Beach
Playa Las Palmas
Palm-lined public beach where coconut groves once shaded a working coast, not a resort strip.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Playa Las Palmas in Tulum's hotel zone follows the people who worked this shoreline before it became a beach club strip: copreros drying coconut flesh for copra, chicleros carving sapodilla trees for chewing-gum resin, and coraleros freediving the reef for lobster and conch. It traces how a small fishing crossing point held on into the nineteen sixties, and what changed to turn worked ground into a resort coast. Look down the palm line while you listen; those trees are the last on-site witnesses to the trade.
This audio guide was created using AI.