Last year in CDMX I was wandering around my hostel neighborhood with a new friend, Rik, from the Netherlands. We noticed immediately that most places – especially street food vendors – are cash only, so we walked to the closest Farmacia to use the ATM machine inside. I went first and successfully withdrew cash and waited for Rik.
As soon as Rik inserted his card, the machine glitched and froze. Total devastation fell upon both our faces. We asked for help inside but the workers don’t maintain the ATM machines so we were out of luck. Fortunately, since Rik was taking a transcontinental motorcycle trip (SF to Argentina), he had a secondary debit card.
A few days later my new dorm mate Ernest checks in and tells me his debit card received a high dollar fraud charge at a department store after making a purchase at an Oxxo earlier that say. Luckily for him he had family nearby and they loaned him cash to last him through the trip.
Let these two events sink in a bit and run through your options: Western Union, MoneyGram, wire transfer to a nearby bank? Digital cash app between friends? You might not have the flexibility.
My first full day in Tulum last week my debit card was eaten at an HSBC bank in Centro. (Bad luck comes in threes right?) I was able to withdraw money but the card didn’t come out after my transaction. The bank was closed for the day so I couldn’t get help either. Thankfully I’ve been traveling with a friend so she’s been handling all cash transactions while I booked the AirBnB and hotel stays with my credit card.
After being in Tulum 10+ days I managed to get by with rationed pesos before switching to my emergency stash of USD beach side.
Within Tulum beach, most transactions are higher when paying with USD. Paying by card tacks on an additional service fee, sometimes 5-10% depending on the place. It’s better to pay with pesos here and you will see it listed on your check. While checking into Bambu Gran Palas Hostel I saw this little placard atop the reception desk.
I heard that ATMs beachside can charge as much as $36 USD per withdrawal. The other option is catching a taxi back to Centro for peso ATMs. If you got loads of time and pesos (sigh…) to make the round trip (~300 pesos) then good on you. Sometimes the ATMs are out of service so partition your cash wisely. I decided to go with TulumPay for my last few days here.
TulumPay is super simple:
- Navigate to https://tulumpay.com
- Send the pre-populated message via WhatsApp from the page
- Determine your transaction in increments of $2000 pesos
- Choose which app to use, Venmo, Zelle, PayPal or CashApp. I used Zelle.
- Send a pic of your photo ID. I obscured some info on mine. They were ok with it.
- Send payment confirmation.
Within 10 minutes I met Phil, a former resident of the hostel. Super cool guy. He handed me an envelope and we talked a bit about his service. As I write this, it is local to the beach side with plans to expand.
Moral of the story: have a cash backup plan. If your backup plan fails in Tulum, then use TulumPay!
graveyard shiftin 
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