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Eight kilometres off the coast of Cancún, Isla Mujeres sits at the easternmost point of Mexico, a slender strip of coral limestone barely five kilometres long that faces the open Caribbean on one side and the calmer waters of the Yucatán Channel on the other. The name, meaning Island of Women, is thought to derive from the clay figurines of Ixchel and other Mayan goddesses that Spanish explorers found here in the sixteenth century. That layering of pre-Columbian history beneath a surface of sun-bleached walls and fishing boats is part of what gives the island its particular character, one that feels genuinely distinct from the resort corridor it neighbours.

Most visitors arrive by ferry from Puerto Juárez or the Zona Hotelera in Cancún, and the contrast is immediate. The island's main settlement, at the northern tip, is a grid of narrow streets where golf carts outnumber cars and the pace of life is set by the tides rather than any schedule. Hidalgo Street runs through the commercial centre, lined with small restaurants and craft shops, while the western shore faces the lagoon and catches the long light of late afternoon. The southern end of the island is wilder, home to the cliffs at Punta Sur, a small Mayan ruin, and the sculpture garden that occupies the old lighthouse grounds.