Mexico travel tips

30 guides in Mexico — when to go, how to get around, which ATMs not to use, and what a fair price looks like.

people walking on sidewalk near brown concrete building during daytime

Mexico CityMexicoAztec ruins, world-class museums, and the best street food anywhere

a large building with a dome and a courtyard with people walking around

OaxacaMexicoThe best food in Mexico, seven kinds of mole, mezcal from the village that made it, and the Day of the Dead

aerial photo of white buildings

CancunMexicoCaribbean turquoise meets Mayan history

aerial photography of beach shore during daytime

TulumMexicoMaya ruins on a cliff above the Caribbean, cenotes in the jungle behind, and a beach road that got expensive

brown rock formation on sea under blue sky during daytime

Los CabosMexicoDesert running into the Pacific at the tip of Baja, with grey whales in the bay every winter

Loungers and a thatched parasol on the white sand at Playa del Carmen

Playa del CarmenMexicoA beach town that became a city: a pedestrian avenue of bars and dive shops, white sand either side of it, and the ferry to Cozumel from the middle

Boats and sunshades on the shallow turquoise water at Playa Norte, Isla Mujeres

Isla MujeresMexicoAn island eight kilometres long with the best beach in the Mexican Caribbean at one end, golf carts instead of cars, and Cancún twenty minutes across the water

The Cozumel shore from the air, houses along a line of white sand and reef

CozumelMexicoThe best wall diving in the western hemisphere, an island that empties the moment the cruise ships leave, and a wild eastern shore with nothing on it

Dancers in white under the red arcades of a colonial building in Mérida

MéridaMexicoThe Yucatán’s white city: a colonial grid of courtyards, the best food on the peninsula, free concerts most nights and cenotes an hour in every direction

A street of ochre and red buildings in San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel de AllendeMexicoA colonial town of pink stone and bougainvillea, kept perfectly by the people who moved here for it, with a neo-Gothic church that looks like a fairy tale

The beach and palms curving towards the town at Puerto Vallarta

Puerto VallartaMexicoA cobbled old town on a bay with jungle mountains behind it, the most welcoming gay scene in Latin America, and beaches reachable only by boat

Thatched wooden cabanas among the palms on Isla Holbox

Isla HolboxMexicoA sandbar island with no cars, no pavements and no bank: golf carts through the sand, flamingos on the lagoon, and whale sharks offshore in summer

The Bacalar lagoon from above, its blues running from turquoise to deep green

BacalarMexicoA freshwater lagoon of seven blues over a white limestone floor, with cenotes dropping out of the middle of it and a pirate fort on the shore

The white twin-towered church of San Servacio on the plaza in Valladolid

ValladolidMexicoA colonial town of painted houses with a cenote in the middle of it, an hour from Chichén Itzá and nothing like the coast

The Maya palace at Palenque standing among the jungle trees

PalenqueMexicoA Maya city half-swallowed by jungle, with howler monkeys in the canopy above the temples and waterfalls an hour down the road

Tiled roofs of San Cristóbal with the highland mountains behind

San Cristóbal de las CasasMexicoA highland colonial town at 2,200 metres, cold at night and full of Tzotzil markets, with the strangest church in Mexico half an hour away

Palms above a rocky bay on the Pacific at Puerto Escondido

Puerto EscondidoMexicoA surf town on the Oaxacan coast with one of the heaviest beach breaks in the world at one end and a calm swimming bay at the other

A street of coloured colonial facades with tables outside, Puebla

PueblaMexicoA city of tiled facades under two volcanoes, where mole poblano was invented and the biggest pyramid on earth sits under a church

Guanajuato packed into its ravine, the houses stacked up both sides

GuanajuatoMexicoA silver city crammed into a ravine, with its traffic running through tunnels under it, painted houses stacked up both sides and a student population that sings in the streets

The lit cathedral towers over the plaza at dusk in Guadalajara

GuadalajaraMexicoThe city that invented mariachi, tequila and the charreada, with murals by Orozco under a dome and the best food in western Mexico

Sayulita from the air, pools and roofs among the jungle above the bay

SayulitaMexicoA surf village of bunting and bare feet north of Vallarta, small enough to cross in ten minutes and busy enough to feel like a festival

The yellow towers of the cathedral against a blue sky in Mazatlán

MazatlánMexicoA working Pacific port with the longest seafront promenade in Latin America, a restored old town of opera and ironwork, and a carnival that fills February

A bare desert mountain rising straight out of the Sea of Cortez near La Paz

La Paz, Baja CaliforniaMexicoA quiet Baja capital on the Sea of Cortez, with whale sharks in the bay in winter and the emptiest turquoise beaches in Mexico up the road

A street of painted colonial houses inside the walls of Campeche

CampecheMexicoA walled city painted in sherbet colours on the Gulf, with pirate forts at either end and almost nobody in it

One of the Huatulco bays, a curve of sand between headlands

HuatulcoMexicoNine bays and thirty-six beaches on a coast that was planned rather than grown, with a national park behind it and boats the only way to half of it

The pink towers of Santa Prisca above the white houses of Taxco

TaxcoMexicoA silver town poured down a mountainside: white houses, red roofs, streets too steep for anything but a Volkswagen Beetle, and silversmiths in every doorway

A cobbled street of colonial houses in the centre of Querétaro

QuerétaroMexicoA colonial centre of aqueducts and shaded plazas that most visitors drive past, with the country’s newest wine region an hour up the road

A wet alley of pink stone reflecting the sky in Morelia

MoreliaMexicoA city built entirely of pink stone, with an aqueduct running into the middle of it and the monarch butterflies wintering in the mountains two hours away

A field of blue agave with the mountains of Jalisco behind

TequilaMexicoThe town the drink is named for, in a valley of blue agave that is a World Heritage site, with distilleries you can walk into and a train that brings you

Two figures in Day of the Dead costume on a street in Todos Santos

Todos SantosMexicoA desert oasis town of galleries and palm groves an hour from Cabo, with a wild Pacific beach that is not for swimming and whales going past it