Uxmal at sunrise
Why this is the first thing I do every time I land in Mexico.
Read MoreBacalar’s lagoon
A closer look at one of Mexico's most rewarding experiences.
Read MoreMezcalerías of Oaxaca
Where to go next once you have seen the headline sights of Mexico.
Read MoreMexico rewards anyone willing to look past the resort strip. I’ve climbed the pyramids at Uxmal before the tour buses arrived, when the limestone was still cool from the night, and I’ve eaten tacos al pastor standing at a cart in Mexico City where the line moved faster than my Spanish could keep up with. This is a country of extraordinary depth: Aztec and Maya history layered under colonial cathedrals, mezcal traditions passed through families for generations, and a coastline that shifts character from the Yucatán’s turquoise calm to Oaxaca’s wilder Pacific surf. Mexico City alone could occupy a week of museums and mercados. I keep returning because each region insists on its own identity, and none of them are interested in flattering a stereotype.
Chapter One
Mexico City’s density
I don’t think any city rewards walking the way Mexico City does. Roma and Condesa offer Art Deco facades and coffee shops that could sit comfortably in Paris, while the Zócalo anchors you back in the sixteenth century, cathedral looming over ruins of the Templo Mayor beneath the pavement. The Frida Kahlo house in Coyoacán draws crowds, rightly, but I find the Anthropology Museum more staggering, room after room of Olmec heads and Aztec calendar stones that recalibrate your sense of scale. At night the mezcalerías fill with a crowd that treats the spirit with the same seriousness a sommelier reserves for old Burgundy.
“Mexico does not ask to be understood quickly, and that is precisely its gift.”
Chapter Two
Yucatán and the ruins
Chichén Itzá gets the crowds, but Uxmal and Calakmul reward the traveler willing to drive further, offering the same Maya grandeur without the tour-bus choreography. I like pairing ruins with cenotes, those startling sinkholes of clear fresh water hidden in the jungle limestone, where you can swim beneath tree roots and swallows nesting in the rock. Along the coast, Tulum has become fashionable, but Bacalar’s lagoon of seven colors remains quieter, a place to kayak at dawn before the heat sets in. The Yucatán moves at its own unhurried pace, humid and green, indifferent to how quickly the rest of the world wants to see it.
The Short List
Do not miss in Mexico
At a glance
Mexico in numbers
- Capital
- Mexico City
- Language
- Spanish
- Currency
- Mexican Peso (MXN)
- Best time
- November to April
Did you know
Mexico is home to more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the Americas.