Before the Spaniards arrived, the island appears to have been a major Maya centre, carrying on sea trade around the coasts of Mexico and as far south as Honduras and perhaps Panama. This ancient community one of several around the Yucatán coast that survived the collapse of Classic Maya civilization shows evidence of large-scale trade, specialization between centres and even a degree of mass production. A US air base, built during World War II, has erased the ancient city, however, and the lesser ruins scattered across the roadless interior are mostly unrestored. (The airfield did bring a degree of prosperity; converted to civilian use, it remains the means by which many visitors arrive.) After about 1600 Cozumel was virtually deserted. In the mid-nineteenth century, though, as the Caste Wars made life on the peninsula unstable, the island became a place of refuge, and by the 1880s, the town of San Miguel was established as a home for the growing population.

Cozumel Imposing and beautiful, Cozumel on the horizon lined with the famous Palancar coral reefs surrounded by deep waters of the Caribbean making it one of the dive sites most renowned in the world for thousands expert divers and novices who visit tirelessly year after year, it is not difficult to recruit organized excursions or equipment in hotels and various shops on the island, a little luck is to the plane plunged into the sea.

Cozumel is the largest island of the Caribbean, just 45 min. from Playa del Carmen by boat, is a tourist destination with all kinds of services, exclusive hotels, cheap lodgings, restaurants, shops and important jewelers that have made the island stop forced large international cruise ships. In the entire coastline of the island you can find white sand beaches and turquoise sea of great beauty. Swayed by the ancient waters or even grab hold of a giant turtle as a lifeguard, is the ultimate relaxation, a sense of tranquility and happiness rarely achieved.

In Cozumel there are many activities to do and beautiful to have a good time places. Popular activities are related to diving, rowing and diving kayaks. The more intrepid relish surfing, "boogie board", jet ski, the bronco (mini motor boat), sailing boat, "wind surfer", etc. can also visit the ecological park like Chankanaab, Punta Sur. Or if you prefer you can practice some sea or underwater activities offered by the park and the city. You can also visit the museum of the city, rich in history and culture, or stroll around the stunning, majestic rainforest and enjoy the varied fauna, as well as the tourist center San Gervacio, which is the largest archaeological site Cozumel.

A forty-kilometre-long island directly off the coast from Playa del Carmen, Isla Cozumel caters primarily to the mainstream tastes of the cruise-ship passengers that put ashore here during the high season, up to twenty liners a week dock at the piers south of the main town of San Miguel (often called just Cozumel). But you can escape to the wild, windy eastern shore or underwater, as the island offers the best diving in Mexico, with spectacular drop-offs, walls and swimthroughs, some beautiful coral gardens and a number of little-visited remote reefs where you can see larger pelagic fish and dolphins. The island is also good for bird watching, as it’s a stopover on migration routes and has several species or variants endemic to Cozumel. Over the years, island culture has developed distinct from that of the mainland, with cozumeleños relishing their lifestyle, which is somehow even more easy-going than on the rest of the coast; San Miguel hosts a particularly colourful celebration of Carnaval, the decadent week prior to Lent.

There are dozens of dive shops in town offering tailor-made small-group tours to the more interesting and remote reefs off the island (Las Palmas and Cedral Wall are popular advanced dive spots, while Palancar Shallows is good for novices); a two-tank dive. It also runs a full range of certification courses and can help find accommodation, including longer-term house rental. Snorkelling and sport-fishing tours are both available as well. The standard snorkel tours are along the reef just south of town (3hr). But the best spots are Palancar Shallows and Colombia Shallows, for which you’ll have to join a group through a dive shop (for several hours in the water).

San Miguel is easy enough to get around on foot, but blocks are larger than in Playa del Carmen if you have substantial luggage, you’ll want a taxi for any hotel east of Avenida 10. They’re plentiful and operate on a zone system. Buses are distinctly lacking, however, so to get outside the town, you’ll have to go on a tour, take a taxi or rent a vehicle. Mopeds are popular, but roads can be dangerously slick in the rain, so cars are preferable (some places rent jeeps). Per day from any of the numerous rentadoras in the town centre, mopeds and jeeps and cars; prices vary little, and haggling often doesn’t get you much, so you can often do better booking online.

The town of San Miguel the only inhabited spot on the island, but thick with hotels and other services. Day trips to the small ruins of San Gervasio, as well as the beaches and parks around the coast, require a bit of planning. Most visitors to the island stick with the placid west coast, which is additionally protected by a string of reefs, but the east coast is a truly rustic escape.

Along the malecón (Avenida Rafael Melgar), downtown San Miguel is devoted to tourism: restaurants, souvenir shops, tour agencies and jewellery stores lure in the huge cruise-ship clientele. The weekends, though, are free of cruise ships none generally stop on Cozumel on Sunday, and only a couple arrive on Saturday and Monday. If you shop, don’t buy black coral, an endangered, beautiful type of sea life which is unfortunately sold. The attractive Museo de la Isla de Cozumel, on the malecón between avenidas 4 and 6 (Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 9am–4pm), has small displays of the flora, fauna and marine life of the island, as well as a good collection of Maya artefacts and old photos. It occasionally hosts live music and theatre events.

The easiest beaches to get to are north of the town. It’s far more fun, though, to rent a car and head to the more isolated places in the other direction. Heading south of San Miguel, there’s accessible snorkelling just off the coast, starting at several hotels and beach clubs. Most rent snorkel gear; if you think you might visit a few spots, it’s worth buying your own. The best place for wade-in snorkelling is Playa Dzul-Ha, where you’ll find the open-air Money Bar and a dive shop. The current here usually runs north to south, so you can swim north and drift back, or drift down to the Fiesta Americana and walk back along the road. The bar here will probably ask you to pay for a bracelet this is a legitimate charge for maintaining the reef as a national park. Dzul-Ha is reached only by the smaller coastal access road bear right (west) at El Presidente Inter- Continental hotel. Tourists are usually steered right to the Parque Chankanaab, or “Little Sea” (daily 7am–5pm), due south of San Miguel. It’s a lovely lagoon. A large arch on the inland side of the road at km 17.5 marks the turn for the village of El Cedral, founded in 1847. In late April and early May, the village hosts the ten-day-long Fiesta de la Santa Cruz, a huge fair with bullfights, prize-winning livestock and dancing. Immediately opposite the turn for El Cedral is Alberto’s beach club, the most rustic option on the west coast, with a great beach and snorkelling. There’s a small restaurant, boasting fish fresh-caught with its own boats. Just a couple of kilometres south, at km 19, the last western beach is Playa Palancar (daily 9am–6pm). A restaurant serves good tikin-xic, and there’s a dive shop (closed Sun) where you can arrange a boat ride out to Palancar Gardens just offshore.

The southernmost point of the island is a protected reserve for diverse wildlife, the Faro Celarain Eco Park (also called Parque Punta Sur; daily 9am–3pm). The site contains several lovely beaches, the Punta Celarain lighthouse and the Templo El Caracol, which may have been built by the Maya as a lighthouse, and is worth visiting to hear the sounds produced when the wind whistles through the shells encrusted in its walls. You can climb to the top of the lighthouse for amazing views over the coast, or visit the adjacent museum of navigation (daily 10am–4pm) in the former lightkeeper’s house. A bus transports visitors between various sites (or you can rent bicycles), including viewing towers over a network of lagoons and a beach restaurant serving good fried fish. This is also a prime spot for bird watching, as the mangroves host both migratory and endemic species, including the extremely rare Cozumel vireo.

As for the rest of the island, Cozumel’s rugged, windy eastern shore remains undeveloped because, as on Isla Mujeres. From Parque Punta Sur, you can complete a circuit of the southern half of the island by following the road up the windswept eastern shoreline. Restaurants at Chen Río and Punta Morena the latter is popular with kitesurfers. The beaches here are often deserted, but swim only where you see others. The main road cuts back across the middle of the island to town. Midway along this road, called the Carretera Transversal, then 6km north, San Gervasio (daily 7am–5pm) is the only excavated Maya site on the island. Built to honour Ixchel, the goddess of fertility and weaving, and apparently modelled on Chichén Itzá, with several small temples connected by sacbeob, or long white roads, San Gervasio was, between 1200 AD and 1650 AD, one of the most important centres of pilgrimage in Mesoamerica. As part of a larger nature reserve, the site is worth a visit for the numerous birds and butterflies you can spot early in the morning or late in the day.

A good number of San Miguel’s restaurants are tourist traps catering to a dull palate, but beyond the chains and dull steakhouses, you can find some bargain meals, and a couple of places. Casual cafés, and the more formal restaurants though don’t rule out a seemingly empty restaurant, as many have back gardens where the real action is. The cheapest snacks of all can be found at the main market, the Mercado Municipal, on Salas between avenidas 20 and 25. The laziest lunches can be had at the palapa bars dotted every few kilometres along the southwestern and eastern coasts. Evening entertainment centres on the Plaza del Sol, which is ringed with bars blasting classic rock. On Sunday evenings the crowd is a little more mellow and mixed, as local families come out to chat and listen to strolling musicians.

By air:

The island has its own international airport, is located two kilometers north of San Miguel.

From the airport, there are flights to Cancún, Atlanta and Houston. You can buy bus tickets for mainland travel at the ADO office on Avenida 10 at Calle 2.

By Road:

The ferries travel the stretch of water between land and island. Departing from Playa del Carmen, visitors come to San Miguel in 45 minutes. Two companies cover this route. In the fastest, waterjets with air conditioning, the Mexico I and Mexico II, it takes about 35 minutes. Or you can travel on smaller vessels outdoor Xel-Ha or Cozumeleño to take you in an hour. But it is advisable to opt for the waterjets. The journey is faster, smoother and is less likely to cause some discomfort in the stomach. No discount on the purchase of travel tickets back and forth. There are 25 ferry every day, drinks are served. The average temperature is 26-28 degrees Celsius all year, perfect for lazy days on the beach or at sea. Cozumel has recently been discovered by the "jet set" international but still retains the traditional and quiet of an island flavor.

By Sea:

The passenger ferry dock is right in the centre of San Miguel, with the plaza directly across the street. From the airport, where there’s an ATM, a combi van service makes the short trip into town. Returning to Playa del Carmen, passenger ferries leave Cozumel nearly hourly 5am–10pm, although this can fluctuate according to the season.

Two competing passenger ferry services, Mexico Waterjets and Ultramar, depart from the pier at Calle 1 Sur in Playa del Carmen for San Miguel in Cozumel nearly every hour between 6am and 11pm, operates a car ferry to Cozumel from Puerto Calica (also called Punta Venado), 7km south of Playa del Carmen. It runs four times Mon–Sat (4am, 8am, 1.30pm & 6pm) and twice on Sunday (6am & 6pm), with a crossing time of about 1hr 15min; per car (with one driver) and per passenger, it’s worthwhile only if you’ll be staying on the island more than a few days. Departures from Cozumel back to Calica are between 6am and 8.30pm (8am & 8pm on Sun).