one wanted to! Except us.

I didn’t feel that I could speak up this time, since I had kept everyone longer at Chichen Itza. Gratefully our guide did end up giving us 30 minutes to spend in town anyway. (I wonder if he saw me subtly nodding my head with panicky eyes at the thought of missing it.)

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough time to adequately see much of Izamal or climb to the very top of the Kinich Kakmo Pyramid once we found it. As we headed back to the van, we vowed to return to Izamal on our own.

(And we did return on our own DIY day trip to Izamal – it’s an amazing place. Future blog post coming!)

Back to Merida

The drive back to Merida from Izamal took another hour. We arrived at Merida’s central plaza at around 5:30pm. Our entire day trip to Chichen Itza from Merida lasted 12 hours (with almost 5 hours total in the van). It was a long day, with a very early start, and we were exhausted.

Mixed Feelings

In retrospect, I have mixed feelings about our day trip to Chichen Itza from Merida.

The Likes: I thought it was a good value given all we did and the distance traveled. I really enjoyed our time at the Mayan family house and cenote – we never would have done this otherwise. And I’m grateful to have discovered Izamal. I had underestimated its importance and beauty in my own research, and had not planned on taking us there on our own.

The Frustrations: I don’t feel that our 5:30am departure was necessarily worth it – while we were indeed first into Chichen Itza, that advantage seemed mostly wasted by staying in one place for the first hour. The guided portion dragged out much too long, leaving us with no meaningful free time at Chichen Itza. And we weren’t even told about an entire important section of the Site. Plus, I would have preferred less time at the Izamal Monastery and more time in the rest of the town.

A lot of those frustrations are typical frustrations with guided tours for a DIY traveler like myself. Everybody has different goals from their travel, and other members of our group seemed quite satisfied – I even read some their 5 star reviews online.

So you have to take what I say with that grain of salt.

So What Would I Do Differently?

I think it depends on your goals.

If you like this itinerary, want the Cenote/Family Lunch experience, and don’t mind a less-than-thorough Chichen Itza experience, then this tour is a good choice. And here’s the Viator link.

But, what if you want to explore Chichen Itza on your own? Then I personally think that the only public transportation option that makes any sense is the Tren Maya itinerary leaving Merida at 7am and returning from Chichen Itza at 1:20pm. My best guess is that this would have given us around 3 hours at the Site during the less crowded, less hot time of day. However, this is just a guess. There could be contingencies that I’m not aware of, not having done it myself.

Or maybe I should have sucked it up and rented a car for the day. The majority of the driving to Chichen Itza from Merida was on a nice toll road.

And I would definitely have studied more about Chichen Itza myself ahead of time in preparation for our visit – instead of depending on a guide. Though, if you do want a guide for at least a portion of your visit, you can hire one on site for around $50.

And then, exactly like we ended up doing, I would recommend taking a dedicated day trip to Izamal.

Is Visiting Chichen Itza From Merida Even Worth It?

Given all the frustration I’ve outlined in this post, a fair final question is – Is it even worth visiting Chichen Itza from Merida?

And ultimately of course, the answer depends on your own travel goals. I personally do not think that Chichen Itza belongs among the New 7 Wonders of the World. And based on my research, I’m not alone in that sentiment. We have visited many sites in our travels that we would rank as more wondrous – the Acropolis in Athens and The Alhambra in Granada Spain come immediately to mind.

So don’t go solely because it was put on that list. We both thought Chichen Itza was just OK. Would we have thought otherwise had we been able to experience it differently? We’ll never know. But there are a handful of other less-crowded Mayan sites within day trip distance of Merida too, including Uxmal – a site that many people say is actually better.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of what you decide, your time in Merida absolutely should include exploring the area’s Mayan history and culture. It’s all very fascinating and a big part of what makes traveling to the Yucatan unique.

I have several more blog posts coming about our own time exploring Merida and its surroundings. So be sure and check back if you want to learn more.