Where to go out in Playa del Carmen, hour by hour

Nobody comes to Playa del Carmen for one place. The night here is a route, and the mistake most people make is doing it in the wrong order: the loud part first, and then nothing left for the hours that are actually worth staying up for.

Nine to eleven: the avenue

Dinner belongs on Fifth Avenue. Everything is open, everything is visible, and the town is at its friendliest between nine and eleven. Take the walk, eat late, and let the street do what it does well.

What the avenue does not do well is the second half of the night. By midnight the music on the pavement is competing with itself and the tables have turned twice.

Eleven to one: one turn off it

This is the hour to leave the avenue. Everything that makes a good night in Playa del Carmen — the cocktail bars, the small rooms, the places without a sign — is one or two streets off the main run. Ten minutes of walking and the volume drops by half.

It is where PRAYER is: inside Mezontle, at the end of a passage, with no plaque on the door. It opens at ten and the bar is at its best before eleven, while the room is still a room.

One until late

After one the town splits into the beach clubs and the small floors. The beach is louder and bigger; the small floors are where the music is chosen instead of scheduled. Both are legitimate. They are not the same night.

If you only have one night in town, do the avenue early and spend the rest of it somewhere with fewer people than you expected.