Ten days in Oaxaca eating well, drinking mezcal at source and skipping the photo queues, with market prices, palenque visits and a full receipt.
Oaxaca has been photographed to death. The pink walls, the alebrije donkeys, the queue at Hierve el Agua at 11am. None of that is the reason to come. The reason is that this is the best eating city in Mexico and the mezcal comes from villages you can reach on a £1 bus.
Ten days, £418 on the ground, no tours except one cooking class.
What food actually costs
Two prices exist in this city. Comedor prices and tourist prices, and they are three streets apart.
| Item | Market comedor | Restaurant on Alcala |
|---|---|---|
| Tlayuda | £2.40 | £8 |
| Bowl of pozole | £2.10 | £7 |
| Three tacos | £1.80 | £6 |
| Cafe de olla | 70p | £2.80 |
| Mezcal, a shot | £1.60 | £5 |
Mercado 20 de Noviembre is the obvious entry point, and the smoke hall at the back grills your meat by weight for about £3. Mercado de la Merced, ten minutes east, is where people who live here eat, and it is cheaper again.
Eat your main meal between 1pm and 3pm. Comida corrida, a set three course lunch, is £3 to £4 and disappears by 4pm.
Mezcal without the markup
A tasting flight in a bar on Alcala is £14. The same five mezcals in a small mezcaleria on Calle Manuel Bravo, poured in clay copitas, is £5.
Better still, take the colectivo towards Mitla and get off in Santiago Matatlan. Palenques there let you taste for free or for a few pounds and sell a litre for £9 to £14. This is a production village, not a theme park, so turn up before 3pm and buy something if you taste.
Three rules I learned the hard way:
- Sip it. Nobody shoots mezcal here.
- Espadin is the everyday one. Tobala and tepeztate cost triple because the plants take fifteen years.
- If the label says 100 percent agave and nothing else, that is enough. Certification is expensive and many good village producers skip it.
Day trips by public transport
Everything worth seeing outside the city is reachable without a tour.
- Monte Alban. Shuttle from the centre, £6 return, site entry £5. Go for the 8am opening and you get the plaza empty.
- Teotitlan del Valle. Colectivo from the baseball stadium, £1.20. Weaving families demonstrate natural dyes and sell direct, no commission.
- Mitla. Colectivo, £1.60 each way. The stonework here is better than Monte Alban and half as busy.
- Hierve el Agua. Colectivo to Mitla, then a pickup truck for £2. Total £9 with fees, against £35 on a tour. Community access has closed at times, so check locally the day before.
The one thing worth paying for
A cooking class, £74 for half a day. Market tour, mole negro from scratch with twenty ingredients, tortillas on a comal, and a written recipe you can actually repeat at home. It was the single biggest line in the receipt and the only one I would pay again without thinking.
Where to stay
Jalatlaco and Xochimilco are the two neighbourhoods to look at. Both are ten minutes' walk from the centre, quieter, and £4 a night cheaper than anything near Santo Domingo. Hostels run £10 to £13, private rooms in guesthouses £18 to £24.
Avoid a room facing the street unless you sleep through fireworks. Oaxaca sets off fireworks for everything, at 6am, all year.
Timing
Late October and early November means Dia de Muertos. Prices double and beds sell out three months ahead. February, March and September are cheap, warm and quiet. Rain falls in the afternoons from June to September and rarely ruins a day.
FAQs
How much do you need per day in Oaxaca? £42 a day including a dorm bed, three meals, local transport and one activity. £30 a day works if you eat in markets and skip the mezcal bars.
Is Oaxaca safe for solo travellers? Yes, including at night in the centre and in Jalatlaco. Normal city sense applies. Take registered taxis or a rideshare after midnight.
How do you get to Oaxaca cheaply? Overnight ADO bus from Mexico City is £25 to £38 and saves a night of accommodation. Flights are usually £45 to £70 one way.
Can you drink the tap water? No. Guesthouses supply garrafon water for refills. Bring a bottle rather than buying plastic daily.
What is the difference between mezcal and tequila? Tequila is mezcal made only from blue agave in a defined region. Mezcal can use many agave species and is usually roasted in an earth pit, which is where the smoke comes from.
How much mezcal can you take home? UK allowance is one litre of spirits above 22 percent per adult. Buy at the palenque, pack it in the middle of your bag, and declare anything over the limit.
For more countries priced the same way, see best countries to visit on a budget. If Mexico is your first trip abroad, read best destinations for first time travellers and how to plan an international trip first. Everything else is in the dispatch index and on the travel map, one note a month goes out through the newsletter, and food questions are welcome on the contact page.
Getting there and getting around
Overnight ADO buses from Mexico City TAPO station take six hours and cost £25 in economy or £38 in the reclining platino class, which saves a night of accommodation. Flights from Mexico City run £45 to £70 one way with hand luggage only.
In the city itself you walk. The centre is a grid of about fifteen blocks and a taxi ride inside it costs £2. Colectivos to the valley villages leave from fixed corners rather than a station, so ask your guesthouse which corner serves which village.
A ten day shape that works
- Days 1 to 3. City only. Markets, Santo Domingo, the Jalatlaco streets, one mezcaleria a night.
- Day 4. Monte Alban at opening, back for lunch, rest in the afternoon heat.
- Day 5. Cooking class.
- Days 6 and 7. Teotitlan and Mitla by colectivo, one village each day.
- Day 8. Santiago Matatlan for palenques.
- Days 9 and 10. Hierve el Agua early, then a slow last day and the bus back.
Market etiquette
Ask before photographing anyone, especially the women cooking. Prices in comedores are written on a board and are not negotiable, which is normal. In craft markets, one round of polite negotiation is expected and walking away is a fair move, but shaving two pounds off a rug that took three weeks to weave is not.
What to bring home
A litre of espadin from a palenque, a bag of chapulines if you liked them, dried chilhuacle negro chillies for mole, and a block of Oaxacan chocolate for £3. All of it packs flat except the bottle, which goes in the middle of the bag wrapped in clothes.