Mexico City changed the way I think about cities: CDMX, Oaxaca, and the Yucatán
Mika Soren
I flew into Mexico City thinking I’d stay two weeks.
I stayed six.
I have no clean explanation for this. It wasn’t one thing. The food, obviously. But also the size of it: a city of 21 million people that somehow functions as a collection of villages, each neighbourhood having its own character and market and café culture and social life that operates mostly independently of the others.
I kept moving to a new neighbourhood thinking I’d seen it and finding more.
Mexico City changed the way I think about what a city can be.
Mexico City (CDMX): the city you find by going deeper
CDMX is enormous. This is the first fact. The second fact is that it’s far safer than the reputation that precedes it and far more interesting than visitors who spend three days in the Centro discover.
The neighbourhood question. The city has dozens of distinct colonias (neighbourhoods). The ones that matter for most visitors: Roma Norte and Roma Sur (tree-lined streets, art deco architecture, the best restaurant density in the city), Condesa (similar, slightly more polished, the Parque México is the living room), Coyoacán (south of the centre, village feel, cobblestones, the Frida Kahlo museum, Sunday markets), Polanco (wealthy, excellent food, the anthropology museum), Tepito (local, rough, not for first-timers going alone, but the pirate market is genuinely something).
The Museo Nacional de Antropología. The best archaeology and anthropology museum I’ve been in anywhere. The entire sweep of Mesoamerican civilisation: Aztec, Maya, Olmec, Toltec. The Aztec Sun Stone (wrongly called the Aztec Calendar) is the centrepiece. The Maya room is extraordinary. Give it a full day. The building itself, designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, is a masterpiece of mid-century architecture built around a central courtyard with a concrete mushroom canopy.
The Frida Kahlo Museum (La Casa Azul). Her actual house in Coyoacán, preserved with her belongings and her studio. Blue walls, her bed with the mirror above it, her collection of folk art and ex-votos. Moving in a way that museum exhibitions of famous artists rarely are. Book ahead: timed entry, sells out.
The Mercado de Medellín in Roma. Neighbourhood market that’s been there for decades, not a tourist market: fruit, vegetables, cheese, tortilla makers, prepared food stalls. Go for breakfast. The molletes (bolillo rolls with refried beans and melted cheese) and the tostadas with salsa verde and whatever they’re putting on top that day.
What I ate in CDMX: I ate here six weeks and I’m not done. The tacos al pastor at El Huequito in Centro, been there since 1959, the spit-roasted pork carved into tortillas with pineapple. The carnitas at any place in Coyoacán on a Sunday. The pozole (hominy and meat soup) at a sit-down place in Condesa on a rainy afternoon. The tostadas at Contramar (the lunch restaurant in Roma Norte with a queue, worth the queue, order the tostadas de atún). The mezcal bars on Álvaro Obregón in the evening.
The metro. Twenty-five centavos per ride (extremely cheap). Goes everywhere you need to go with some exceptions. Safe in non-peak hours, can be crowded at rush hour. Beware pickpockets in very crowded cars. Learn the icon-based system (each station has a symbol, not just a name) and you’re fine.
Oaxaca: the food capital of Mexico
Oaxaca State is what people mean when they say Mexican food is a serious thing.
The state has its own distinct cuisine, based on chile peppers, chocolate, corn, and the seven moles that the city is famous for. Negro, rojo, amarillo, verde, coloradito, chichilo, manchamanteles. Each is a different compound sauce with up to thirty ingredients and a preparation time measured in days.
I ate mole negro on enchiladas for breakfast and mole amarillo on chicken for lunch and I do not regret the overlap.
Oaxaca City. Small, walkable, colonial architecture in green stone (cantera verde), a central zócalo (main square) with a cathedral that went up in the 17th century, excellent crafts markets. The Benito Juárez Market and Mercado 20 de Noviembre are adjacent and between them cover everything: handicrafts, tlayudas (enormous flat tostadas with beans and meat), chocolate ground to order, chapulines (grasshoppers, fried with lime and chilli, eat them).
Mezcal. Oaxaca is the heartland of mezcal production. The spirit is made from agave (like tequila, but different agave varieties and process). Mezcalerías in the city pour flights and explain the regions and producers. In San Baltazar Guelavila, an hour outside the city, you can visit a palenque (small mezcal distillery) and watch the whole process from pit-roasted agave to final distillate. Buy directly from the producer at prices that make airport mezcal embarrassing.
Monte Albán. Pre-Columbian hilltop city of the Zapotec civilisation, about 9km from the city centre. Built from 500 BCE, occupied for a thousand years. The scale of the platform and ball courts and observatory on the flattened mountain top is surprising. Less visited than Teotihuacán outside Mexico City, more atmospheric. Go in the morning before the midday heat.
The villages. The craft villages around Oaxaca City are worth a day or two of driving. Teotitlán del Valle for hand-woven rugs using natural dyes. San Bartolo Coyotepec for black pottery. Santa María Atzompa for green-glazed ceramics. Buy directly from the makers.
The Yucatán: cenotes, ruins, and the coast
The Yucatán Peninsula in the southeast is a different Mexico from CDMX or Oaxaca. Flat jungle, Maya ruins, Caribbean coast, and the cenotes: sinkholes in the limestone that fill with fresh water and connect to an underground river system that runs the length of the peninsula.
The cenotes. There are thousands of them. Some are crowded (Ik Kil near Chichén Itzá, beautiful but a tourist queue). Some require a short drive and minimal walking to reach and have almost no one in them. Rent a car, ask at your accommodation for the local ones, and swim in a freshwater sinkhole with clear visibility and fish visible twenty metres below. This is available to you.
Chichén Itzá. The Maya pyramid (El Castillo) is on every list for good reason. It is extremely crowded from 10am. Get there when it opens. The serpent shadow effect at the spring and autumn equinoxes is real: a rippling snake appears on the side of the pyramid as the sun moves. The ball court is one of the best-preserved in Mesoamerica. Don’t climb (it’s been prohibited for years, with good reason). Do walk the whole site.
Mérida. The Yucatán capital, colonial, liveable, not particularly touristy relative to its quality. The Paseo de Montejo (the long boulevard with French-influenced mansions, built when henequen fibre made the city very wealthy in the 19th century). The Sunday markets around the plaza. The cochinita pibil (slow-roasted achiote pork, the Yucatecan specialty) at the Mercado Lucas de Gálvez for breakfast.
Tulum. Has a reputation, some of it deserved. The ruins on the cliff above the Caribbean are genuinely beautiful and the swim after is perfect. The cenotes in the jungle nearby (Gran Cenote, Dos Ojos) are excellent. The beach-town part has become extremely expensive and Instagram-oriented. Stay somewhere cheaper slightly inland and drive in for the day.
A few practical things
Altitude in Mexico City. CDMX is at 2,240 metres elevation. You will feel this if you’re coming from sea level: mild headaches, shortness of breath, tiredness. Give yourself 48 hours to adjust before doing anything strenuous. Drink water constantly.
The taco geography. Every region has its own taco culture. CDMX: al pastor, canasta, guisado. Oaxaca: tlayudas and memelas. Yucatán: cochinita pibil and panuchos. The tacos you’ve eaten abroad are probably vaguely related to one of these traditions. The originals are incomparably better.
Water. Drink bottled or filtered water throughout Mexico. Hotel tap water is generally not safe to drink for visitors without a gut adapted to it. Always.
Safety by neighbourhood. Mexico has regions of genuine danger and regions that are completely fine for tourists. CDMX tourist areas, Oaxaca, Yucatán: fine. Research your specific route for less-touristed areas. The US State Department travel advisories are more conservative than necessary in some cases but worth reading.
Coverage in Mexico City and the main tourist destinations is generally very good on the major networks. Rural Oaxacan villages and jungle areas in the Yucatán can be spotty. I’ve compared the main eSIM options and put together a guide to staying connected in Mexico with current 2026 pricing.
Mexico City. Oaxaca. Cenotes.
I keep telling people: you’ll stay longer than you planned. Plan for that.
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