ITINERARY: 5 DAYS IN MEXICO CITY

Where to Stay: The Roma Norte and Condesa neighborhoods are teeming with lively restaurants, cool shopping, and beautiful tree-lined streets, making them great places to grab an Airbnb for your time in CDMX.

Getting Around: Uber is extremely cheap (and safe) in Mexico City. A 20-minute ride should cost you less than $10 USD! 

To get to the top floor of the tower (where the 360 view is visible), you’re supposed to wait in line and buy a ticket. BUUUT, fun fact, if you just enter the lobby and take one of the elevators up to the 37th floor, you can get to the lookout free of charge and with no wait!

Recommended to us by our walking tour guide, La Casa de Toño was one of our favorite meals in all of Mexico City, but it’s definitely a no-frills establishment. With more of a cafeteria vibe than a restaurant, La Casa de Toño has huge portions of authentic Mexican food, and you really feel like you’re eating as the locals do.

Next, head to Mercado De Artesanias La Ciudadela, which is a local open-air market with goods and tchotchkes to grab all of your souvenirs. While it’s not the most authentic market I’ve ever been to, it’s massive and you can definitely find some good souvenirs to purchase there.

To close out the day, head to dinner at Ticuchi, an uber-trendy Mexican restaurant in the Polanco neighborhood. The vibe here is very dark and brooding, and they have an amazing bar and creative dishes for you to try. Slight warning: The menus are exclusively in Spanish so it might be a little hard to order if you aren’t familiar with the language.

My favorite thing we did on our whole trip was take a hot air balloon tour over the Teotihuacan Pyramids! Our tour, purchased through Viator, was the perfect Saturday activity. They pick you up from your hotel at around 5:30AM and drive you about an hour north to the pyramids. Once you arrive, there’s coffee and breakfast waiting as you divide up into groups and head to your respective balloons. Then, you’re off! We were in the air for a little less than an hour, peacefully floating over the ancient pyramids at sunrise. I’ll admit, I was nervous before going up, but it felt extremely safe the entire time (although might not be the activity for those scared of heights).

Want to learn more? Check out my blog here for more info on riding hot air balloons over Teotihuacan!

As part of our hot air balloon tour, we also chose the option to stay a few extra hours to roam the grounds of the Teotihuacan Pyramids because you really shouldn’t go to the pyramids without seeing them up close. While the view from above is stunning, you can’t really fathom the sheer size of the pyramids until you’re standing on the ground in front of them.

Quick Tip:

It’s important to note that there are no signs anywhere around the pyramids, so if you don’t have a guide explaining everything to you then you won’t get any context or background. This is one thing we did wrong – we thought we could tour the pyramids ourselves, and while you technically can, you’ll just be staring at the pyramids alone for a few hours and not really be able to understand what you’re seeing.

Lucha Libre, essentially Mexican masked wrestling, is a sight you don’t want to miss on your trip. We headed to the Lucha Libre show at Arena Mexico and were able to get our tickets at the door for only around $10 USD. Inside, you’ll find a handful of men in tiny little spandex and masks dramatically wrestling each other for show. Grab a beer and enjoy the show!

Xochimilco, a neighborhood located in the south of Mexico City, is full of small canals, and as such, tourists and locals alike come here to rent the gondolas for an hour and take a peaceful (or rowdy) ride through the canals. While I thought at first that this was a super touristy activity, I later noticed that a lot of Mexican families ride the gondolas to celebrate birthdays and other events. When you show up to Xochimilco, you’ll see stalls and stalls of bright-colored tchotchkes, similar to those in the market that I mentioned earlier, and then rows of gondolas in the water. Locals will come up to you offering their best price to ride their boat, you’ll accept one of them, and, voila! You’re riding a gondola in Xochimilco.

I will say that if there’s anything to skip out on during your trip to CDMX, it’s probably this, but if you have the extra time and want to relax in the sun for a bit, it’s the perfect activity. Check out this TikTok for my full review of riding the gondolas in Xochimilco!

On your way to the Frida Kahlo House & Museum (coming up next) stop at Coyoacan Market around the corner for some unbeatable tostadas. I’ll admit, there’s not a whole lot else to see in Coyoacan Market unless you’re shopping for fresh fruits & veggies, so if you’re not in the mood for tostadas then you can probably skip it altogether.

My favorite museum in all of Mexico City and a must-see on your trip! You usually only need to get tickets a day or two in advance here or at the Frida Kahlo Museum website and you have to choose a date and time when buying your tickets.

The reason that this museum is a must-see is that it’s the home where the iconic feminist artist, Frida Kahlo, was born, lived, and eventually died, and her self-portrait table and even her ashes are on display in the house. The tour will teach you more about Frida’s life, her struggles with her health, and where she drew inspiration for her art.

For dinner, head back up to the Roma Norte neighborhood for my favorite meal of our entire trip at Em Restaurant. These creative dishes are unbeatable and the reservation isn’t too difficult to secure, but it’s another can’t-miss stop in Mexico City. Unlike La Casa de Toño, which is a lunch spot I mentioned earlier, Em Restaurant is a high-end establishment in Roma Norte but for not too steep of a price tag.

To close out the night, stop at GinGin, another good cocktail bar in Roma Norte with exotic and fruity cocktails galore.

Owned by the same restauranteurs as Rosetta Restaurant and Rosetta Bakery, Lardo is their brunch restaurant located in between the Roma Norte and Condesa neighborhoods. While they have a similar pastry menu as Rosetta Bakery, it’s much smaller here and instead, the menu is full of more hearty brunch items. If you love Rosetta Bakery, you’ll love Lardo, as we did.

Next, walk south on the beautiful tree-lined streets of Condesa to Casa Gilardi, which is the last home designed by renowned architect Luis Barragan in Mexico City. You can make reservations in advance to tour it, but we just walked up and rang the doorbell and they told us the next tour time and let us join. No promises this will work every time, but it worked for us!

Casa Gilardi is actually still used as someone’s primary residence today, but it was the last home designed by Luis Barragan before he passed and is a stunning example of the light and color that Luis used across all of his work. Even if you can’t get into the Luis Barragan House & Studio (where Luis actually lived), this tour will definitely suffice on its own.

If you miss out on getting tickets, since they’re few and far between, head to Casa Gilardi first, tour that home, and then the tour guide there may be able to get you a tour of the Luis Barragan House & Studio as well, if there are last-minute cancellations. I can’t guarantee that this will work, but it worked for us and is worth a shot!

Note:

Additionally, it’s important to note that you can’t take any pictures in the House & Studio unless you pay to be able to, which costs about $25 USD per person.