Every destination in Mexico

26 destinations 4 destination types 32 states

26 destinations

City Mexico City Mexico City World-class museums, walkable neighbourhoods and the best food scene on the continent. The metro costs a few pesos. Mar-May · Oct-Nov → Beach Riviera Maya Quintana Roo The second-largest coral reef on earth, cenotes inland and white-sand beaches. Dec-Apr → City Oaxaca Oaxaca Seven moles, village mezcal and enormous markets. Monte Albán is half an hour away. Jul · late Oct → Ruins Yucatán Yucatán Mérida as a base, around 6,000 cenotes on the peninsula and Chichén Itzá ninety minutes away. Nov-Mar → City Puebla Puebla Talavera, azulejo façades and mole poblano, two hours from the capital by bus. Year round → Town Guanajuato Guanajuato Alleyways, tunnels and silver mines. In October the whole city becomes a festival. Oct-May → Town Pátzcuaro Michoacán The heart of Día de Muertos: candles all night in the cemeteries around the lake. 1-2 November → Beach Isla Holbox Quintana Roo No cars, white sand and whale sharks from June to September. You arrive by boat. Dec-Apr → Ruins Teotihuacán State of Mexico Pyramids of the Sun and Moon along the Avenue of the Dead. Arrive at nine, when it opens. Year round → Ruins Chichén Itzá Yucatán El Castillo, the ball court and the sacred cenote. At the equinox, the serpent of light. Nov-Mar → Ruins Cholula Puebla The widest pyramid on earth, with a church on top and Popocatépetl behind. Oct-May → Ruins Monte Albán Oaxaca The Zapotec capital on a mountain levelled by hand, half an hour from the city. Year round → Town San Miguel de Allende Guanajuato Ochre walls, cobble and bells. The best-known pueblo mágico, and deservedly so. Oct-May → Town Izamal Yucatán An entire town painted yellow, with a 16th-century convent at its centre. Nov-Mar → Town Bacalar Quintana Roo The lagoon of seven colours, in fresh water. A small town, barely built up. Nov-Apr → Beach Puerto Morelos Quintana Roo A fishing town with the reef five hundred metres off the shore. Dec-Apr → Beach Mahahual Quintana Roo The south of the Costa Maya, still quiet and with no hotel towers. Dec-Apr → Ruins Tulum Quintana Roo The only Maya city built on a cliff above the Caribbean. Arrive at eight. Dec-Apr → Region Central highlands Central Mexico The ring of states around the capital: mining towns, sixteenth-century monasteries and two volcanoes over five thousand metres, all of it under three hours away. Year round → Region Chiapas Chiapas Two Chiapas in one state: a colonial town at two thousand two hundred metres with five-degree nights, and Maya ruins buried in hot jungle. Nov-Apr → Region North and Baja The north and Baja Half a dozen states, seventeen hundred kilometres of peninsula, and the one place in Mexico where grey whales come to the boat themselves. Jan-Mar → Region Pacific coast Nayarit to Oaxaca Fifteen hundred kilometres of Pacific across six states, with four airports, whales in winter and a sea you need to read before you get in. Nov-Apr → Region The Bajío Guanajuato and Querétaro The plateau where independence began: heritage cities ninety minutes apart, a giant monolith, young vineyards and mining towns that emptied out and filled again. Oct-May → Region The Gulf Veracruz The coast where Mexico faces the Gulf: a port with four centuries of fortress, coffee mountains ninety minutes away, danzón in the plaza and a green sea that never pretends to be… Nov-Apr → Region The West Jalisco and Colima The west invented the country's symbols: mariachi, tequila and charrería all came from here, from a capital with two cathedrals' worth of life and a sea of blue agave an hour away. Oct-May → Region Yucatán peninsula Three states How the pieces fit: three states, two very different seas, five airports and a fifteen-hundred-kilometre loop you can ride entirely by bus and train. Nov-Mar →