There are no permanent residents or living quarters inside the park, except for the park guard encampments. CONAP has identified six temporary encampments that are occasionally used during the chicle-extracting season. There are no communities living along the park boarders. The closest communities are Carmelita and Uaxactún, which are 60 km and 80 km away respectively.

It is possible to access Rio Azul during the dry season via a dirt road that begins in the town of Uaxactún. This road passes through Dos Lagunas Biotope and on into Rio Azul. However, this is impassable during the wet season. To access el mirador from Carmelita, there is a trail that passes the six camps of the chicle-extractors to the park, Lechuga, La Lucha, El Nacimiento, El Tintal, El Porvenir and La Muerta. It takes two days to arrive on foot. From Belize, there is a road in good condition that reaches El Mirador-Rio Azul. Many years ago, illegal Mahogany loggers used this road. There is another road in Mexico that almost reaches the northern limits of El Mirador.

Due to its inaccessibility, currently not many tourists visit El Mirador-Río Azul. For example, in 1999 there were only 27 visitors that accessed the park via Carmelita (ProPeten/CI, 2000) (Note: additional visitors did access the park via Uaxactún, however the number of visitors is unavailable). The number of visitors is growing. Just in the first three months of 2001, the number of visitors had already doubled the annual total for 1999 (Nirebim 2001, com. pers).

The visitors are mostly foreigners and they employ the services of community members from Uaxactún or Carmelita or of tourist companies to take them into the park. The archeological sites are definitely the main attraction of the park. Hiking through the forest is also a draw. The tourist facilities are very limited. Each section of the park has one camping area with latrines. IDAEH thinks that tourism could be one of the main incomes for the park. A large-scale tourism project has been proposed, which would mean more than 100,000 tourists per year (Hansen, 2000). Because of that, they are planning infrastructure projects and restoration projects of the archeological sites.