The Luxe Mexican Resort Right on a Mangrove-Dotted Beach

I knew I wanted a tropical beach vacation. What I couldn’t have known was how a Mayan sacred-stone massage would somehow be more pampering, more life-affirming, and more of a body tune-up than a massage void of sacred Mayan stones. Or that a spiritual jewelry-making class led by a congenial shaman would be just the sort of inadvertent meditation my frenetic New Yorker nerves needed to soften. Or that I’d daydream about sitting on a sun-drenched patio, sipping café de olla, long after I’d flown home from Etéreo, Auberge Resorts Collection’s oceanfront paradise that sits atop a lush stretch of mangrove gardens on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

The SANA spa, with its cool-to-the-touch white stone and sleek flourishes of wood slatting and pools, is largely alfresco. I meditated under a big umbrella by the plunge pool in the courtyard; floated in the cenote-inspired indoor pool, which felt like a baptism from stress; and nibbled on sweet, nourishing cacao date balls; supple dried fruit; the creamiest organic raw cashews; chocolate medallions while sipping hibiscus water. My massage involved jade and obsidian sacred stones, an oil that smelled of a thousand fresh herbs, and 90 minutes of hurts-so-good muscle manipulating. I drifted out of the treatment room feeling airy, nimble, and eager to preserve my moisturized, petal-soft skin. Which I did over the next few days, exfoliating and moisturizing like a fiend, then (always) finishing with hydrating mineral sunscreen.

In the nearby gym and yoga space (where fitness masters like Taryn Toomey, founder of The Class, often hold retreats), I did a fantastically sweaty vinyasa session one morning, a Mayan calendar reading the next (the local astrologist was eerily intuitive), and a spiritual jewelry-making class where a shaman helped me string together a selenite-stone bracelet to suit my energetic disposition. I skeptically signed up for a family meditation session, which turned out to be one of the more incredible things we did on the trip: My colic-stricken four-month-old became uncharacteristically compliant and breastfed quietly for most of the session as our instructor methodically struck gongs and all manner of reverberating instruments, our bodies splayed out on the floor.

The stroll from your room to the beach and pools—there’s an adults-only one, another for everyone, and a one-and-a-half-foot-deep splash pad for the teensiest guests, along with plush poolside cabanas—is epic. A skywalk traverses the mangroves, waves stretch out before you, and sea breezes stir the mangroves below, their rustling leaves making the softest music.

There are two open-air restaurants: Che Che brilliantly blends Japanese cooking techniques with Mexican ingredients. We rhapsodized over a Japanese vegetable curry, lost our minds over yuzu-marinated ceviche, and almost ordered a second plate of scallops in mezcal-sake sauce.

Itzam serves up pure, luscious Mexican food. After nursing a perfect passion fruit mezcalita at the firepit, we migrated inside to a big, cushiony banquette, where we polished off juicy oysters garnished with charred jalapeño salsa, tumbada-style seafood rice—a succulent saffron-infused dish served in a scalding-hot skillet—and, for dessert, fresh-from-the-oven cacao churros.

We couldn’t help lingering after dinner. “Oh, just do it,” urged our waiter, when we told him we needed to turn in before the kids became obstreperous. “You’re here, under this sky, with your family all together. No one’s crying yet. Why not?” So that moment—sipping tequila under the stars—is another one I daydream about.