Oaxaca, Mexico

Mexico's food capital: mole, tlayudas, mezcal, and Day of the Dead like nowhere else.

foodculturemezcalmarketsbackpacker

Best time to visit

Month	High	Low	Rain	Season
Jan	25°	11°	3 mm	prime
Feb	27°	12°	4 mm	prime
Mar	28°	13°	13 mm	prime
Apr	30°	15°	25 mm
May	29°	16°	66 mm
Jun	25°	16°	162 mm
Jul	25°	15°	114 mm
Aug	25°	15°	131 mm
Sep	24°	15°	169 mm
Oct	24°	14°	80 mm	prime
Nov	24°	12°	9 mm	prime
Dec	24°	11°	4 mm	prime

30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.

Serves travellers at Backpacker→Premium level. Typically around $60 a day on the ground.

Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.

Cash runs the markets, the colectivos and the village mezcalerias. Cards work in central restaurants and hotels. Tipping is expected in restaurants.
money · editorial
The city sits above 1,500 metres, so the sun is sharper and nights are cold even in summer. Mezcal is served at full strength and poured generously. The coast is not a day trip.
know before · editorial
Day of the Dead and the Guelaguetza in July are the two weeks the city sells out, sometimes a year in advance; go then on purpose or not at all. Afternoon rain is the norm through the summer months.
when not to go · editorial
The Centro puts you inside the grid of the old city. Jalatlaco is a few blocks east, quieter, with painted streets. Xochimilco climbs north behind the aqueduct. Reforma is residential and where longer stays end up.
where to stay · editorial
The centre is walkable and that is where you will spend most of your time. Colectivos and second-class buses run out to Mitla, Teotitlan and the mezcal villages. A car helps for the valleys but is useless in the city.
getting around · editorial
Oaxaca airport is half an hour from the centre, an hour by air from Mexico City. Overland from the capital takes most of a day whichever road you use. The Oaxacan coast is a separate journey again, either a short flight or a long, winding drive over the mountains.
getting there · editorial

The Oaxaca Zócalo
The square with the fig trees and the band playing in the bandstand.
Santo Domingo
The gilded seventeenth-century interior, and the ethnobotanical garden next door.
Monte Albán
The Zapotec capital on top of a flattened hill, above the whole valley.
Hierve el Agua
The petrified waterfalls and the natural pools on the edge of the cliff.
The Tule Tree
The thickest trunk in the world. Two thousand years old, and still giving shade.
Mercado 20 de Noviembre
The smoke corridor, where the meat goes onto the coals in front of you.

Eat mole negro; the real thing takes a day to make
Eat a house-made mole with more than twenty ingredients
It takes days to make. It is eaten in fifteen minutes.
Eat a whole tlayuda in one night
The size of the plate, and none of it is left.
Drink an espadín mezcal slowly, with no salt and no lime
It is not tequila and it is not thrown back in one.

Be in Oaxaca for the Guelaguetza
Watch a calenda come down the street without being invited
Brass band, giant puppets and nobody explaining anything.

Spend a morning in a workshop dyeing wool rugs with cochineal
The red comes from an insect that lives on the cactus. It always has.
Follow mezcal from the earth oven onwards
Agave roasted, crushed under stone and distilled. A full day.