Where ten of us can stay in Tulum

If there are eight or ten of you, the shortlist in our portfolio is short and worth knowing by name: Jungle Retreat w/Rooftop Pool & Panoramic Views takes ten across four bedrooms, Luxury 3 Bedroom Villa w/ Private Pool & Sun Deck takes eight, and two three-bedroom homes in La Veleta, Luxury 3BR Penthouse with Private Pool in Tulum and Veleta House w/ Private Pool, Terrace, BBQ Grill, take seven each. Below that there's a whole tier of two-bedroom condos and penthouses sleeping five or six, which is where most groups end up when they decide to split across two addresses rather than squeeze into one.

So the first decision isn't neighbourhood or pool. It's whether your group wants one roof or two.

One roof or two: the question that settles everything else

A group of ten in a single house behaves differently from a group of ten in two condos. In one house you get the shared breakfast, the one long table, the mild chaos of five people in a kitchen. In two homes you get two kitchens, two pools and people who go to bed at different hours without annoying anyone.

Our inventory leans towards the second arrangement. We manage homes across Tulum, from downtown lofts to Aldea Zama townhouses and La Veleta houses, and the two-bedroom end of that list is deep: sleeping five or six, usually with a terrace or a rooftop of its own. Two of those side by side will often give a group of ten more space, more bathrooms and more outdoor square footage than a single house would.

If you want everyone under one roof, start with the Jungle Retreat. Four bedrooms, two baths, a private terrace with sofas, a hammock and a swing, and a rooftop pool looking over jungle canopy. The kitchen is set up for someone who actually cooks, which matters when you're feeding ten and don't want to book a restaurant table every night.

Three houses, three different kinds of trip

Once you're above six people, the choice narrows to a handful of homes and each one implies a different week.

• Jungle Retreat w/Rooftop Pool & Panoramic Views (sleeps 10, four bedrooms, Felipe Carrillo Puerto). The largest capacity we have, with a rooftop pool and jungle in every direction. This is the quiet end of the map, so plan on driving. Parking is free and there's a BBQ area, a washer and a dryer, which is what a ten-person week really runs on.
• Luxury 3 Bedroom Villa w/ Private Pool & Sun Deck (sleeps 8, three bedrooms and three baths, La Veleta). Two storeys, a fully gated garden with a soaking pool, and a second pool on the rooftop with a sundeck and lounge. Three bathrooms for eight people is the ratio that keeps mornings civil. There's also a bathtub, which almost nothing in Tulum has.
• Veleta House w/ Private Pool, Terrace, BBQ Grill (sleeps 7, three bedrooms, each with its own en-suite). A block from Calle 7. Private pool off the terrace, BBQ grill outside. If your group's idea of a good night is walking to dinner and walking home, this is the address.
• Luxury 3BR Penthouse with Private Pool in Tulum (sleeps 7, two levels, near Calle 7). The rooftop is yours alone: plunge pool, king sunbed, dining table, BBQ, sunset. Close enough to the restaurants, far enough that the nights are quiet.
• Aldea Zama House: Terrace, Concierge, Pool Access (sleeps 6, three bedrooms, inside a gated condominium). Private terrace, community pool, BBQ area, laundry. The gentlest option of the group, and the one families tend to pick.

La Veleta, Aldea Zama, or downtown

These three areas give you three genuinely different weeks, and for a group the difference shows up in how much driving you do.

La Veleta is where the restaurants and bars of Calle 7 are, and it's the furthest of the three from the sand: fifteen to twenty minutes in a car, longer on a bike. Groups who want to eat out, walk back and keep the beach to day trips do well here. Veleta House sits a block off that street; Boutique La Veleta Condo with Private Pool Terrace, a two-bedroom with a plunge pool off the master terrace, is steps from the same strip.

Aldea Zama is the planned, gated community between town and the beach, closer to the water than La Veleta: five to ten minutes by car, about twenty on a bike. Gitano, Raw Love and NÜ are within walking distance of its condos. It's also where our two-bedroom stock is densest, so if you're splitting a group of ten across two units in the same area, Aldea Zama is where you're most likely to find them. Aldea Zama Penthouse, Private Rooftop & BBQ Grill sleeps six and has a hot tub and a BBQ grill on its own rooftop. Modern Space w/ Pools, Gym, Coworking and Cinema also sleeps six and comes with an on-site movie theatre and pool table, which solves the evening when half the group can't face another restaurant.

Downtown puts you in the middle of the shops, the taquerías and the transport. Bright & Sunny 2BR Loft w/ Roof Pool in Downtown sleeps five with a shared rooftop pool, and it's the most useful base if nobody in your group wants to rent a car.

One thing worth knowing whichever way you go: Gran Cenote is about ten minutes from the centre of town, on the Cobá road, with Zacil Ha, Carwash and Calavera strung along the same stretch. That's a half-day for a big group and an easy one, and it works from any of these neighbourhoods.

Pools: private, plunge, rooftop, shared

Nearly every home here touches water somewhere, but the word "pool" is doing four different jobs and for a group of eight the difference is real. A private pool means you can be loud. A community pool means you can't.

For a group that intends to spend the day at home, Luxury 3 Bedroom Villa w/ Private Pool & Sun Deck is the one to beat: a soaking pool in a gated garden downstairs, a second pool on the roof with the sundeck. Two pools means the people reading and the people drinking don't have to negotiate.

For sunsets, the private rooftops win. The La Veleta penthouse puts a plunge pool, a BBQ and a dining table up there with nobody else on the deck. The Aldea Zama penthouse does the same with a hot tub instead.

And for a group who want to swim without climbing stairs, Charming 2BR Tulum Condo with Private Pool is a ground-floor unit where the pool sits on a private terrace with jungle pressing in around it. Sleeps five, in a gated part of Aldea Zama with security around the clock.

The things that decide a group booking and nobody asks about

Bedroom counts get all the attention. In practice, a week with eight people turns on smaller things.

Bathrooms. Three bedrooms with three en-suites, as at Veleta House, is a different trip from three bedrooms sharing two. Check this before you check the pool.

Laundry. Swimsuits and salt. The Jungle Retreat, the Aldea Zama townhouse and both La Veleta three-bedrooms have a washer and dryer in the home.

A grill. Feeding eight in Tulum means either booking eight seats or cooking. The BBQ areas at the Jungle Retreat, the La Veleta penthouse, Veleta House and the Aldea Zama townhouse are the reason those homes hold a group together for an evening.

Parking. If you're in La Veleta or out towards Felipe Carrillo Puerto, somebody is renting a car. Free parking comes with the Jungle Retreat, the La Veleta penthouse, the Luxury 3 Bedroom Villa and the Aldea Zama townhouse.

Beach-club access. Some of our homes include it, and it changes the shape of a day for a group. Amazing Condo w/ Papaya Playa Project Beach Access, a three-storey penthouse sleeping four, includes membership at Papaya Playa Project with no minimum consumption, plus a private rooftop with its own plunge pool, hammock, day bed and wet bar. It's too small to be your group's only home, but as the second unit in a two-home booking it earns its place twice over.

Booking two homes at once

Tell us the number of people and the dates before you start clicking through listings. Most of what we do for large groups is work out which two homes are free on the same nights and close enough together that nobody is calling a taxi to get to breakfast, and that's not something a search filter can do for you.

Concierge comes with the booking, and for a group it's the part that actually saves the week: transportation, tours, restaurant tables, and direct reservations at the beach clubs we work with. Ten people trying to get a table on Calle 7 on a Friday is a different problem from two people doing it. We book direct, with no platform in the middle.

Send us the dates and the headcount. We'll tell you what's open and what fits.