Palenque, Chiapas Travel Guide: The Town & The Ruins

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Home to one of the best Mayan cities in the country, dozens of thundering waterfalls, and verdant jungles filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes, Palenque Chiapas is an iconic destination in Mexico. 

Most people visit purely for the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Palenque Ruins, without understanding that Palenque is also a modern-day town. 

The naming conventions can be a little complicated and we found it challenging to find the information we needed about Palenque the town to plan our time here. 

Although the modern, commercial centre doesn’t have quite the same exotic appeal as the area around the ruins, it’s the perfect base for further outdoor adventures into the Chiapas jungle. It also provides the necessary traveller amenities for a comfortable visit to the ruins. 

In this guide, I’ll share everything you need to know about visiting Palenque Chiapas – the town and the ruins. Getting there and around, choosing where to stay, and comprehensive information about visiting the ruins and other attractions around the area. 

About Palenque Chiapas

Palenque is both the name of the famous Mayan ruins and the modern-day town. 

Connected via the 9 km (6.6 mi) Carretera Palenque – Ruinas (Palenque – Ruins Road), it takes about 20 minutes to travel between the two. 

Palenque town is busy, sweaty and commercial. It’s safe and has all the amenities a tourist could need, but it lacks charm and its streets are nothing like the pretty San Cristobal de las Casas. 

It’s decidedly NOT what your mind imagines when you think of the Palenque Ruins, nestled in lush, tropical jungle. 

The ruins sit inside the Parque Nacional Palenque (Palenque National Park) and are every bit as wild and jungly as you’d imagined. You need only drive a few minutes out of town, and you feel like you’ve been plonked back into the jungle again. 

A handful of accommodations and restaurants are spread along this road, allowing visitors to have a more natural, jungle experience. Yes, you’ll sacrifice some of the amenities of town, but it’s worth it to sleep to the sounds of the jungle and see wildlife.

How to get to Palenque

From outside of Chiapas

If you’re approaching Palenque from the Yucatan Peninsula or another part of Mexico (i.e. you aren’t already in Chiapas), you’ve got a couple of options for getting here: 

• ✈️ By air: Palenque technically does have an airport, but it’s not operational. If you’re flying in, you want to fly to Villahermosa, the capital city of neighbouring Tabasco state. The VSA – Carlos Rovirosa Pérez International Airport receives flights from several cities around Mexico.
  
  The airport is about 2 hours from Palenque and ADO runs a route between the two. You can check the schedule and book via BusBud (if you type in ‘Villahermosa’ the airport will come up as an origin option).
  
  If you want to rent a car for your time in Palenque, or Chiapas more broadly, this is the place to do it from. The airport has the biggest selection of rental cars, there aren’t really any options in Palenque. 

• 🚌 By bus: ADO (and associated brands) service Palenque, with bus routes from all over the Yucatan Peninsula to Palenque. Campeche or Merida is the closest and most logical departure point, but you can come from as far as Cancun or Tulum if you’re tight on time and aren’t visiting Yucatan state. Browse routes and schedules and book tickets on BusBud.

• 🚊 By train: as of 2024, sections of the Tren Maya (Maya Train) are finally operational. The Cancun – Palenque line is running, with multiple stops along the way.

From within Chiapas

If you’re travelling through Mexico from the west to the east, Palenque is likely to be your final stop in Chiapas. 

At the very least, you’ll also visit San Cristobal de las Casas, but getting between these two destinations is not as straightforward as it seems. 

Highway 199 connects the two destinations in about 6 hours, but this route has frequent problems with roadblocks and Indigenous protests. The ADO buses will not travel this way and instead take a 10+ hour detour via Villahermosa. 

Tourist shuttles travel this direct route, often combining the trip with a stop at Agua Azul and Misol-Ha into one long day. This is generally safe as the shuttles travel in a convoy or with a police escort. 

It’s possible to do a DAY TRIP from San Cristobal to Palenque and back, including the waterfalls and ruins too. This is 19+ hours with more than 10 hours of driving. Please do NOT do this, it’s insane! Palenque needs a few days at least. 

Our solution was to create a broader 2 week Chiapas itinerary, where we travelled from San Cristobal to Palenque via the southern part of the state, with multiple stops at lesser-known, remote locations. We did it via public transport, but it would be much simpler with a rental car. 

San Cristobal → Cascadas El Chiflon → Lagos de Montebello → Las Nubes → Las Guacamayas → Yaxchilan and Bonampak → Palenque

In this case, you’d be travelling to Palenque from Las Guacamayas or Yaxhilan/Bonampak if you choose to stop there. My Chiapas itinerary has more specific details about transport, but basically, if you don’t have a car, there are colectivos to Palenque that run frequently along Highway 307 and you can jump on wherever you’re coming from. 

Getting around Palenque

• 🚙 Car: if you’ve decided to rent a car for your time in Palenque or Chiapas more broadly, you’ll need to make sure you arrive in town with a vehicle as there aren’t any rental agencies here. The airport in Villahermosa is the best place to rent a car. If you’ve got a vehicle, you will have ultimate freedom and flexibility and can stay wherever you like and get yourself around to all the sites. 

• 🚐 By colectivo: if you don’t have a car, the colectivos will be your main method of transport in and around Palenque.
  
  Town to ruins
  There is a route that runs between the town centre and the ruins, plying back and forth all day every 15 – 20 minutes. It leaves from this location in town, passes by the front of the ADO bus station or you can flag it down anywhere along the road to the ruins. It will say ‘ruinas’ on the front and the price is fixed at 25 MXN.
  
  Sights around Palenque
  There is a very efficient network of colectivos that run to almost all the attractions around Palenque. I share specific instructions below for each attraction. 

• 🚕 By taxi: taxis ply around town and the ruins. We stayed near the ruins and used a taxi to get to and from our accommodation when we had all our luggage and couldn’t be bothered with the colectivo. We were charged something different each time, but expect to pay around 60 – 80 MXN for journeys between the ruins area and town. 

• 🎟️ Tours: it’s easier and often just as affordable to take tours to visit certain attractions around Palenque. I’ll provide specific info below for each attraction, but if you’re not interested in navigating the colectivos and all the waiting that inevitably comes with them, you can use tours instead.

Where to stay in Palenque Chiapas

You have two choices when it comes to where to stay in Palenque: 

• 🏘️ In town
• 🌳 Near the ruins

Palenque town

Staying in town is the most convenient, as you have easy access to a lot of restaurants, supermarkets, ATMs, the ADO bus station and colectivo stops for most destinations around town. 

However, the town is nothing special and it doesn’t really give you the jungle atmosphere that Palenque is known for. It’s perfectly safe, but it’s got a noisy, frantic vibe and isn’t particularly pretty (nothing like San Cris!). 

Here are some recommended options in town: 

• 💰 Budget: Casa Janaab
• 💰💰 Mid-range: Casa Hadassa La Cañada
• 💰💰💰 Boutique: Hotel Maya Tulipanes Palenque

Near the ruins

We opted to stay closer to the ruins. One minute you’re in the busy, developed town and the next you’re surrounded by greenery and feel like you’ve been dropped in the jungle. It felt like this was the Palenque we had come to see. 

You do sacrifice convenience and we had to plan our meals carefully so we weren’t stuck eating at our accommodation three times a day ($$$), but for us, it was worth it for the jungle vibe. We saw and heard tons of wildlife around our accommodation, and despite being a pretty touristy area, it did feel like we were in the heart of the jungle! 

Depending on exactly where you choose to stay, you may or may not be able to walk to the ruins, but you’ll be much closer than in town and you can wave down a colectivo anywhere along the road. 

Plus, if you choose to visit any of the other sights around Palenque via tour, they’ll pick you up from your accommodation here so there’s no need to always travel into town. 

We splurged and stayed at the Chan-Kah Resort. After a very hot and sweaty few days in an open-air cabin in the jungle at Las Guacamayas, we lapped up the aircon, pool and room service at Chan-Kah! One of our very few splurges on our 6-month trip, it was so worth it in the heat! 

Here are some recommended options for accommodations near the ruins:

• 💰 Budget: Cabañas Kin Balam
• 💰💰 Mid-range: Hotel Maya Bell
• 💰💰💰 Boutique: Chan-Kah Resort

*My top tip is to avoid staying at El Panchan. This collective property hosts a handful of different cabins, restaurants and bars. It’s a cool spot in the jungle and is definitely worth visiting for a meal or drink at night, but the accommodation quality isn’t great and it gets pretty rowdy. Stay across the road at Kin Balam and pop over to Panchan when you want the party.

Things to do in Palenque

Mayan Ruins of Palenque

The sole reason for many people’s visit to Palenque town, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Palenque ruins definitely lived up to the hype!

Sometimes referred to as Zona Arqueológica Palenque (Palenque Archaeological Zone), the Mayan Ruins of Palenque, the Palenque Ruins or simply Palenque, some clarification is usually needed to distinguish between the town and the ruins. 

Located deep in the jungle, Palenque is one of the most impressive and best-preserved Mayan ruins in Mexico. For us, it’s second only to Tikal just over the border in Guatemala. 

We loved the jungle atmosphere, which was completely different to other ruins we had visited like Teotihuacan in Mexico City, which was sparse and arid. 

The sounds of howler monkeys roaring in the trees and the greenery snaking around the crumbling structures were incredible and it felt like we weren’t just having a historical experience, but a nature one too. 

The site is quite small, as many of the structures are still hidden away in the jungle. I won’t point out individual temples to see, just take a photo of the map at the entrance and work your way around to all of them. It’s feasible to see all the temples and you can comfortably explore the whole site in 2 – 3 hours.

Plan to be there as soon as the site opens to beat the crowds and the heat. Bring plenty of water and be prepared to be slightly bombarded by guides, and people selling souvenirs and trinkets inside the park. 

How to visit the Palenque Archaeological Zone

💰 Cost

There are actually two tickets you need to purchase to visit the archaeological site: 

• Palenque National Park fee: 109 MXN | bracelet valid for 5 days 
• Palenque Archaeological Site: 95 MXN | paper ticket valid for one day only 

Bring cash, you can’t pay by card for both fees.

⏰ Opening hours

The ruins are advertised as being open 7 days a week from 8:00 am – 5:00 pm, with the last entrance at 4:00 pm. In our experience, this is not true. 

When we visited, the ticket office opened at 8:00 – 8:15 am, but the actual archaeological site did not open until 8:30 am. 

Things may have changed since our visit, but I can still see a lot of sources online stating the ruins open at 8:30 am, so I’d ask around when you arrive to confirm. 

Avoid visiting on a Sunday, when entrance for Mexican nationals is free and the park gets very busy. 

The Palenque Museum, which is in the same location as the ticket office, is only open from Tuesday – Saturday (closed Sunday and Monday). 

The opening hours for the museum are wildly inconsistent online and are listed differently everywhere you look. Some say the museum opens at 8:00, other places say it opens at 8:30, and some say it opens at 9:00 am. Apologies I can’t recall the exact time, but either way, I’d visit the ruins before the museum so by the time you make it there, it should be open! 

🚐 Getting there

The site is easily accessible from Palenque town or anywhere along the ruins road via car, taxi or colectivo. The colectivo goes back and forth between the ruins and town every 15 – 20 minutes all day and costs 25 MXN per person. 

🎟️ Buying tickets 

As with many things in Mexico, the process of getting your tickets and entering the park is unnecessarily complicated. 

The ticket office is located in the same place as the museum, 1.4 km (0.9 mi) before the actual archaeological site. 

Whether you’re driving, getting a taxi or taking a colectivo, you will need to get out at the museum and line up to buy your tickets. We arrived here at 8:00 am, but they did not start selling tickets until around 8:15 am. 

You need to go to two separate registers to get the tickets you need. One for the national park, and one for the archaeological site. 

Once you have your two tickets (a national park bracelet and a paper ticket for the site), you need to work out how to get to the main entrance. There are a few options: 

• 🚙 Drive: if you’ve got a car, you can jump in the car and drive to the main gate. There is parking there, but you’ll most likely need to pay. We bummed a ride off a lovely couple with a rental car and are so thankful we did! 

• 🚐 Get the colectivo: you’ll need to wait again on the side of the highway for a colectivo to pass. They charge a discounted fee of 15 MXN for this short trip. 

• 👣 Walk (up the road): you can walk up the road to the main entrance, but it’s quite narrow with no real footpaths and very steep, but you will end up at the main gate next to the biggest temples. 

• 🌿 Walk (through the jungle): just across the road from the ticket office is a path that winds through the jungle, past some smaller ruins, a little waterfall and a river. It leads to the back of the site, not near the main temples. It’s a lovely walk and I would recommend doing it, but not at the start of the day. At least not if you’re trying to get into the site first thing and beat the crowds as you won’t end up near the biggest temples. We took this path at the end of the day instead and ended up back at the museum. 

🙋🏽‍♂️ Getting a guide

A guide is not mandatory, but if you’re a history buff and want to get the most out of your visit, you can hire one at the site. There are guides at the ticket office and at the main entrance selling their services. 

There are guides available in English and Spanish, English-speaking guides are generally a bit more expensive. Negotiate a price (they start high!) and if you can find someone else to split the cost with, that can make it more affordable. 

Giving a price range is tricky as they vary so wildly, and it totally depends on your negotiation skills. Just please do not accept any services offered by children. 

We skipped a guide, but Brayden studied up beforehand and watched a few YouTube videos to understand the history of the city and the context of what we were seeing. That’s our usual ruins approach! 

Cascadas Robertos Barrios

Palenque is famous for its waterfalls, and in our opinion, the best ones to visit are Cascadas Robertos Barrios!

Located in the small autonomous community of Robertos Barrios an hour outside Palenque, these waterfalls are much more laidback and informal than the two other popular waterfalls in the area. 

The falls are easily accessible from Palenque via colectivo. Head to the ‘Transportes de Turismo Robertos Barrios’ in the city centre and you will find vans lined up. They charge 70 MXN each way. 

Just be conscious of the return time, the last colectivo leaves Roberto Barrios between 4:00 and 4:30 pm, ask the driver before you get off. 

The entry fee to the falls is 40 MXN per person. 

Once you’re inside it’s like a natural waterpark! There is a maze of trails with twisted tree roots leading to waterfalls in every direction and you can spend hours here. 

You can jump, swim, float and slide all over the waterfalls and there are so many different pools and falls to discover! 

Don’t stop at the first waterfall you encounter. The further you walk downstream, the bigger the pools get and there are lots of places that are nice to swim and float. 

To give you an idea of the timings, we were able to visit the ruins in the morning, have lunch in town and visit Cascadas Roberto Barrios in the afternoon, taking the last colectivo back to Palenque. 

Cascada Misol-Ha and Cascadas Agua Azul

These two waterfalls are quite close to each other and are typically visited together and combined on tours. 

Cascada Misol-Ha

Misol-Ha is the smaller of the two falls but I think it is so underrated! 

It’s a single-drop fall, thundering 35 metres down a canyon into a deep pool below. The canyon is dripping with greenery and it felt so lush. 

You can swim underneath, and it’s possible to walk all the way behind the falls under the overhang of the canyon. There is a small cave behind the falls you can check out for an additional fee. 

• 💰 Entrance fee: 20 MXN road access fee, 50 MXN waterfall, 10-15 MXN cave
• 🚻 Amenities: restaurant, toilet (fee), life jacket rental

Cascadas Agua Azul

Easily the most popular waterfall in Palenque, the milky turquoise blue waters of Cascadas Agua Azul are a pretty special sight. 

Agua Azul is a collection of waterfalls, shorter and wider than Misol-Ha, with water flowing down a wide river from every angle. There are falls of all shapes and sizes everywhere you look, with that intense turquoise water. 

You’re not allowed to swim everywhere, as some sections have very strong currents, but there are calmer pools and sections of the river where you can take a dip. 

Being so popular, this site is quite commercialised. The entrance is lined with restaurants and souvenir stalls and it is noisy and hectic. This did impact our experience here, and we so much preferred Cascadas El Chiflon near San Cristobal for this reason.

Most people congregate around the entrance, but if you walk further upstream you’ll find some quieter spots. There is a trail along the river that seems to go on forever and forever! We walked quite a long way from the entrance and just kept finding more and more scenic spots to swim, mini waterfalls and calm pools. 

• 💰 Entrance fee: 40 MXN to enter the ejido, 40 MXN to enter the falls 
• 🚻 Amenities: multiple restaurants and food stalls, toilets (fee), souvenir stalls

How to visit Misol-Ha and Agua Azul

If don’t have a vehicle to visit the waterfalls independently, you have two choices: join a tour or go via colectivos. 

• 🎟️ Join a tour: this is one scenario where taking a tour is almost the same price as visiting independently, but infinitely quickly and more convenient. Especially if you’re staying near the ruins as the tours include pick up and drop off at your accommodation.
  
  We found the most affordable tour with ‘Tulum Transportadora Turistica’ which is located at the ADO bus station. If you prefer to organise things in advance, you can book a tour online. All the costs are included, and as far as day tours go, we found this pretty good with a lot of freedom and independent time.  

• 🚐 Via colectivo: if you want to visit the falls independently via colectivo, the Palenque – Ocosingo route passes by the junction to both falls on Highway 199. They depart town from this location. 
  
  For Misol-Ha, get let off at the junction on the highway and you’ll need to walk about 1.5 km (0.9 mi). Note there is a ‘road tax’ of 20 MXN per person, in addition to the entrance of the falls.
  
  For Agua Azul, from where the colectivo passes on the highway, you will need to take a taxi for the final 3 km (1.8 mi) and there are always a few waiting here. 

Yaxchilan & Bonampak

If you’re looking for more Mayan ruins, they don’t get more remote than Yaxchilan and Bonampak. Located deep in the Lacandona Jungle over 3 hours from Palenque, these ruins are virtually unknown and visited by few tourists. 

These are two distinct, separate Mayan sites but they are located quite close to each other, so most visits from Palenque combine both. 

Yaxchilan is only accessible by an hour-long boat ride on the Usumacinta River, which serves as the Mexico-Guatemala border. The ruins feel like an Indiana Jones experience, deep in the jungle with lots of wildlife and partially restored temples and structures. 

Bonampak is located in the Lacandon Jungle and is managed by the indigenous Lacandon community. This site is best known for its vibrant and colourful frescoes. The murals depict Mayan life and beliefs and are considered to be the best-preserved paintings.

The best and easiest way to visit these ruins is via tour. It’s a long day (~ 14 hours) but unless you have a vehicle, this is the only way to see both sites in one day. The tours take care of all the transport, which can be tricky to navigate in this part of the state, including breakfast and lunch, and of course, a guide to show you the sites.

🛕 Book a tour to Yaxchilan and Bonampak

It is possible to visit both sites independently via a combination of colectivos and taxis, but it wouldn’t be feasible in one day. You would need to spend at least a night to comfortably visit both sites without a tour. 

⚠️ Note: both sites have experienced closures during 2024 due to the ongoing narco conflict in Chiapas. At the time of publishing, both sites are OPEN but do your research in advance to confirm. Check with your tour company before you book if the sites are open and safe to visit.

Where to eat in Palenque

The highest concentration of restaurants and cafes is in town, but there are enough options near the ruins if you are staying out that way. Most accommodations have restaurants attached to them, although the quality varies.

If we knew we were going into town for any reason (e.g. to take a colectivo somewhere) we would coordinate to have our meals there. We grabbed lunch on the way to Cascadas Roberto Barrios and had an early dinner on the way back before we headed back into the jungle!

• 🍕 Don Mucho’s: located in the jungle close to the ruins at El Panchan, the wood-fired pizzas are delicious and it’s a convenient and pretty affordable spot to eat if you’re staying in this area. It’s open at night too. 

• 🌮 Tropi Tacos: cheap, quick and delicious tacos in town, with a range of aguas frescas to choose from. This was our go-to whenever we were transiting through town. 

• 🍛 Restaurante Bajlum: a unique dining experience, serving traditional Mayan food that would have been eaten in and around Palenque hundreds of years ago. Reservations are advised. 

• 🍞 Mandalita Cafe: a relatively new spot near the ruins on the grounds of Hotel Casa Colombre. The cafe is lovely with a pool that visitors can use while they eat or enjoy a coffee or beer. They have fresh, homemade bread, good coffee and great mole. 

• 🍕 Pizza Express: another pizza option, but the convenient location near the bus stop makes this a solid option if you’re arriving or departing on the ADO bus or colectivos.

Palenque travel tips

• 🌤️ Best time to visit: Palenque is a hot, steamy jungle environment year-round, nothing like the mild highlands of San Cris or Lagos de Montebello. The best time to visit is November – April in the dry season when temperatures are (slightly) milder. We were a little late, visiting in mid-May and we luckily avoided the rain but temperatures exceeded 35°C (95°C). It was HOT! 

• 😴 How long to stay: I think a minimum of 3 nights in Palenque is ideal. We spent one full day doing the ruins and Cascadas Roberto Barrios, and the next day visiting Agua Azul and Misol-Ha. If you want to add on Yaxchilan or Bonampak, or just have more free time to relax in the jungle, you could easily spend 5 – 7 nights here. 

• 🫶🏼 Safety: is Palenque safe? Yes. Palenque is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Chiapas, and it’s generally a safe place to visit. The state of Chiapas has a volatile security situation overall, but Palenque seems to escape most of these issues. Just make yourself aware of the social and political climate in Chiapas, understand the autonomous Indigenous communities and be wary of Highway 199. 

• 🏧 ATMs: there are several banks and ATMs around town, but none out towards the ruins. From memory, we were able to pay for lots of things with card in town, but don’t go to the ruins or waterfalls without cash. There are no card payments in the smaller communities. 

• 📱 Phone & SIM Cards: phone coverage and internet around town are standard, but once you get closer to the ruins, it’s not great. We had some service with Telcel but it was patchy at best where we were staying near the ruins. 

• 🥑 Groceries: if you want to stock up on food, there is a big Chedraui in town. Otherwise, there are smaller supermarkets all over, as well as the Mercado Guadalupe. There are no stores near the ruins.

Palenque Chiapas: Final thoughts

We loved our time in Palenque. It was a destination that appealed to both of us on so many levels. 

Staying in the jungle with wildlife running around everywhere? Sally’s happy. Amazing Mayan ruins for a dose of history and culture? Brayden’s happy. Dreamy waterfalls to swim and float around in on a hot day? Both in heaven! 

The ruins are as incredible as everyone says they are, but there is so much more to this area. The waterfalls were all stunning, and just the general jungle environment was so special. 

Whether you’re ending your time in Chiapas here and moving onto the Yucatan Peninsula as we were, or you’re travelling in the opposite direction and just starting your Chiapas itinerary here, it’s an unmissable stop.