This report covers Cozumel Mexico Best Apartment, Restaurants, Markets including the best places to eat, shop, and live as you watch our daily life.
The key to retiring cheap overseas is living like a local. In general, when you travel the world, you will get better prices if you stay out of the tourist areas and shop with the locals. If you are surrounded by locals instead of tourists you are more likely to be paying local market prices.
Cozumel Mexico Best Apartment
The above video shows the apartment where we stayed in Cozumel. We just booked a week at $20 per night since we were only staying for a week. If we were staying longer we would have picked one with a larger kitchen. If we stayed for a month we would have used our tricks to get a bigger place for even cheaper than this. To learn how I find the best apartment in each place when slow traveling the world, watch the video and read the steps on this web page.
Cozumel Mexico Best Restaurants
Our favorite restaurants appear randomly in the video but favorites are ranked in order below. The below links are to Google Map for each restaurant.
Favorite Local Breakfast: This was our favorite local breakfast. It was both large in size and delicious and was a great value.
Venezuelan Empanada (Mi Anjojito): This is a Venezuelan restaurant. An empanada cost 30 Pesos (1.50). Qiang really loved the garlic sauce served with this empanada.
Large Burritos: Vegetarian, chicken, pork, and beef burritos. A little pricey because it is in the tourist area. 95 Pesos ($5 USD). But so big we were able to split one.
Chinese Express: 85 Pesos ($4.25 USD), enough for 2 people.
Vegetarian: This place has nice vegetarian sandwiches and juices.
Chile Relleno: This was in the tourist area so it cost 180 Pesos ($9 USD) for one daily special. The special included an entree, soup, and a 1-liter drink. We decided to share one order and see if it was enough food. It was very good and we were both full from 1 order!
Benito Juarez Breakfast: This is where we had breakfast inside the Benito Juarez Market. It was a good value for about 60 Pesos ($3 USD) per person.
$1 Tacos: Qiang loved the pork tacos so much she ate here twice.
50 Cent Empanadas: These are delicious and so cheap. We had these empanadas the day of the Beach Scooter Tour (video).
Waterfront Margaritas: Expensive but great view. The food was nice. The drinks were nice. The view was amazing.
Full of Expats: This place has good food but the prices were a little higher than most (nontourist) neighborhood restaurants. Very friendly host and the local ex-pats were all there (not tourists) so it must be a local favorite.
Vagabond Buddha’s Kitchen: Normally, we cooked many meals at home when we slow travel to a place. But we ate most meals out this time because we were only here for a week. To obtain substantial savings on your food bill, you may find that cooking at home helps you achieve substantial savings. If you eat in local restaurants, the savings from cooking at home may not be as substantial.
Cozumel Mexico Best Markets
Here is the Google Map of our favorite places to shop for food.
Benito Juarez Market: This market has fresh fruits and vegetables sold by Mexicans to Mexicans. There is also a number of restaurants where locals eat in this market. Benito Juarez was the first (and only) Indigenous president of Mexico. Because he came from modest means, markets, where locals shop around Mexico, are often named in his honor.
Chedraut Market: This is what I often call an ex-pat market. It is actually a Mexican grocery chain but it is geared more towards middle and upper-middle-class Mexicans and foreigners with more discretionary income. You will often find cheaper prices in neighborhood markets but the selection is better if you have more discretionary income. Another ex-pat market near the central Cozumel old town is Super Aki.
Fresh Fruits, Vegetables, Juices (Frutería San Carlos): We bought fresh fruits and vegetables here from locales at fair prices. They also have freshly squeezed juices including coconut juice unsweetened.
Laundry: 13 Pesos (65 cents USD) for cleaned and folded.
There is nothing exclusive about these places we shopped. They were just in close proximity to where we stayed. They had predominantly Mexican shoppers so the prices were reasonable. But walk around your neighborhood and you should find other great places too.
Thank you for checking out our Cozumel Mexico Best Apartment, Restaurants, Markets.
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This is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the YouTube channel for VagabondBuddha.com. Thank you for reviewing our Cozumel Mexico Best Apartment, Restaurants, Markets. The world is your home. What time will you be home for dinner?