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This extensive white-sand beach is the one Cancún locals love the most, and it’s still largely unknown to tourists. Bisected by a lengthy pier, Playa Langosta has calm, shallow, crystal-clear waters like most other beaches on the Cancún Hotel Zone’s northern side, making it an ideal escape for families with small kids as well as those who just want to lounge beside the sea. Restrooms and a playground are on-site, but beach chairs are not always available for rent, so consider bringing your own.

While it’s not recommended for people who are afraid of the dark or who tend to feel claustrophobic in small spaces, travelers who like adventures demanding physical fitness will likely enjoy a cave hike in Barra Honda National Park. A guide leads visitors through the park’s cave system, which is believed to have been caused by tectonic shifts more than 60 million years ago. The limestone caves feature stalactites, stalagmites, and other formations that have been evolving throughout the park’s long history. Keep an eye out while entering and exiting the cave, too; local fauna include agouti, anteaters, and coatis.

Los Cabos has more than offer than sand and sea. This tip of the Baja Peninsula has deep farming roots. Huerta los Tamarindos organic farm offers farm tours and cooking classes. Harvest ingredients from the fields and prepare a four-course meal that might include dishes such as vegetable chile relleño or roasted tomato soup. $85 for a 4-hour class. Get our complete list of Where to Go 2016 vacation ideas here.

There’s no need to venture all the way to Oaxaca for the perfect mole, as Chef Claudia Perez Rivas cooks up an excellent version of the dish at her Tulum-based restaurant, Cetli. Located on a quiet side street in downtown Tulum Pueblo, Cetli offers an intimate and authentic Mexican setting for a unique, candlelit dinner. A native of Puebla, Rivas describes the process of creating the dish as a labor of love and prepares the mole entirely by hand on her Great Grandmothers stone matate. Patrons are first offered an array of moles to sample in wooden spoons. After deciding on a favorite, the mole is then accompanied with its respective fish or meat pairing. As you wait for your dish to be prepared, tamarindo margaritas can be enjoyed over the house appetizer of freshly baked bread, cheeses and salsas. Casa de las Olas collaborates with Cetli on their annual Eat Retreat, where guests are given the opportunity to cook alongside Rivas and learn the secrets to making traditional, handmade mole from scratch and immerse themselves in the history of the Mexican culture. Think: Like Water for Chocolate.