Why I Didn’t Totally Love Isla Holbox

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I have a confession to make.

I didn’t completely fall head over heels in love with Isla Holbox.

I was kind of nervous about telling you guys this. Holbox is one of those places that people totally RAVE about. It would be like if someone told me they didn’t like Bali. I’d be all, “say what now?”

But we each have our own experiences, different weather, we meet totally different people, we find ourselves in different moods. There are so many factors that come into play when you visit somewhere new, especially somewhere that is as beloved as Isla Holbox.

The trouble was, I thought I would seriously love it. I really did. I thought it was going to be somewhere that was right up my alley.

I thought the lack of cars, the unpaved roads made of sand, and the hammocks in the sea would be everything I’d ever dreamed of.

All that stuff was there. It was beautiful. The waters were crystal clear and so shallow you could walk out over 100 meters and still only be about ankle deep.

There really were hammocks in the ocean. The roads weren’t paved and they were covered in sand, just like I’d read.

But something wasn’t quite right.

See! Hammocks in the sand! (only, they were owned by a bar and you could only sit in them if you bought a drink)

It’s Not All That “Eco”

I think one of the biggest let downs was that it was nowhere near as eco-friendly as I thought it was going to be. I’ve stayed in hotels in Mexico City that are more eco-friendly than anything I saw on Holbox.

All that I’d read about getting around by bicycle and the island being well looked after were, well, kind of a lie.

Most places where we got street food or drinks gave us plastic utensils, styrofoam cups (I literally cry every time I’m given styrofoam), and plastic straws. And guess where most of that ends up?

There’s a Lot of Garbage Around

Not quite as much as Isla Mujeres, but that’s for another post. There’s garbage on the beach, garbage on the streets, and sadly, garbage in the water.

Isla Holbox is a tiny island and all this waste has to end up somewhere. I was really, really disappointed to see the way some tourists and locals simply walked past a plastic bag blowing in the wind or styrofoam cups floating in the water.

I hope more is done to help prevent this getting worse as more tourists flock to “paradise.”

The Golf Carts are Kind of a Hindrance

Forget bicycles, golf carts rule this island. You can rent them for about $50 a day and they are a much quicker way to get around the island. Even the taxis are golf carts.

Drunk tourists head from the bars back to their hotels in them every night. Since there aren’t really roads, there obviously aren’t any road rules. I lost count of how many times I literally had to jump out of the road so I didn’t get knocked down, both during the day and at night.

When you lay on the beach, you might expect to hear music, a bit of wind through the trees, perhaps the sound of the sea lapping against the sand. Nope. The only thing you can hear is the roar of the golf carts as they zip past the beach front.

Not exactly the sounds of paradise that I’d imagined.

It’s Not All Bad

I don’t want to sound like prima-donna or lead to you think that this place is just one big landfill full of gas-guzzling golf carts.

I had a great time on Isla Holbox. We stayed at a nice hotel, we ate amazing seafood, and the water really is insanely beautiful.

It’s not some terrible place that should be avoided.

I think I was just so disappointed that it was so vastly different to what I had imagined. It’s partly my fault for not doing more research, for perhaps being so naive about “paradise”. But I also think it’s important to highlight what it’s really like so that YOU don’t feel the same disappointment.

I also think it’s important to shed some light on the problems that I saw so that if you DO decide to go to Holbox, you can do your part to leave a smaller footprint.

It really is THIS blue. It’s stunning.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever been to Isla Holbox? What was your experience there? Do you think I’m just being overdramatic or kind of naive for thinking it would be so perfect? I’d love to hear how you handle these sort of let-downs!