Jason Batansky

Any traveler, veteran, or rookie knows a certain point in all vacations when you wind up too tired (and likely hungover) to do all the vacation plans you may have made. It’s hard work having so much fun, and everyone eventually hits their limits after a few days of rushing from restaurant to bar to club to museum to attraction. Fortunately, an intelligent traveler such as myself plans and chooses a base of operations like the Westin Playa Bonita where you can experience all the luxury and relaxation and fun that your chosen destination offers without even leaving the grounds. This was the case for me halfway through my adventures in Panama when I woke up in my Westin Playa Bonita ocean-view suite, weary from the previous day’s travels, and decided that, like Bruno Mars, today I wasn’t going to do anything. And I was going to do nothing in the most fantastic way possible.

As part of my Mexican adventure, I’ve secured some stays at some incredible resorts. Describing them doesn’t do them justice. So I decided to do a sort of photo essay so you can see how great the Mexican tourism industry has been to me (I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like I might have won some “make-a-wish” thing, but they are waiting until after the trip to give me my diagnosis). The best places I’ve stayed were near Playa del Carmen, a booming beach town that was a tiny fishing village not that long ago. It is located on Riviera Maya, which is the part of Mexico that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean near Belize.