Playa Xcalacoco is a nice small beach just north of Playa Del Carmen where you will feel far enough from the center of Playa but still easily go to for the day. There are so many awesome beaches to go to along the Riviera Maya that this beach is not a destination in itself for tourist, but more of a beach for locals that want to experience a nice different beach to visit.
Xcalacoco Beach
The water is very calm here because of the reef and rocks. There are some parts of the beach that are rocky. The cool thing about the rocks are the small pools of water and the sea life that lives there. If you look closely you will see tiny fish and crabs. Birds also walk around here feeding giving you a nice chance to seeing several types of sea birds.
The sand here is more course with small bits of seashells.
There are no services here except a lifeguard stand. Bring your own towels and snacks and carry out your trash.
Hotels at Xcalacoco
It should noted that even though you are not in the center of Playa Del Carmen with tourist walking up and down the beach, this beach is between two hotels. Le Reve and Azul Fives are the two resorts near this beach. Le Reve is only a 25 room hotel, so it is not a mega resort. Azul Fives is a large resort but has a large pool area to occupy guest. Even though guest come to the beach, there is plenty of space that is not directly in front of it. Both of these hotels did not really impress us to make it highly recommended on our hotel guide for the Riviera Maya. Azul Fives does have it’s fans but we only recommend this hotel when it is on sale because the Mayakoba Hotels have a much better value for a similar price. Le Reve is a nice “boutique like” hotel but boutique hotels in the center of Playa offer a much better price and easy access to walking 5th Avenue, restaurants, and activities. The difference is Le Reve is on the beach and those in Playa are usually not but rather on 5th Avenue or 10th Avenue.
How to get to Xcalacoco Beach
You will need to drive to this beach or possibly bike there since there is no public transportation. You could technically walk up the beach from Playa Del Carmen but it would take you about one hour.
Go north on the 307 highway. Go past the entrance to Grand Coral and at the traffic light (where the “Coco Cola factory” is) turn right on the road with a sigh pointing to Lol-Tun neighborhood. Drive down the road about 3 minutes. You will pass several housing developments. Next to Azul Fives Resort you will see a small public beach access. You will not really see any signage, you will just see some cars parked there. If you come to Le Reve Hotel you passed the entrance. Parking is very limited! This stretch of road is very small and there is space for only about 15 cars. So you may have to park on another section of the road and walk. This is good news because it means that many people do not come to this beach.
Enjoy this local beach just north of Playa. Maybe you will see a nice rainbow or sunset there to add to your enjoyment of a day at the beach.
Have you been to this beach before? What did you think about it? Let us know in the comments below.
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I go to this beach to escape the crowds in the center of Playa Del Carmen. I like the small pools of water and even see some birds here. Nice Photos.
For we that own homes here and pay taxes, the police have now come to take the license plates of parked cars preventing us from parking ! This is an outrage, hotels do not own public entrance to beach or the roads to park. There is a petition to stop this outrage and will probably see much problems from the public just like all along the beaches of playa del carmen.
Thank you for your comments about what is going on in the area of this beach. Please keep us updates to what is going on there.
This is a nice hidden beach in Playa Del Carmen that offers a nice get away from the crowds. Parking is an issue however.
Thank you!!
The Azul Fives has built a new road but since they now own the property they are not allowing us to drive and park to enter into the public beach access. It’s all about the money for the hotels and the authorities of Playa. We as home owners and pay taxes should have access to the beaches here, I am just about finished with Mexico a country that I once loved. SAD
Rebecca
Thank you for the update on the area. It will be interesting to see how this ends up. If we every deal with Azul Fives we will bring this matter up.
I like this beach but also like this one here in Tulum. But if you want to explore another side of Tulum, this beach will take your breath away. Nested along a natural preserve, Tulum north keeps the raw beauty of the coast with large coconut trees, sand banks and local plants giving it a more secluded and natural feeling. Another perk of this area is the amazing view, from the coast of the water you can clearly see the shore and the Tulum archeological site.
Hello, I noticed on Google Earth Streetview, that they have now added a gate and what looks like a security guard post at the public beach access, has anyone gone recently? Does this mean, the public beach access is no longer allowed? Thanks for anyhelp.
Hello Saul
We know that there was a big protest from the neighbors because the hotels were limiting parking and it looked like they intended to block beach access. We have not been there in a while so we don’t know the current situation but it would not surprise us if they stopped allowing people to cross the hotel property or moved the beach access to another point. We will hope to get a recent comment of someone that has been there or we hope to stop by and find out what is going on.
Any current update on this??
The beach right now how a lot of seaweed. As far as access to the beach, we don’t know the current status.
As of May 2019, the beach is accessible to the public. There is limited parking. You have to go past the Azul Five entrance, and around the curve to get to the little beach entrance.
Thank you Sid for the update.
On Jan 8 Xcalcoco Beach had their guard dogs unattended around 8am and the 5 dogs attacked me and one bit me. I was just walking on the beach near the water not even on their property. I spent the remainder of the day getting medical treatment in a private hospital in Cancun and had to pay $3500 out of my own pocket.
The next day I took the security supervisor from the resort I was staying in with me to talk to the people who owned the business. They could not provide any verification that the dogs were vaccinated for rabies. When I asked for financial compensation for the incident they offered me 1000 peso (US $50) which I did not take considering the cost and inconvenience this caused me.
Im back in the USA and receiving rabies vaccinations as well.
Sad that I lost 2 days of my vacation, the expense of this unnecessary incident, and the lack of personal responsibility of the owners.
JT That’s terrible! What business was it that had 5 dogs unattended?