Great little eco-hotel. Found on tripadvisor and stayed here in Aug. 2007 (just before Hurricane Dean - which thankfully missed Tulum). This place has everything from little beachfront bungalows to an entire house. We booked the "Amor Eterno" (No. 1) beachfront bungalow, which after arriving, turned out to be our favorite anyway. Double and twin beds, ocean view, steps from the sand, big deck with chairs & hammock. Staff puts out beach chairs each morning and picks them up at night (turtles). Room was swept and cleaned regularly.

Remember - this is an eco-hotel in a sea-turtle habitat, so (at least in our bungalow) there was no A/C, no in-room outlets, minimal lighting and the sink and shower were salt-water... but we didn't miss anything. Only issue we had was that our water turned brown(er) towards our last day (likely a filter problem), but it wasn't that big of a deal to us so we only notified them upon checking out.

Ate at the restaurant (other side of road) only once, but would have gone back if we didn't have a few other places we wanted to try. We were the only ones eating there the night we went, but it was delicious, and the adorable chef and his wife appear to live right there in an apartment behind the kitchen, so it was like being dinner guests.

Reservation was made via email, wired a deposit and paid balance in US$ at check-in. Would highly recommend, and likely return for another stay.

initial booking problems and inaibility to get confirmation of our paypal deposit didnt get me off to the best start

when i saw our room Alma de Mar i could have cried - we live in a thatched cottage at home but this palapa shed was something else - the shower flooded the whole of the bathroom area and took about 2 hours to drain away the light bulbs were half broken and the decor is 'quirky' to say the least - the wind was howling and it felt like a hurricane was coming through our room as the roof has large gaps all around ( we are talking feet not inches) BUT

when i reported the problems they were fixed in minutes - the view and the balcony are awesome - seconds from the beach with direct views - the restaurant was nice enough and the location is very very quiet compared to the rest of the hotel zone where properties are shoe horned in - the beach in front was empty all the time

i remain unconvinced on the eco credentials and it will be interesting to see if they remian on wind power as mains electrocty is being installed along this stretch as we speak

we looked at a couple of other properties which in the main were cheaper and more attractively presented but overall the quiet and location make this an ok prospect

My sister and I visited Tulum four years ago and, due to this brutal winter in Wisconsin, we really wanted to go back and park ourselves on the beach for a few days. Nueva Vida was just what we wanted. We stayed in Magico Amancer...it's right on the beach yet it felt very private and secure. At first, I thought it seemed smaller than I'd imagined from the picture but since we spent all our time outside that wasn't an issue at all! It was really very comfortable and clean.
Our reservation process was smooth, they responded within 24 hours each time and gave us a spreadsheet of each accommadations availability so it was easy to choose.
We ate wonderful breakfasts each morning at their restaurant Casa Banana and tried out numerous other restaurants for lunch and dinner....all great. We especially liked La Zebra (next door), Zamas, Mezzanine and Ana y Jose's. NV has some of the best margaritas we sampled...cheerfully delivered to us on the beach or to our bungalow.
It was such a beautiful, relaxing five days...really just perfect.

We stayed in Ola the first two nights, the following five we spent in Espiritu Maya.
It took quite a bit of research before settling on NV, the main issue we ran into is that most of the cabanas for rent on the Tulum Beach are one-room, most often with a single king with sometimes the possibility to sleep three. We are a family of four so this limited our options as we did not want to have our teen daughters sleep "away" from us (as much as they would have loved the idea). In addition, the sum of renting two cabanas is larger than renting a single house that can sleep four (unfortunately most houses sleep more than four and are priced accordingly: high). We like having some cooking possibility for breakfast (coffee - we wake up early before sunrise, before restaurants open. We need our COFFEE right away in the AM so I started looking and booked the cabanas about a month before our stay. This was a bit too late as I found out, as it limited our options - Tulum beach rentals are popular!
The beach at this property is phenomenal, definitely on of the prime spots on the stretch of Boca Paila road. We almost settled on Zahra but glad we did not, their beach is shared with three or four other outfits and a public access location, in addition it is captured on two sides by rock outcroppings which makes it neccesary to walk on on narrow beat up stretch of road to get to the long wide stretch of beach south of there.
About NV.
1) Tasteful: This place is very tastefully done. I am an architect and always try to find the "interesting" places to stay architecturally.
Both the cabana and the house would be considered rustic by some and are constructed of natural, local materials and built in the local vernacular. Open slat walls, mahogany louvered openings, gaps between the floor boards (like american decks) - all to allow for a wonderfully ventilated (thus cool) sleeping experience.
2) Management: NV is very well run.
The Italian management style and their hardworking and very accommodating local staff made this one of our best stays in Mexico. We love slow pace Mexican lifestyle for our vacations but found the “no worries” efficiency at NV refreshing. You don't have to worry what the next day will bring here, we had one minor problem (our fault!) and it was fixed before we could say MAÑANA.
3) Staff: is very pleasant and very much in the background.
If you are looking for a stuffy B&B type of pampering experience, don't stay here. This is a plus in our opinion; we don’t like to be fussed about.
4) Booking:
This process is what others described (and similar -actually better- than other outfits on the beach). I found it better to deal with NV than others because they e-mailed their entire booking schedule for all their cabanas as an Excell attachment, so you can get a good overview of availability, plus they do e-mail back within a day or so. Note, we have stayed in Mexico about five times in rustic settings like this (a couple of times in the Bahamas) and it never seems easy, just tell yourself everything will work out in the end (it always has for us). As a whole, the population is very trustworthy. We have never had any issue in previous trips or during our most recent trip.
5) To do:
We visited Coba, Punta Allan, Tulum ruins (all highly recommend) and a snorkel park (not recommended) 30 km north of Tulum.
For Tulum ruins we arrived at 7:45 am and parked on the beach side, walked in and were the first to get in, definitely the way to go because on our way out 90 minutes later the flood gate of people had opened and people were driven in tractor-trailer sized trolleys and long lines at the ticket counter.
Coba ruins open at 7 am, we arrived at 7:15, again we were there almost by ourselves, when we left at 11:30am the Cosco sized parking lot was filled with cars and buses - rent the bikes here saves time and gets you out of the heat more quickly - our time there went from hot, to very hot. When we left it was #@$ hot - bring lots of water. We hired a guide which was very helpful to get a handle on the history. (I had visited Chichen Itza 10 years ago which is much more manicured than this site).
Mayan Clay Massage, there’s a little stand just south of NV, on the right side of the road just past the little store/coffee shop and across from “OM Cabanas”, for $65 each we had a great clay healing experience, 45 min – the actual “rubbing” than was off in the ocean followed up with a small oil massage, the whole process took 90 minutes min. I had the deep tissue massage package for $100 which took about 2.5 hours en plein air. A great bargain for a different experience.
There are two cenotes within 1.5 km from NV, one is private, the other is at the park gate, it’s a great way to get the salt from your body (note, all tap/shower water is salty) and cooler than the ocean.
We had dinner in downtown Tulum every night and one night at the Margarita (reservations required when we were there-this is a $$$$ type of place, great food but the price compares to what we pay for similar food in high end downtown restaurants in Minneapolis). Tulum offers a variety of pricing, we love the Polla Asado places ($8 gets you a whole chicken and rice/beans/salsa in a plastic grocery bag-para llevar). Other restaurants: just look at who is busy, they are the better restaurants – prices seem to be about equal, or a bit less, than what you’d pay in the US.
6) The Beach:
There was a steady ocean breeze for the week we were there, it is much, much cooler in the “beach area” than off the beach and it is much warmer yet in the town of Tulum. If you can swing it, get an ocean front rental, the waves also make it acoustically private. The neighboring property “La Zebra” has a salsa night Sunday’s with live band (great music!), we could not hear the music at all in our cabana. The “ocean view” units at NV are still “on the beach” as far as we were concerned (Espiritu Maya is 15 meters from the beach gate).
For all the clothing optional interested: the entire beach area in Tulum seems to be topless accepting, those who went topless were relatively discreet about it. To spend a nudist vacation Copal might be your best bet, or just drive down into Sian Ka’an for complete desolate seclusion on the (littered) beach.
As a final note: This is my first review ever online and it shows how much we enjoyed our stay at NV, we highly recommend them.