Mexico

Izamal, Mexico
The Holy, Yellow and Beautiful Mexican City
Until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, Izamal was a center of worship for the supreme Mayan god Itzamná and Kinich Kakmó, the one of the sun. Gradually, the invaders razed the various pyramids of the natives. In its place, they built a large Franciscan convent and a prolific colonial houses, with the same solar tone in which the now Catholic city shines.
Campeche, Mexico
Campeche Upon Can Pech
As was the case throughout Mexico, the conquerors arrived, saw and won. Can Pech, the Mayan village, had almost 40 inhabitants, palaces, pyramids and an exuberant urban architecture, but in 1540 there were less than 6 natives. Over the ruins, the Spaniards built Campeche, one of the most imposing colonial cities in the Americas.
Tulum, Mexico
The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins
Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.
Mérida, Mexico
The Most Exuberant of Meridas
In 25 BC, the Romans founded Emerita Augusta, capital of Lusitania. The Spanish expansion generated three other Méridas in the world. Of the four, the Yucatan capital is the most colorful and lively, resplendent with Hispanic colonial heritage and multi-ethnic life.
Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico
From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes
On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico
The Home Sweet Home of Mexican Social Conscience
Mayan, mestizo and Hispanic, Zapatista and tourist, country and cosmopolitan, San Cristobal has no hands to measure. In it, Mexican and expatriate backpacker visitors and political activists share a common ideological demand.
Campeche, Mexico
A Bingo so playful that you play with puppets
On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.

Mexico City, Mexico

mexican soul

With more than 20 million inhabitants in a vast metropolitan area, this megalopolis marks, from its heart of zócalo, the spiritual pulse of a nation that has always been vulnerable and dramatic.

Champoton, Mexico
Rodeo Under Sombreros
Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.
San Cristóbal de las Casas a Campeche, Mexico
A Relay of Faith
The Catholic equivalent of Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Guadalupe moves and moves Mexico. Its faithful cross the country's roads, determined to bring the proof of their faith to the patroness of the Americas.
Campeche, Mexico
200 Years of Playing with Luck
At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Yucatan, Mexico
The End of the End of the World
The announced day passed but the End of the World insisted on not arriving. In Central America, today's Mayans watched and put up with incredulity all the hysteria surrounding their calendar.
Yucatan, Mexico
The Sidereal Murphy's Law That Doomed the Dinosaurs
Scientists studying the crater caused by a meteorite impact 66 million years ago have come to a sweeping conclusion: it happened exactly over a section of the 13% of the Earth's surface susceptible to such devastation. It is a threshold zone on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula that a whim of the evolution of species allowed us to visit.
Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico
The Mayan Capital That Piled It Up To Collapse
The term Uxmal means built three times. In the long pre-Hispanic era of dispute in the Mayan world, the city had its heyday, corresponding to the top of the Pyramid of the Diviner at its heart. It will have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan. Its ruins are among the most intact on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), Chihuahua, Mexico
The Deep Mexico of the Barrancas del Cobre
Without warning, the Chihuahua highlands give way to endless ravines. Sixty million geological years have furrowed them and made them inhospitable. The Rarámuri indigenous people continue to call them home.
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico
The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse
The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
chihuahua, Mexico
¡Ay Chihuahua !
Mexicans have adapted this expression as one of their favorite manifestations of surprise. While we wander through the capital of the homonymous state of the Northwest, we often exclaim it.
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
On the Edge of the Cenote, at the Heart of the Mayan Civilization
Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries AD, Chichen Itza stood out as the most important city in the Yucatan Peninsula and the vast Mayan Empire. If the Spanish Conquest precipitated its decline and abandonment, modern history has consecrated its ruins a World Heritage Site and a Wonder of the World.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
From New Spain Lode to Mexican Pueblo Mágico
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, it was one of the mining towns that guaranteed the most silver to the Spanish Crown. A century later, the silver had been devalued in such a way that Real de Catorce was abandoned. Its history and the peculiar scenarios filmed by Hollywood have made it one of the most precious villages in Mexico.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
The Depreciation of Silver that Led to that of the Pueblo (Part II)
With the turn of the XNUMXth century, the value of the precious metal hit bottom. From a prodigious town, Real de Catorce became a ghost. Still discovering, we explore the ruins of the mines at their origin and the charm of the Pueblo resurrected.
Sculptural Garden, Edward James, Xilitla, Huasteca Potosina, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, Cobra dos Pecados
Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

Edward James' Mexican Delirium
In the rainforest of Xilitla, the restless mind of poet Edward James has twinned an eccentric home garden. Today, Xilitla is lauded as an Eden of the Surreal.
Tamul Waterfall, Aquismón, Huasteca Potosina, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The Water the Gods Pour From Jars
No waterfall in Huasteca Potosina compares with that in Tamul, the third highest in Mexico, at 105 meters high and, in the rainy season, almost 300 meters wide. Visiting the region, we set off on a quest for the river jump that the indigenous people saw as divine.
, Mexico, city of silver and gold, homes over tunnels
Guanajuato, Mexico

The City that Shines in All Colors
During the XNUMXth century, it was the city that produced the most silver in the world and one of the most opulent in Mexico and colonial Spain. Several of its mines are still active, but the impressive wealth of Guanuajuato lies in the multicolored eccentricity of its history and secular heritage.
Tequila, Jalisco City, Mexico, Jima
Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico

Tequila: The Distillation of Western Mexico that Animates the World
Disillusioned with the lack of wine and brandy, the Conquistadors of Mexico improved the millenary indigenous aptitude for producing alcohol. In the XNUMXth century, the Spaniards were satisfied with their pinga and began to export it. From Tequila, town, today, the center of a demarcated region. And the name for which it became famous.
hacienda mucuyche, Yucatan, Mexico, canal
Yucatan, Mexico

Among Haciendas and Cenotes, through the History of Yucatan

Around the capital Merida, for every old hacienda henequenera there's at least one cenote. As happened with the semi-recovered Hacienda Mucuyché, together, they form some of the most sublime places in southeastern Mexico.

Balandra Beach, Mexico, Baja California, aerial view
Balandra beach e El Tecolote, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Seaside Treasures of the Sea of ​​Cortés
Often proclaimed the most beautiful beach in Mexico, we find a serious case of landscape exoticism in the jagged cove of Playa Balandra. The duo if forms with the neighbour Playa Tecolote, is one of the truly unmissable beachfronts of the vast Baja California.
Zorro's mask on display at a dinner at the Pousada Hacienda del Hidalgo, El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico
El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico

Zorro's Cradle
El Fuerte is a colonial city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. In its history, the birth of Don Diego de La Vega will be recorded, it is said that in a mansion in the town. In his fight against the injustices of the Spanish yoke, Don Diego transformed himself into an elusive masked man. In El Fuerte, the legendary “El Zorro” will always take place.
Vaquero enters a street lined with young palm trees.
Álamos, Sonora, Mexico

Three Centuries between Álamos and Andalusian Portals
Founded in 1685, after the discovery of silver veins, Álamos developed based on an Andalusian urban structure and architecture. With the end of silver, his other wealth gained him. A genuineness and post-colonial tranquility that sets it apart from the state of Sonora and the vast west of Mexico.

Map

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How to go

VISA AND OTHER PROCEDURES

Portuguese citizens do not need a visa for a stay of up to 30 days. Brazilian citizens must apply for a visa to enter Mexico. Both must have passports valid for at least 6 months after arrival in Mexico.

HEALTH AND SAFETY CARE

The authorities in Mexico require a certificate of yellow fever vaccine to all visitors over one year of age who come from a destination with a risk of transmission in the country or who have transited for more than 12 hours at airports in those countries. There is an intermittent risk of contracting malaria in some parts of the state of Chiapas. Very low risk in the states of Chihuahua, Durango, Nayarit, Quintana Roo and Sinaloa. Protect yourself from mosquito bites also to avoid a possible contraction of Dengue fever.  

For more information on traveling health, see the Health Portal of the Ministry of Health and Tropical and Traveler Medicine Clinic. In FitForTravel find country-specific health and disease prevention advice (in English).

At the time of writing this text, much of northern Mexico remained extremely insecure due to rivalry drug cartels and their violent criminal actions. The situation was particularly dangerous in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Michoacan, Coahuila and Durango, as well as in southern Guerrero.

TRIP TO MEXICO  

Cancun, Riviera Maya and Mexico City are the main air ports of entry into Mexico.

Fly from Lisbon to Madrid. THE Air Europa fly directly from Madrid to Cancun for from €1.500.   

A KLM / Air France fly from Lisbon to Mexico City with a single stopover (Amsterdam on the way, Paris on the way back) for from €800.

Must Do's

  • Mexico City and Teotihuacan
  • ​Barranca del Cobre
  • Baja California (El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve)​
  • Zacatecas
  • ​Catorce Real
  • Tax
  • Guadalajara
  • Guanajuato
  • Oaxaca
  • Coast of Oaxaca
  • San Cristobal de las Casas
  • Palenque
  • Puerto Vallarta
  • ​Merida
  • Campeche
  • Mayan Ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula
  • ​Beach of the Riviera Maya
  • Cultural and Religious Festivals

Explore

INTERNAL FLIGHTS

About 15 years ago, there was a drastic change in the panorama of Mexican airlines with the entry into the scene of several low-cost which broke the former dominance of Mexicana and Aeroméxico. From then on, domestic flight tickets have substantially decreased in price. Today, the main companies operating nationwide are:

Aeromar, AeroMexico and Aeromexico Connect, Magnicharters, Interjet, Volaris e VivaAerobus.

TRUCK

Mexico has developed an acceptable road network that is traversed by various types of buses. Almost all major cities have terminals that receive long-distance buses. Depending on their quality, these are divided into Deluxe (De Lujo, also called Ejecutivos) Home e Away classes. 

Deluxe rooms have tinted windows, fully reclining seats with space between them, air conditioning, quality TVs and on-board bathroom. They only stop once or twice along the way, sometimes not even that. Accordingly, they charge the highest prices, from €4 to €7 or €8 per hour, the latter being for really special buses and services.

buses from Home  they include guaranteed seats for each passenger that are relatively reclining, as well as air conditioning, a bathroom and TVs that show movies right in front of the passengers. They cost around €3 for each hour of travel. 

already those of Away they function essentially between smaller towns or even towns. They are slower than the previous ones and stop more often. Depending on the companies that operate them, they can be modern but also old relics. They will be about 20% cheaper than those of Home but in certain states they are also at greater risk of being assaulted by bandits. And, as much as the federal government and the state-owned companies try to fight them, Mexico has too long and too frequent a history of these misfortunes. 

There are still the microbuses small 25-seater buses, normally new but considered to be equivalent to a second class, provide connections between nearby towns.

And finally, the collectives, a kind of microbuses that can either be relics with VW Combis or more modern models. They only depart for round trips to nearby towns when they are full or, in the best case, when the driver thinks the number of passengers is sufficient.

CAR RENTAL

It is more expensive than renting in Europe and the United States but simple to do either online or over the counter. Mexican rent-a-cars accept drivers from 21 years old and up to 24 years old, subject to payment of an extra fee. All drivers must present a driving license from their own country, passport and credit card. 

Expect to pay a minimum of €30 per day for a small utility vehicle, including insurance and unlimited kilometers. To get lower prices, rent online in advance, for periods of a week or longer, and avoid renting at airport agencies. The agencies that you will find more easily all over Mexico are the usual multinationals.

Carefully check the safety of each place you plan to travel. Wherever you are, it is important to avoid traveling in the most dangerous states in the country (mentioned in Health and Safety) and, wherever you are, at night. Even if it costs you, drive as much as possible on toll roads. 

Em Bus ticket, you can make your reservation for bus travel in most of Mexico

When to go

No time is decidedly bad to visit Mexico. That said, in the low-lying and coastal areas of the country, May to September are the hottest, wettest and rainiest months. From June to November, it is cyclone season all along the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula (states of Quintana Roo, Mérida and Campeche), powerful cyclones can seriously affect these states and even others further north like Tabasco and Chiapas. Even if it is normal that there is no great instability, if you travel to these areas at this time, know that you may have the misfortune of finding, for a week or more, cloudy skies, strong winds and rain that can cause some destruction. 

Still, July and August and mid-December to early January are the peak vacation seasons for both Mexicans and foreigners. At these times, the coastal resorts tend to be pineapple.

From November to the end of February is the Mexican winter. The lands in the interior cool in such a way that, in the higher ones, there are diurnal minimums below 0ºC and even snow. This is what happens, for example, in the state of Chihuahua.

Money and costs

Mexico's currency is the Mexican Peso (MXN). They abound in most cities, ATMs and the most sophisticated establishments are prepared to accept credit card payments. Mexico is a country with very affordable prices.

ACCOMMODATION

There is a strong backpacking culture in Mexico which means you can find hostels throughout with overnight stays in dorms and private rooms. Expect to pay around €3 for a dorm, €10 to €15 for a double room with shared bathroom, €15 to €25 for a double room with a private bathroom. 

Another type of stay is guaranteed by roadside hotels and motels but, all too often, they prove to be uncomfortable and even unsafe. 

At a higher price and refinement level, resorts and hotels from international chains are increasingly frequent in the country. Comfortable and refined, they don't exactly allow guests to feel the Mexican soul. The Riviera Maya and Acapulco are good examples of coastlines full of gigantic resorts with beaches, swimming pools and many other private infrastructures, all-inclusive services and, in high season, a chaotic crowd of guests of countless nationalities. Expect to pay from €400 to €1.500 for a week's stay in half-board in this type of hotel. 

Taking into account the objective of experiencing Mexican culture, the best hotels are the colonial ones established in old haciendas. you equate (cactus cultivation) and other historic buildings and properties. A large part of these hotels are luxury (5 stars) and have high prices, easily €200 to €800 per night for a double room, depending on the location, ranch in particular and the time of year.

FOOD

Mexico, much more than the United States, contains an endless national gastronomic universe worthy of careful exploration. The cuisine is divided into northern, central, southeastern and coastal. 

You'll find street food everywhere except, of course, in and around resorts and big hotels. Served in small stalls, cars and caravans, street food is the least expensive in the country. Problems with this type of food are not exactly frequent, but, in any case, carefully observe the aspect of what you buy to avoid any complications. Traditional complete meals are sold at simple market stalls for as little as €2,50, drinks on the side.

Despite the quality and variety of its cuisine, Mexico imported the culture of the fast junk food and many of the same franchised restaurants that exist north of the border are also proliferating in Mexican territory, with prices higher than street food.

Apart from these types of meals, you will find popular small restaurants that serve different breakfast combinations that, depending on the richness and diversity, range from €2 to €5. Mexicans are used to heavy breakfasts with eggs, tortillas, beans and even meat. However, in places with the greatest affluence of tourists, you will also find places that have adapted to what foreigners were most looking for: yogurt with muesli, fruit, oatmeal and bread with butter and sweets.

Most conventional Mexican restaurants offer, between 13:16 pm and XNUMX:XNUMX pm, the so-called race race, cubiertos ou menu of the day. These last menus include several dishes of the best traditional Mexican food at very affordable prices, from €8 to €20 with soup, dishes, drinks, dessert and coffee included. At dinner, it is normal for Mexicans to eat fewer dishes and lighter dishes, sometimes simple snacks ou mexican platillos as burritos, tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, tamales and pies.

Note that you will find these specialties everywhere. On many days of abrasive heat, you can refrain from eating overly composed and bulky meals. Buy from these instead snacks ou mexican platillos at a reduced price – €1 to €3 in the streets and markets, more in restaurants – and at any time of day. 

IINTERNET

It spread across the country at great speed throughout the country. Some Riviera Mayan resorts charge extra. most of the hostels and certainly the hotels of international and colonial chains offer Wi-Fi access as part of the rate. 

If you find yourself stranded in a rural village, look for an Internet Café as close to the center as possible. It is most likely not to be far from one. Expect to pay €0,50 at a maximum of €1 per hour of navigation. 

Alternatively, purchase a SIM from Telmex or a competing company upon arrival in Mexico that you can install in a smartphone unlocked or pen to have internet wherever you go.

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