Mexico is four countries wide. Pick the days that matter.
Which Chichén Itzá coach leaves early enough to beat the heat. What a cenote swim really costs once the transfer is in. Reviews of every tour you can book in the country.
A pyramid, a cenote, a reef and a deck off Baja.
Four bookings that carry a first trip to Mexico. What each costs, and what the people who took it came back saying.
01The Yucatán dayChichen Itza, Cenote, and Valladolid TourEl Castillo, a swim in a cenote and lunch in Valladolid. Leave before six and you are at the gate while the stone is still cool.
02The sunrise oneTeotihuacan Hot Air Balloon Flight from Mexico City / VolareBalloons go up over the Avenue of the Dead about an hour after the gate opens. You land in a field and eat breakfast in a cave.
03The freshwater dayTulum Guided Tour, Magical Cenote, Lagoon Snorkeling and Beachside LunchLimestone roof, a shaft of light, water you can see your own feet through. Tulum ruins first, then the swim.
04The Pacific dayLos Cabos Luxury Sailing, Snorkel and Lunch CruiseOut past the arch under sail, snorkel stop, lunch on board. The one day in Los Cabos nobody regrets paying for.
Cenote, reef or open deck. That is the whole Mexican water question.
Three completely different ways to get wet here, and they cost different money. Freshwater in a limestone shaft, saltwater over the second-biggest reef on earth, or a boat day off Baja with lunch on the transom.
Three civilisations left their capitals standing. You can reach all three on a day trip.
Maya limestone in the Yucatán, a Teotihuacano avenue an hour out of the capital, a walled Maya port on a cliff above the Caribbean, Zapotec terraces above Oaxaca. Gates open at eight and the coaches arrive at ten, which settles the departure time for you.
Six bases, and the day trips each one puts within reach.
A reef town on the Caribbean, the biggest city in North America, a desert cape where the whales calve, a beach with a Maya fort on it, a valley of mezcal and market days, and a bay on the Pacific. Pick the base and the itinerary mostly writes itself.
The Mexican days out more travellers take than any other.
The whole Mexican catalogue →Not a mood board. These are the tours that actually sell, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Chichen Itza, Cenote, and Valladolid Tour
Spend a long day with guides such as Edwin, Cesar, Luis, or Hugo visiting Chichen Itza, swimming in Cenote Chichikan, eating a buffet lunch, and seeing Valladolid. Transport, a bilingual guide, and the cenote entry are included. Check your package carefully because Chichen Itza admission, hotel pickup, lockers, and life jackets vary by option.
From · $45
Read our review →
2
Teotihuacan, Guadalupe Shrine & Tlatelolco Day Tour with Lunch
from $39
3
Xochimilco, Coyoacan and Frida Kahlo with Optional Lunch
from $34
4
Mr. Sanchos Beach Club All-Inclusive Day Pass
from $79
5
Balloon flight + Breakfast in cave + Pyramids + Pick up CDMX.
from $172
6
Teotihuacan pyramids morning or afternoon without tourist traps
from $64
7
4×4 ATV Adventure with Tequila Tasting and Mexican Buffet Lunch
from $75
8
Cancun ATV Jungle Adventure, Ziplines, Cenote and Tequila Tasting
from $49
Mexico City: pyramids by nine, murals by noon, tacos until late.
Everything in Mexico City →
The capital sits on a drained lake at 2,240 metres with an Aztec city under the pavement and the largest pre-Columbian avenue on the continent an hour up the road. Three decisions carry a first visit.
From the basket, or from the ground
A balloon puts the Avenue of the Dead in one frame and costs about four times the coach. The coach gets you inside the gate first, which on a hot day is worth more than the photograph.
Anthropology, then Chapultepec
The Sun Stone, the Aztec halls and a roof of water over the courtyard. Three hours here explains everything you saw at Teotihuacán that morning.
Mezcal, agave cocktails and street tacos
Pastor off the trompo, a mezcal poured into clay, and somebody who knows which stall to queue at. This is the meal people talk about afterwards, not the restaurant.
A Mexican day out, priced band by band.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. Plenty of the best Mexican days come in under what you would pay for dinner on the beach.
Walking tours, museum entries, market mornings and the cheaper cenote runs out of the Riviera Maya.
The full-day standards: Chichén Itzá by coach, reef snorkelling with lunch, a mezcal circuit out of Oaxaca.
Balloons over the pyramids, private guides, whale sharks off La Paz and chartered boat days.
Three Mexican days with no equivalent abroad.
Beaches and ruins exist all over the tropics. A flooded cave system you can swim, a wrestling ring that doubles as a theatre, and a valley of petrified waterfalls do not.
The Cenotes
The peninsula has no rivers. Rain drains straight through the limestone into a flooded cave network, and where a roof has fallen in you get a cenote: cold, clear, fresh water in a stone well hung with roots. The Maya read them as doorways and dropped offerings into them. There are thousands, a few hundred are open to swimmers, and the water sits at around 24 degrees whatever the month.
- 1Chichen Itza, Cenote, and Valladolid Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 24,293 reviews
- 2Cancun ATV Jungle Adventure, Ziplines, Cenote and Tequila Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,873 reviews
- 3Tulum Ruins, Reef Snorkeling, Cenote and Caves★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,242 reviews
Lucha Libre
Masked wrestling is not a tourist invention here. The Arena México bouts run to a script the crowd knows by heart, técnicos against rudos, and the real performance is in the stands: whole families, beer in plastic cups, insults shouted in rhyme. Masks matter. A luchador who loses his in a wager match does not put it on again.
- 1Lucha Libre Tickets & Tacos & Beer & Mezcal – Best Night Ever★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,077 reviews
- 2Lucha Libre Experience in Mexico City★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 595 reviews
- 3Lucha Libre Show, Walking Tour & Tequila★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 156 reviews
Hierve el Agua
Two cliffs of white mineral hang over the valley looking exactly like waterfalls stopped mid-fall, which is what the name claims. They are not ice and not limestone but calcium carbonate left by springs that have been running for thousands of years. The spring pools at the top are warm, shallow and sit on the edge of a long drop.
- 1Hierve el Agua, Tule Tree, Mitla and Mezcal Distillery Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,094 reviews
- 2Monte Alban Guided Half Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 880 reviews
- 3Authentic Oaxaca Cultural Food Tour, eat like a local.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 462 reviews
Four Mexican bookings that run on a calendar, not on your mood.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four answer to migration seasons, entry caps and one date in the religious year, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01La Paz Whale Shark Snorkeling Tour and Lunch From Los CabosWhale sharks gather off Isla Mujeres and Holbox roughly mid-June to mid-September. Outside that window the boats do not run at all.
- 02Day of the Dead Guided TourDía de Muertos falls on the first two days of November. Places on the Míxquic and Oaxaca visits are gone weeks beforehand.
- 03Luxury Catamaran Whale Watching Cabo San LucasGrey and humpback whales are in Baja waters from December to about April. In July there is nothing to see.
- 04Chichen Itza, Cenote, and Valladolid TourEntry is capped and the site closes mid-afternoon. The early coaches are the only ones that reach El Castillo before the heat and the crowds.
Sargassum on the sand, or a storm sitting off the coast.
From spring into autumn the Caribbean beaches can come up brown with sargassum, and between June and November a system can park offshore for two days. Neither ruins a trip. The answer is the same both times: go inland, go underground, or go and eat. Cenotes run clear whatever the sea is doing.
Oaxaca cooks better than anywhere else in Mexico and knows it.
Seven moles, a market that smells of smoke and chocolate, and palenques in the valley where mezcal is still crushed under a stone wheel pulled by a horse. Saturday is market day in the villages, which is the day to be out of the city.
The Oaxaca shelf →
Baja is desert that runs straight into deep, cold, crowded water.
Cardon cactus on one side, the Sea of Cortez on the other, and a granite arch where the two meet. Whales calve in the bays from December, whale sharks feed off La Paz in summer, and the wine valley behind Ensenada quietly makes most of what Mexico drinks.
- 1Luxury Catamaran Whale Watching Cabo San Lucasfrom $129
- 2Los Cabos Luxury Sailing, Snorkel and Lunch Cruisefrom $149
- 3Xecue Wine Tasting in the Guadalupe Valley
By base, coast to coast
By what you spend the day doing
Cancún, Tulum, Chichén Itzá, Cozumel: the loop almost everyone does first.
Chichén ItzáReviews written this week.
More reviews landed this month →
La Paz Whale Shark & Sea Lion Snorkeling + Balandra Tour
Read our review →
All-Inclusive Catamaran Tour | Beaches & Sea Lions from Los Cabos
Read our review →
Gray Whale Watching Tour with Marine Biologist and Small Group
Read our review →
Scuba Dive in La Paz: Sea Lions, Turtles, Fish Schools and Wrecks
Read our review →
Scuba Diving Adventure Without Certification Try it today
Read our review →
Swim with Whale Shark from Isla Mujeres and Cancun
Read our review →