Am looking for a laid back experience on the Mexican east coast (an anti-Cozumel/Cancun atmosphere). Looking for beach/hammocks/cabanas/hot water. Luxury not necessary. Any suggestions? Anybody been to the Nueva Vida bungalows in Tulum?

Not familiar with them, but the area is beautiful. We stayed in Akumal a few years ago and loved it. Be sure to check out swimming in some of the cenotes...there is a really deep one off the road right near tulum. A guide walked us back there (I thought I was going to get robbed!) but it turned out to be a blast! Tulum is a pretty quiet town. Do everything before noon or late in the afternoon, tho. The tour buses roll into the ruins, parks around noon and the crowds overrun everything.

Tulum is what you are looking for, Ana Y jose, Los Lirios, Zamas are great places to stay, Ana Y Jose and Los Lirios have much better beach areas. There are smaller resorts all along the coast here and you can eat at many of them and drive into Pueblo Tulum 10 15 min ride for restaurants there. We are returning on March 20th we just love the place.

Stay at Las Ranitas, be sure to eat at Hechizo (at Rancho San Eric), visit the biosphere, the ruins at both Tulum and Coba, shop in Playa

Try Cabanas Copal. Excellent place, I've been going every June for several years. OR, Copal's upscale new neighbor, Azulik, looks very nice, also. Zamas has a good restaurant and nice, beach side cabanas but their beach is terrible--very rocky and right next to the road. Ana y Jose's get's good reviews but if you're not in one of the two cabanas that face the sea, you'll suffer from the heat because your room will catch no sea breeze. I hear their restaurant is fair, but overpriced.

We stayed at Cabanas la Conchita just last week. Just a little ways south of Cabanas Copal. It was really windy while we were there, and Copal had had to tack up plastic sheeting over some of their cabanas because it is so rustic that the sand was blowing in.

We enjoyed our (short) stay, but I was sort of bummed to realize that on the strip of beach we were on, you couldn't walk the beach for any distance. Huge rock outcroppings. Very beautiful, but not walkable. Which meant you had to go back to the road, which was busy and not very scenic.

By the way, we had excellent Italian food at a place named Posada Margherita, which also had nice looking cabanas.

I had no idea there were so many place to stay along this strip, but there must be at least 40. We didn't have a car, so didn't check out many of them.