OAXACA · MEXICO
Mole, mezcal, and the long way to Monte Albán.
Day trips, neighbourhoods, mezcal palenques and the craft villages around the Valles Centrales. Santo Domingo, Monte Albán, Hierve el Agua, Mitla, Teotitlán and the painted streets in between.
Only in Oaxaca
Three things you can’t do anywhere else.
Mezcal trails, Zapotec ruins, the city the dead come home to. Cooking classes and food tours happen everywhere; these three don’t. The agave, the pyramids, the marigold parades. Plan the rest of the trip around whichever one matters to you most.
The opening day
Start where the city starts.
If you’ve only got one day in Oaxaca, this is where it begins. The opening act for everything else in the valley.
The classics
Oaxaca’s Most Popular Days
Monte Albán, Hierve el Agua, mezcal tastings, Mitla. The days everyone makes time for in the Valles Centrales.
By place
Pick a corner of the valley.
Each one is its own day. Centro Histórico for the cathedrals and the Zócalo. Jalatlaco for the painted lanes. Monte Albán for the Zapotecs. Hierve el Agua for the mineral terraces. Mitla for the stone mosaics. Teotitlán del Valle for the loom.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Mezcal palenque if you want the smoke. Cooking class if you want the kitchen. Walking tour for the streets. Day trip for the ruins. Workshop for the alebrijes. Market morning for everything else.
Time your visit
The festival calendar.
Oaxaca is a city with four moments a year that are worth structuring a trip around. Each one shuts down a different part of the centre, fills the markets with a different kind of food, and shifts what the city is — for a week or two — into something the rest of the year never sees.
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February
Carnaval
Pre-Lent carnival in the valley villages — San Martín Tilcajete is the loudest, with figures painted blue head-to-toe parading through the streets. Mask carving runs in the weeks before.
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July
Guelaguetza
Two Mondays in July, the eight regions of Oaxaca state send dancers in full traditional dress to the Cerro del Fortín auditorium above the city. The biggest indigenous folk-dance gathering in the Americas. Tickets sell out months ahead.
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Oct–Nov
Día de los Muertos
31 October to 2 November. Comparsas through the streets, candlelit cemeteries in Xoxocotlán and Atzompa, ofrendas in every doorway, cempasúchil marigold filling the markets. UNESCO heritage. Book accommodation six months out.
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23 December
Noche de Rábanos
The Night of the Radishes — a one-evening competition in the Zócalo where artisans carve enormous radishes into nativity scenes, alebrijes, Day-of-the-Dead tableaux. Only happens in Oaxaca City, only happens this one night.
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