Mexico takes more than a week.
Cenote swims outside Tulum, the six o’clock bus to Chichén Itzá, balloons over Teotihuacán, whale season off Los Cabos. Prices, timings and which one to book first.
These seven fill up first.
A cenote morning out of Playa del Carmen, the early run to Chichén Itzá before the coaches land, a catamaran across to Isla Mujeres, an ATV hour in the Cabo desert. Travellers book these, then tell the next table about them.
Xochimilco, Coyoacan and Frida Kahlo with Optional Lunch
Southern Mexico City in 9 hours: Coyoacán, UNESCO Xochimilco canals on a trajinera boat, optional Frida Kahlo tickets, and optional lunch.
From $34 per person
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★ 4.5One of the busy onesMr. Sanchos Beach Club All-Inclusive Day PassFrom $796,744 reviews
★ 4.6Worth losing the lie-inCancun: Chichen Itza, Cenote & Valladolid Tour with LunchFrom $496,722 reviews
★ 5.0Fair price for the dayBalloon flight + Breakfast in cave + Pyramids + Pick up CDMX.From $1726,335 reviews
★ 4.5Fine as a first bookingTeotihuacan Early Access Guided Tour with optional LunchFrom $396,138 reviews
★ 5.0A whole day, not halfBalloon flight + pick up in CDMX + Breakfast in Cave + PyramidsFrom $1695,651 reviews
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El Castillo, before the coaches.
Leave Cancún or Playa del Carmen before six, reach the plaza while the stone is still cool, then swim a cenote and stop in Valladolid on the way back. It runs about fourteen hours and nobody comes home sorry. Guides on this route are usually Yucatec Maya, and the site is theirs.
Cancún, Los Cabos or Mexico City?
Three airports, three completely different weeks. Get this one right and the rest of the trip more or less plans itself.
Reef and cenote coast
The reef side
9 hours (approx.) · from $131 · 1,171 reviews
Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum sit on one road and almost everything is within two hours of it. Cenote swims in the morning, the second largest barrier reef in the world after lunch, Maya sites inland when you want a day out of the water. Warm sea from November to May; hurricane season runs September and October.
See the Riviera Maya days →
Desert meets sea
The Baja side
2 hours 30 minutes (approx.) · from $90 · 976 reviews
Los Cabos is dry, steep and built around boats: the Arch at Land’s End, Balandra’s shallow bay an hour up the coast at La Paz, ATV runs through the desert, and grey and humpback whales offshore from December to April. The Pacific here is colder and rougher than the Caribbean.
See the Baja days →
City and pyramids
The capital
8 hours (approx.) · from $39 · 6,138 reviews
Mexico City puts Teotihuacán an hour up the road, the Anthropology Museum across the park and Frida Kahlo’s house in Coyoacán on the metro. It sits at 2,240 metres and gets cold after dark, which surprises people who packed for a beach. Pick it if you would rather eat and look at things than swim.
See the Teotihuacán days →
Lucha libre starts at half past eight.
Arena México on a Friday: masks, folding chairs and a crowd that knows every wrestler by name. Mariachi in Garibaldi afterwards if you still have legs. On the coasts the evening is a boat instead, with sunset sails out of Cabo and dinner cruises off Vallarta, and a mezcal bar once you land.
The Yucatán is hollow.
There is no river on the peninsula. Rain drains straight through the limestone into caves, and where a cave roof collapsed you get a cenote. Some are open pools hung with vines, some are pitch dark and you swim by torchlight. Several are still used for Maya ceremonies, and guides will tell you which.
Mezcal is not smoky tequila.
Tequila comes from one agave, blue weber, steamed in ovens in Jalisco. Mezcal can come from any of dozens of agaves and is roasted in an earth pit, which is where the smoke comes from. Tastings run in the Jalisco distilleries, the Oaxaca palenques, and coastal bars with better lists than either.
Oaxaca is where people stay longest.
Monte Albán stands on a hilltop the Zapotecs levelled by hand, and the valley towns below still speak Zapotec and still weave. Hierve el Agua is a mineral spring that set into stone as it ran over the cliff. Markets on Saturday, mezcal palenques in the hills, and by most reckonings the best food in the country.
None of it is lost, and none of it is a mystery.
Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacán, Uxmal, Cobá, Monte Albán. The people who built these places have descendants living beside them, speaking Yucatec Maya, Zapotec and Náhuatl, and a good guide is usually one of them. Below is every site covered here, with how many tours are written up for each.
Pick the bit of Mexico you actually want.
The country does not work as one trip. Playa del Carmen and Tulum are one road with the reef beside it. Los Cabos is desert and boats. Puerto Vallarta is jungle and a bay. Cozumel and Isla Mujeres are ferries. Oaxaca is hills and food.
Start from the activity.
Cenote or reef, ATV or catamaran, taco crawl or mezcal flight. Most of them run somewhere in the country most weeks of the year, with the prices on the page.
The long days are worth the alarm.
None of these is close by. Chichén Itzá is two and a half hours from Cancún, Teotihuacán an hour out of Mexico City if the traffic behaves, Bacalar four hours down the coast. These tours exist because the driving is the hard part.
One week, and none of it wasted.
You cannot do Mexico in a week. You can do one very good week of it. It works best in this order if you land in Cancún, which most people do.
Days 1-2
Land, and get in the water
Drop the bags in Playa del Carmen and do very little on day one. Day two: a cenote while it is still empty, then the reef off Puerto Morelos after lunch. Nothing that starts before eight.
Open the cenote list →
Days 3-4
Go inland for the ruins
Up at five for Chichén Itzá, lunch in Valladolid, then Cobá or Ek Balam the next morning if you want a pyramid without the crowd. Carry more water than you think you need.
Open the Chichén Itzá list →
Days 5-7
Finish in Mexico City
Fly inland. Teotihuacán at opening, the Anthropology Museum on a slow afternoon, Xochimilco on a Sunday and Coyoacán for the Casa Azul. Pack a jacket; it is 2,240 metres up.
Open the Teotihuacán list →
Thirty more go up every day.
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