Roavi · Tulum
Become a Local Friend in Tulum
Go out, explore your city and meet travellers from everywhere. Your days, your rate.
Go out
A sunset, music, a rooftop
Explore
Your city, the way only you know it
Meet people
A coffee with someone from abroad
Your terms
Your days, your rate
In public places · Respectful · Platonic only · Earnings vary by city and demand
How it works
Get started in
3 simple steps
- 1
Create your free profile
Tell travellers about yourself, your interests and your city. Stop and come back any time; your words are saved.
- 2
Show what makes you special
Your favourite places, three real photos, and how you'd like to spend time. A person on our team reads every profile.
- 3
Connect with travellers
When you're ready, reply to travellers and agree on a plan that works for you: the day, the hours, your rate.
Example profileMarta$22/hr
Lisbon, Portugal
Usually replies within 1 hour
I'm great for
Speaks
Portuguese · English · Spanish
Send a messageExample profile · this is how yours will look
Real people. Real places.
See what Local Friends share
From hidden beaches to local food spots, Local Friends show travellers the side of their city that isn't in the guidebooks.
Explore more profilesWhat a local knows about Tulum's two price lists
Tulum runs on two economies that barely touch. The beach road is priced for people who arrived from the photographs — dinner there can cost several times the same meal in the pueblo, and a taxi between the two is negotiated, not metered. The pueblo is where people live and work. Visitors almost never find the second one on their own, and it is not subtle once someone shows them.
What you can show
- 1
The pueblo: where to eat, what things cost, and the fact that a taxi fare here is agreed before you get in and not after.
- 2
Cenotes past the four that every hotel desk books. And the rules nobody explains — shower before entering, biodegradable sunscreen only, which is a requirement rather than a suggestion.
- 3
The ruins early. They open onto the sea and they are extraordinary at eight in the morning and unpleasant at noon with no shade and a crowd.
- 4
When the sargassum is in, roughly April to August, and what to do instead that week — which is exactly when a local is worth the most and when a hotel will tell you nothing useful.
Say whether you have a car or a scooter. Tulum is strung out along a road and getting between the pueblo, the beach and the cenotes is the practical constraint on everything — a visitor will want to know before anything else.
Travelers are looking for locals in Tulum
Be one of the first Local Friends they meet. Build your profile today and get discovered by travelers heading to Tulum.
See the Tulum pageOther cities in Mexico
Questions?
Everything you need to know
The questions people ask before they join, answered plainly.
Ask Roa or the teamCertification as a guía de turistas applies to people who sell and lead formal tours. Roavi is a person-to-person arrangement: someone visiting pays a local for their time and orientation. Leading guided visits inside archaeological zones as a professional activity is a different category with its own rules.
It is the opposite. The visitors looking for a local are the ones who have worked out that the beach road is not the place, and want someone who knows the real prices. Living in the pueblo is the qualification, not something to play down.
Yes. Creating and publishing your Local Friend profile is completely free — there’s no cost to appear in the directory or receive messages.
No — and that is the point. A Local Friend is not a tour guide: you spend time with someone as yourself, you do not run a tour. Professional guiding is a licensed profession in a number of countries; spending an afternoon with someone is not. And if you do hold a guiding licence, put it on your profile — travellers look for it.
Yes. You set your own hourly rate, and you can change it anytime from your profile.
Yes. You choose your days and times on your profile, reply only when it suits you, and can pause your profile whenever you like.
No. You need to be 18 or over, live in the city, and add three real photos of yourself. If you know where you’d take a friend, you have what it takes.
No. Roavi doesn’t process payments or take a commission on what you arrange with a traveler.
No. You decide who you respond to, and you can say no to anyone, for any reason.
No. Verification is optional. It’s completed through Stripe Identity and adds a verified status to your profile, but your profile, visibility, and messaging stay free either way.
Travelers message you directly through Roavi once they find your profile in the directory. You choose whether and how to reply.
Yes. You can pause your visibility or delete your profile at any time from your account settings.
Ready to share your world?
Become a Local Friend today
It's free. It could be the start of something amazing.
18+ · Every profile is read by a person before it goes live