Affiliate disclosure

Holbox Nowcast is an independent travel information project. To keep the site online, pay the servers, and continue updating our live data without charging you anything, we use affiliate links. An affiliate link is simply a URL tagged with a unique identifier that tells a commercial partner you arrived from our page. If you book something after clicking, that partner pays us a small commission. You pay exactly the same price you would pay going directly to the provider.

This disclosure exists because we believe you should know exactly how the content you read is funded. Nothing is hidden, and there are no tricks. If you ever have a question about how a specific link works, write to us.

We work with three main partners, all internationally recognized:

Booking.com for accommodation in hotels, guesthouses, and vacation rentals on Isla Holbox. We earn a commission when you book through our links and complete your stay.

GetYourGuide for tours and activities, including whale shark encounters, bioluminescence tours, Punta Mosquito and Cabo Catoche boat trips, and Yalahau excursions. We earn a commission when you book an experience through our links.

Skyscanner for flight searches to Cancun International Airport (CUN), the closest airport to Holbox. We earn a commission when you click through and complete a booking with an airline.

Affiliate links never increase the price you pay. The commission is paid by the provider (the hotel, tour operator, or airline) from their own marketing budget, not from your pocket. If you compare the price shown through our links with the price you would see by typing the partner's URL directly into your browser, you will find exactly the same rate.

This is a contractual requirement with our partners: we are not allowed to charge more than the provider's public price, and they are not allowed to charge you more for arriving through an affiliate link.

Holbox Nowcast is not a tour operator. We do not own any hotels, tours, or boats. We do not have exclusivity agreements with any local operator. Our recommendations about what to do, when to go, and where to avoid are based on data, research, and context, not on which partner pays the highest commission.

When we say whale shark season runs from May 15 to September 15, it is because that is the legal window regulated by NOM-171-SEMARNAT-2018. When we say one month has more sargassum than another, it is because the LANOT-UNAM satellites say so. When we say a beach is choppy, it is because the SEMAR models report it. Our editorial job is to give you correct information; our business model is a consequence, not a cause.

If a hotel or tour appears on our page, it is because we believe it delivers genuine quality at the price it charges. If a product is missing, it is not because it does not pay us commission, but because it does not meet our minimum standards for quality, safety, or sustainability.

This disclosure is published in compliance with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines on disclosure of material connections, as well as the European Union consumer protection directives and applicable Mexican regulations. The rule is simple: if we earn money when you buy something we recommend, you should know before you click.

Every affiliate link on this site carries the HTML attribute rel="sponsored", which is the standard technical way for search engines and browsers to identify a commercial link. In addition, we place a visible disclosure near button groups (CTAs) when they lead to a commercial partner. Links to academic sources, weather agencies, or government pages (NOAA, Open-Meteo, LANOT-UNAM, SEMAR, CONANP) are never affiliate links: they are pure editorial references.

If you have questions about this disclosure, about how our affiliate links work, or about anything else related to how this site is funded, you can write to us at hola@nowcast.day. We reply to every message. For more information about what data we collect when you visit the site, see our privacy policy.