Some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever traveled to have had muggy, humid climates. So when I arrived at Fairmont Mayakoba with the hair sticking to the back of my neck, I knew I was in paradise. It was raining and the jungle hummed with life while iguanas roamed the pathways, baby crocodiles laid low in the water and coatis (raccoonlike animals native to Central and South America) huddled among the trees. For a moment, I thought I had mistakenly traveled to the Amazon. Instead, I was in Mayakoba, a resort development in the Riviera Maya just 15 minutes from Playa del Carmen and 40 minutes from the Cancun International Airport.

Acquired in the late 1980’s by OHL, Mayakoba avoided the typical Cancun way of building resorts. Instead of building up and only using a thin strip of beach, the developers took advantage of its deep forest and diverse landscape. With an eco-friendly design philosophy and the mission to create something different, Mayakoba was born, becoming one of the most unique destinations in the Riviera Maya.

Meaning “village over the water” in the Mayan language, Mayakoba is often called “the Venice of the Yucatan,” with its winding waterways, home to electric boats used to travel around the development and transport guests to their rooms. The eco-friendly complex is dense with tropical vegetation, mangroves and six miles of freshwater lagoons, so much so that you could almost forget the white-sand beaches and Caribbean Sea that lie just off the coast where the second-largest coral reef in the world is located, stretching from the Yucatan to Guatemala.