Isla Mujeres Holidays

If you’re after a desert island experience with all the frills, try Isla Mujeres on for size. Bobbing off the coast of Cancun on Mexico’s Caribbean Coast, the island’s the perfect combo of peaceful and pristine. You’ve got the sugar-white beaches and snorkel-ready reefs, along with lap-of-luxury hotels, an underwater museum and parks with zip lines and slides into the sea.

Isla Mujeres deserves a pat on the back for its beaches. Picture top-of-the-range stretches with vanilla sands, baby-blue waters and swishing palms. Plus, you can easily trade sunbathing for snorkelling or scuba diving – the reefs around here are legendary. Attenborough wannabes are in luck – between May and September, whale sharks gracefully glide around the big blue.

Sun-worshippers aren’t the only ones that love the silky sands around here. If you’re a real wildlife nut, time your hols for around May to July, when turtles come to lay their eggs on the beaches. You can also grab your snorkel and flippers for a look at the coral-covered statues of Cancun Underwater Museum, just offshore.

Isla Mujeres majors in quirky architecture. You can wander the former home of renowned pirate Fermin Mundaca. Legend has it, Mundaca died of a broken heart when his love married someone else, while he was still building their house. You can visit his still-empty tomb, which is carved with a skull and crossbones. Then there’s the abstract Shell House, and Joysxee Island – an eco-friendly boat house made from 160,000 plastic bottles.