A Wildly Popular Mexico Beach Town Has Been Named The World's Worst Tourist Destination For 2025

It's not that any traveler plans to go to a disappointing beach, but sometimes the most popular beach destinations can quickly deflate expectations when you realize how crowded, price-gouged, and generally overhyped they can be. A number of beach towns could be contenders for "worst tourist destination." There's Spain's iconic beach party destination of Ibiza, frequently considered overrated and expensive, and one TikToker claimed that St. Lucia may not be the paradise that it seems, with its high prices and rainy weather. But a study by the Daily Mail puts Mexico's Cancún at the top of the list of the most disappointing tourist cities of 2025.

That ranking comes from visitors themselves. The Daily Mail analyzed nearly 100,000 Google reviews of 100 of the world's most-visited cities, and it found that 14.2% of Cancún's reviews were negative, the highest of all cities analyzed. It beat out the second-worst-rated city, Antalya, Turkey, by 2 whole percentage points. The most common charges against Cancún were its marked-up prices, relentless souvenir hawkers, and a superficial, tourist-centric feel.

Google reviewer Ruediger Schoenbohm wrote of Dolphins Beach, one of the most well-known beaches in Cancún, "Today it's small (steep), dirty, crowded with some deserted construction ruins. No place worth to see." According to SECTUR data (via Tourism Analytics), there were over 9.7 million international arrivals in Cancún in 2024, more than double the amount of arrivals for Mexico's second-biggest travel destination, Mexico City. The huge influx of tourists can make for overcrowded beaches and an overburdened city, where upselling becomes the standard to keep up with business.

Despite the reputation Cancún's landed, that doesn't automatically make it an infeasible or unenjoyable travel destination. After all, the other 85.8% of Google reviews surveyed were either positive or neutral. Cancún is famed for a reason, and it's more than just its tourist-heavy areas. One way to at least partly ditch the crowds is to avoid Cancún's Hotel Zone. It's designed for tourists and priced accordingly, with little sense of authenticity. "The hotel zone felt like siesta key to me and I felt close to zero glimpse of actual Mexico," wrote Redditor u/Psychological_Ad3745.

Another crucial element for enjoying Cancún minus the throngs of tourists is timing. If you're not into frat parties and spring breakers, by all means, avoid Cancún in March and April. A good time to plan your visit is from around the end of April to the beginning of June, when the spring break vacationers have left but the summer vacationers have yet to arrive. Another option is to go in the early to mid-fall, while the college partiers are in school but before the holiday season kicks in.

Finally, the most surefire way to avoid Cancún's crowds and its potential disappointments is simply to try somewhere else. On the other side of the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico's Emerald Coast is the opposite of Cancún in all the right ways. Here, you'll find all the beautiful beaches, but with a much more local feel and more affordable prices. If you want to stay on the Caribbean side of the peninsula, some travelers recommend Tulum as an alternative to Cancún. Its Tulum Beach is breathtaking and said to have the whitest sand in the world.