#1. Merida
Since the Spanish conquest, Mérida has been the cultural capital of the entire Yucatán Peninsula. A delightful blend of provincial and cosmopolitan, it is a town steeped in colonial history.
It's a great place to explore, with narrow streets, broad central plazas and the region’s best museums. It’s also a perfect place from which to kick off your adventure into the rest of Yucatán state. It has excellent cuisine and accommodations, thriving markets and events happening just about every night.
Long popular with European travelers looking to go beyond the hubbub of Quintana Roo’s resort towns, Mérida is a tourist town, but a tourist town too big to feel like a tourist trap. And as the capital of Yucatán state, Mérida is also the cultural crossroads of the region. There’s something just a smidge elitist about Mérida: locals have a beautiful town, and they know it.