Campeche: worth the detour?

All prices in Mexican pesos ($). £1 = $24.34 at time of writing - DEC 2025

As the ADO bus station isn’t located anywhere near Centro in Campeche, the first thing we needed to do on arrival was find a taxi. The town wasn’t nearly as touristy as most places we’d visited so far on our travels of Mexico, so there wasn’t an abundance of them waiting outside the station. We tried to see if Uber was available and although it showed up on the app, there was a suspicious lack of drivers. No matter, we only had to wait 5 minutes before a driver pulled in, we haggled over the price ($70 in the end) and were on our way. 

Cute but dusty high ceiling apartment.

With Campeche being less known by international visitors the choice of accommodation was slim. There was some hotels, guesthouses and apartments around but with less competition the room rates were higher than we’d seen in other parts of the country. After a lot of searching, we had booked a slightly suspiciously named apartment just a ten minute walk from the historic centre. With a name of “Castia de la 12 5 min a Centro Campeche ideal para 2 o 3 personas cocina con estufa de induction, microondas y fefrigerador” you might understand why we were slightly doubtful that it actually existed… but we got it for a cheap enough rate that we were willing to take the gamble. The apartment - that did indeed exist - was nice enough, especially if we tried our best to ignore the ever present dust and the few (but giant) cockroaches that seemed to live somewhere in the kitchen. 

Walking through one of the many "gates" in the walls.

We were drawn to Campeche because of the rich history. The Centro Historico was unique in it's design, in that it was surrounded by thick defensive walls that, along with the many forts along the coastline, were paramount in it's defence against English pirates in the 17th century. We were also interested to see what a less popular place had to offer, and as it was along the way to Merida (our next destination) it wasn't much of a detour.

Before we could get on with exploring the city the next morning, we had a small issue. A few days earlier, while visiting Palenque, I had been bitten on the foot by what I believed was an ant. I had hoped that (unlike the two times it happened in Australia) I was going to have a normal reaction and not need to see a doctor. However, my rapidly swelling foot suggested otherwise. It being a Saturday I had two main choices: head to the local hospital or visit a pharmacy to see if the doctor was in that day. In Mexico, most of the larger pharmacy chains have a doctor on site or nearby. The service works on a first-come, first-serve basis, with a small waiting room where patients sit until their turn comes around. As pharmacy doctors are either very affordable or free in Mexico, that seemed like a good first option to take. 

In the first pharmacy we tried the doctor was having a day off, but the second “Farnacias Del Ahorro Lopez Mataes” had one available. Thankfully I only had to wait 20 minutes before I was seen, and despite having all the relevant information loaded into google translate it wasn’t needed as the doctor spoke English almost fluently. We did have a fun moment when he asked about my ability to wiggle my fingers of the foot - but as my Spanish is far from understandable I was just grateful we could easily communicate. A few minutes later he had prescribed me some pretty strong Antibiotics, some antihistamines and a steroid based cream… he also prescribed an injection that I had to pick up from the pharmacy next door before bringing back to him. Although the waiting room was pretty full on my return, he let me skip ahead of the queue and after a quick injection to the bum (eek!) I was on my way. With the consultation being free I was expecting the prices of the medications to be pretty expensive but it only cost me around £20 total. 

Doctors over and done with, we headed off to get some breakfast. The spot we chose “Gordinis” was busy with locals. With it’s good reviews, popularity and slightly expensive price tag we were expecting some really good food however, we ended up slightly disappointed. The service was nice and the food wasn’t exactly bad... but my chilliquilles were slightly bland side and the eggs Benedict that Ben had was a bit bizarre. Oh well, not every meal can be a winner.

Next on the agenda was visiting “Fuerta San Miguel”, an18th century fort on the west side of the city that now houses a Maya relics museum. When we were looking at public transport options to take us in that direction we couldn’t really find anything, so we decided to walk. After an hours walk in the blazing Mexican sun, my first impression of the fort was less that favourable. It seemed a bit small and underwhelming. It was expecting a huge site with barracks, ammunitions storage, prisons and tunnels. To be honest with myself, when I see the word fort I tend to think of the labyrinthian forts we visited in India or Landgaurd fort in Felixstow, England, which isn't really fair. This fort was compact, set atop a hill with thick walls, a moat and drawbridge - perfectly functional but without a real wow factor. Saying that, once we paid and went inside we found the museum very informative about the Maya culture and traditions but I’m still not entirely sure it was worth the two hour round trip. Before heading back to town, we of course headed up to the fort's flat roof to see the canons left on display and to get a look at the views. 

Needing a break from the heat, we grabbed some supplies and headed back to the apartment to make use of the air-conditioning until the streets started to cool down. With Campeche's seaside location, we headed to its promenade in the late afternoon looking for the perfect place to watch the sunset. When we came to a small manmade outcrop, complete with a huge statue and seating area we knew we found the right place. As we waited for the sun to start its descent, many small portable food stalls turned up. They were selling: elote (corn on the cob), esquites (corn with mayo, lime and cheese in a cup) and marquesitas (like rolled crispy filled crepes) although we were tempted, we had already picked out a spot for dinner so decided to give it a miss this time. There's always something so special to me, about a group of separate people all coming together to share the experience of watching the sunset. A small peaceful shared moment before everyone dispersed again and carried on with their own lives.

As it was still early, we decided to have a wander about the town centre before heading to the restaurant. The main tourist street (calle 59) had strategic lighting along the edges of the pedestrianised street, highlighting the historic buildings that have been converted into shops and restaurants. The main plaza (Plaza de la Independecia) was busy, a troop of dancers were using a platform near it’s centre to showcase their traditional dances. All the ladies were dressed up in flouncy dresses with cascading skirts in white accented with layers in startling bright colours. The dance involved a lot of swishing of their skirts before twirling with their suited partners, hands up in the air, never quiet touching. It was a style of dance we'd see many renditions of as we traveled across the Yucatan peninsular. Just north of the historic centre, on the other side of the imposing city walls was a small street food market. Alongside the traditional snacks we found at the sunset spot, there was also people selling cake - we came back after dinner for a small sample... can confidently recommend.

Fish Tacos from Santo Taquito.

The place we chose for dinner was Santo Taquito and when we arrived it was dead. This almost put us off, but we threw caution to the wind and gave it a go anyway and I’m so glad we did. The restaurant specialises in fish and I’d read good things about their taco’s. At $165 for three they weren’t exactly cheap, but we found that seafood tacos in general are much more expensive their their meatier counterparts. All of the tacos were amazing, well apart from the coconut prawn ones. They were perfectly well executed but both Ben and I found them a little too sweet for our tastes. 

Our last day in Campeche was spent exploring the town and surrounding neighbourhoods. I enjoyed the aesthetic of the town, it was reminiscent of the other colonial style historical centres we’d seen but less polished, more flaking plasterwork exposing the brick underneath. This was especially apparent as we wandered away from the more manicured tourist street in the centre. Another thing we noticed was how tall the one story buildings were, and that they all seemed to come with a ridiculously tall doorway to complete the look.

Maybe it was because it was a Sunday but everywhere we explored was pretty quiet. We were on the lookout for a cafe or similar to grab a drink but couldn’t seem to find anywhere open that wasn’t along the strip. The Concha Aucostica (a large covered space with a stage) near to where we were staying, seemed to be where everyone was at. I’m not entirely sure what the event was but the space in front of the stage was filled with market stalls, most of them weren’t really selling anything we were interested in but one was selling cake… and cake always catches my eye. We brought two to share, a carrot cake and a tres leches and I can confirm they were both great. Even though we didn’t buy anything else, we had fun exploring the market, I love stumbling across these events that are local and not aimed at tourists - I think it gives a interesting glimpse into what life in the city is like. 

The last thing we had planned was a visit to the free museum inside a part of the city walls. Annoyingly, the part I was most interested in (the pirate jail and access to inside the walls) was under renovation and was unable to be explored. The rest of the museum was okay, it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be and was primarily in Spanish which limited my understanding of the history it was trying to impart. 

Esquites, slightly more appetising than it looks.

That evening we headed back to the sunset spot and this time we decided to try the Esquites. The corn was crunchy and when combined with the mayonnaise, cheese powder and lime juice, it had a fairly sour twang. It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever tasted but I was willing to try it again sometime from a different vendor to give it another shot. For dinner, we headed to the night market by the walls, glad to see it was there again (Saturday & Sunday). We decided to get tlayudas for dinner, a vegetarian one for me and a carne asada (grilled meat) on for Ben. As fat rain drops had started to fall, we took our tlayudas to go and headed back to our accommodation for the final time. 

Although we didn’t really do much in Campeche, we had really enjoyed our time there. It was nice to see more of local life and have a place to unwind. As much as we like heading off to new and exciting places, occasionally it’s good to visit somewhere with not as much to do, like a palate cleanser. For us, three nights was a good amount of time for the visit, we had enough time to explore and chill but not enough time to feel bored... plus our accommodation had access to a washing machine but not a dryer so we needed the extra time to dry our clothes before we could repack. If we’d wanted to, there was a few Mesoamerican archaeological sites within driving distance that we could have explored - but we were saving ourselves for one last “big” site in Mexico; not wanting to visit too many and become numb to them. 

Couldn't really find a place to pop it into the blog but the Clown fish inspired WV bug must be shared...