Ichkabal, the Maya city near Bacalar opened to visitors in 2025: its history, first year and access

Ichkabal, an ancient Maya city in the south of Quintana Roo, opened to the public in January 2025. In a bulletin dated January 13, 2025, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced that the Ichkabal archaeological zone had opened its doors after two years of talks and joint work with the authorities of the local ejido. The opening, INAH said, brought the number of pre-Hispanic heritage sites open to visitors in Mexico to 194. The site lies in the municipality of Bacalar, 40 kilometers from the town of Bacalar and its lagoon, the Laguna de los Siete Colores, and 75 kilometers from Chetumal.

The agreement behind the opening

The opening came days after a land deal. On January 10, 2025, in Chetumal, INAH and the ejido authorities signed an agreement of prior occupation, a convenio de ocupación previa, over 113 hectares that include the core of the ancient city. The signatories were the head of INAH's center in Quintana Roo, Margarito Molina Rendón, the president of the Ichkabal ejido commissariat, Refugio Cano Gómez, and a representative of the Agrarian Attorney's Office (Procuraduría Agraria) in Quintana Roo, César Augusto Flores Ramos. INAH's director general, Diego Prieto Hernández, and the governor of Quintana Roo, Mara Lezama Espinosa, attended as witnesses of honor.

Prieto said the agreement gave legal certainty to INAH's research, conservation and outreach work at the site, and that it would benefit 165 ejido members and their families. Lezama called the opening historic and said that Quintana Roo, with 12 archaeological zones, has more heritage sites improved under the program behind it than any other state.

That program is Promeza, the Programa de Mejoramiento de Zonas Arqueológicas, which INAH's bulletin places within the Tren Maya priority project. At Ichkabal, the work was led by archaeologists Luz Evelia Campaña and Javier López, with support from the Defense ministry, and added a services unit, a parking lot, a ticket office, rest areas and signs.

What archaeologists know about the city

The name means "between lowlands" in Maya (our translation of INAH's "entre bajos"). According to INAH's page on the site, it was given in March 1995, when the first archaeologists reached the place with local guides, and it refers to the hollows and low ground typical of southern Quintana Roo. Ichkabal was registered as an archaeological site on January 30, 1996, INAH says. Since the 2000s, teams led by specialists including Luz Evelia Campaña, Javier López Camacho, Enrique Nalda Hernández, Hortensia de Vega Nova and Sandra Balanzario Granados have surveyed and cleared it, and conserved and restored monumental buildings, stucco and mural painting.

In INAH's account, Ichkabal had a central role in the development of the architectural style known as Petén between 200 BC and 200 AD. It existed at the same time as the great capitals of Calakmul, in what is now Campeche, and Tikal, in Guatemala, and shared with them the peak of the Maya Classic period, which INAH dates to 200 to 600 AD. Its buildings stand out for their height within this cultural region: many are taller than 40 meters, and they are often arranged in triadic groups, sets of three structures. The zone page adds that people began to live at the site around 200 BC and stayed into the Late Postclassic period, and that, by archaeologists' estimates, most of the buildings were raised between 250 and 600 AD.

The first year

A year after the opening, INAH said that more than 38,000 people had visited Ichkabal, which it described as the 194th archaeological zone prepared for public visits in its network. It announced a program to mark the anniversary, from January 27 to February 8, 2026, which was to include a photo exhibition at the Museo Regional de la Costa Oriental in Tulum, a series of talks at the Chetumal planetarium, free guided tours with limited places, and 5- and 10-kilometer fun runs on the closing day. Five 3D models of Maya masks were also to be shown, through QR codes, in the site's introductory hall, the Sala Introductoria, until April 12.

Visiting now

INAH's page for the zone, last updated on May 4, 2026, and read on November 11, 2026, lists Ichkabal as open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m. It gives the entry fee as "Gratuito-momentáneo", free for the time being (our translation), for all visitors as well as for Mexican nationals and foreign residents. Those hours start an hour later, and last entry comes half an hour earlier, than in INAH's bulletins of January 2025 and January 2026; the zone page is the most recent of the three.

INAH's documents describe the way in differently. The 2025 bulletin spoke of a newly built access road of 23 kilometers, reachable from the Tren Maya's Bacalar and Chetumal stations, and the 2026 bulletin places the site at kilometer 21 of the El Suspiro-Ichkabal road. The zone page describes a route from federal highway 360, Chetumal-Cancún, by the turnoff for the village of Reforma and the entrance to the El Suspiro ranch, followed by 27 kilometers of dirt road that, in the page's words, "es inaccesible en la temporada de lluvias" (cannot be used in the rainy season, our translation). The same page places Ichkabal 12 kilometers northeast of Dzibanché. For questions, INAH lists its center in Chetumal as the contact. Our report on the Tren Maya covers the train's ticket rules.