Jeff Karl Kowalski will lead the Archaeological Institute of America’s walking-heavy tour through Mayan civilization. He’ll take you to the requisite stops, like the ornate structures in the Puuc city of Uxmal and the pyramids at Chichén Itzá. But he’ll also show you less heralded sites, like a millennium-old ball court and a tomb with a doorway shaped like a monster’s mouth. “The people who take the tour will have fun,” says Kowalski, “but also learn as much as they can about who was building these buildings and what they represented for the people who used them.”

About the guide: As a graduate student at Yale, Kowalski studied under legendary archaeologist Michael D. Coe, whose research was instrumental in deciphering Mayan writing. Now he’s a renowned Mayanist himself. Kowalski taught pre-Columbian and Mesoamerican art history for more than three decades at Northern Illinois and has given 20-plus tours of the Yucatán Peninsula. 

Bring: A swimsuit. Near Chichén Itzá, you can swim in a cenote, a water-filled limestone sinkhole, surrounded by lush vegetation. Cenotes were “used as sources of water, and also seen by preconquest Maya as abodes of the rain gods,” says Kowalski.

Watch for: The Governor’s Palace in Uxmal. Kowalski calls it “the single most impressive, imposing, and monumental palace building constructed by the ancient Maya.” At four stories tall and longer than a football field, the palace was likely built for a king or divine ruler.