Great, authentic homestay and immersion experience!

My 17-year old daughter and I were down in Felipe Carrillo Puerto (FCP) for a week in early July. We are very nostalgic for it now, a month later! She had a homestay with a local family with three daughters and studied four hours daily at Na'atik. I was down for a week to do some work, staying in a beautiful apartment that the Na'atik staff set me up with and catching up with my daughter on occasion.

I highly recommend this program. First of all, the homestay was terrific. She had her own room with a hammock and bed (she ultimately ended up choosing the hammock most nights) and a private bathroom. The food was great. She played with the family's 11- and 5-year old daughters and was invited to join the family for a daughter's graduation. The homestay was about a block from the school, so she managed her own schedule getting there and back, and it was really convenient. Second, the instruction at the school was great. It was my daughter and an instructor, one-on-one, talking completely in Spanish and working on high-level grammar for hours every day. She says she learned a lot, and I certainly relied on her as my interpreter while we were there. The staff at Na'atik are immediately likable. We were so grateful to Poppy and Catherine for their accessibility and their great advice for activities (don't miss Bacalar or Muyil!). Finally, there is Felipe Carrillo Puerto itself -- a manageable small Mexican town filled with surprising juxtapositions of old and new. You'll see big beautiful houses with palapa huts next door. Children playing in the streets, using flip flops as bases. The town is easy to traverse by bike. Everything is crazy cheap. You can go to the Mercado and get unbelievably terrific tacos, with inputs like carne asada or cochinita pibil, for a dollar or two. You would be hard-pressed to spend $5 per person eating unbelievable Yucatecan food in town. We frequently ate at the Mercado and other taquerias and never got sick. The jungle is nearby, and it is truly birdwatcher's paradise there.

If you want a homestay, language immersion, and an amazing cultural experience, look no further. She would definitely do this again, and I, frankly, would be delighted to go back down and absorb the atmosphere in this charming town again.