The Wandering Hart

Mexico City is the largest city in North America so naturally there are a million things to choose from when visiting. With only a long weekend to spend, here are the best things I did while there and what I’d recommend to anyone planning a trip.

EAT ALL THE TACOS (and a million other foods)

This one should be obvious but in case you didn’t know: Mexico City has one of the best food scenes in the world. From street vendors selling delicious tacos, conchas, and churros to Michelin starred restaurants there are more things to eat here than you can possibly consume.

My advice? Make sure you hit up some of the most popular taco spots (Taqueria Orinoco was our favorite), eat some street food, go to some of the cute restaurants in Roma and Condesa for some non-taco eats (my favorite was Santas Conchas Condesa for great brunch vibes and the CUTEST conchas you’ll ever eat).

Finally, try to hit up one of the many markets in Mexico City. Which leads me to my next rec….

Take a Food Tour

To be honest, I was skeptical of taking a food tour at first. We’ve been to a lot of cities and managed to find cool places and eat good street food on our own. However, I was SO happy we decided to take a food tour of the markets in the end. With our extremely limited Spanish, we really wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much out of our visit on our own.

The food tour gives you the advantage of being taken around by someone who knows vendors well enough to let you stop and just sample things like mole powders, michelada syrups, and various fruits/veggies. They can also help you pick new items to try at taco and quesadilla spots. Best yet? They can educate you on the history and current culture of the various markets including markets like Mercado de Sonora which focuses on medicinal and religious items. Do this early in your trip and you can explore more markets better prepared and a little more informed than you would have otherwise.

If this is something you’re interested in I’d highly recommend checking out TrippersMX — our guides there were amazing.

See a Lucha Libre Match

Lucha Libre is less wrestling and more an acrobatic and comedic drama performed live. Each of the wrestlers were crazy impressive in terms of strength and gymnastics and all of them had developed their own character. Each match is 3 on 3 with over the top entrances and a fairly clear “good” or “bad” team to root for.

It’s also really easy to go! We went right up to the ticket booth outside Arena Mexico at the start time and got in for the Sunday match. You may want to consider going earlier to the ticket booth earlier on Friday because I’ve heard that night is busier.

Learn at the National Museum of Anthropology

This was honestly one the best museums I’ve ever been to — and I’m a huge museum nerd so that’s saying something! The National Museum of Anthropology is located in Bosque de Chapultepec, one of the largest parks in the western hemisphere and worth checking out on its own, and is a very well-organized museum taking you chronologically through the anthropological history of the region. There are a ton of recreations of temples, burial sites, and housing structures as well as likely thousands of real artifacts to see. We spent hours there and still didn’t have time to go to the second floor and browse the ethnography exhibits. Honestly I thought this was the best way to learn more about the history of the area and various archeological sites but if you’re still itching for more history and have an extra day then I also recommend….

Take a Day Trip to the Teotihuacan Pyramids

Just about an hour outside Mexico City is a large archeological site featuring Teotihuacan Pyramids to wander around. You can easily go without a guide by ubering to the site and wandering on your own (there are some informational plaques with English translations). The site itself was pretty cool allowing you to enter some of the former residences and get very close to the temples (although when I was there we were unfortunately unable to go to the top of the Temple of the Sun — it’s unclear if this is a permanent change). I’d highly recommend going in the early morning to beat traffic, get there right before opening, and get some pics of the pyramids with the morning’s hot air balloon riders in the background. That’ll also ensure you’re done wandering around just in time for lunch at La Gruta, a restaurant built into a cave just a short walk from the site, before heading back to the city via Uber or taxi.

Mexico City is an amazing place to visit and there’s so much more than just the above to visit, but if you’re short on time these are some great options to include in your visit! And then just plan for your return trip to keep exploring— I know I will be!