The best travel itineraries to tour Mexico City and Surroundings

Why tour Mexico City?

This is an obvious answer for anyone that and has visited Mexico City. Simply because it has so much to offer to anyone. There are so many things that I can say about Mexico City that I do not know how to start. I will try my best to convince you that it is a place that everyone should visit and enjoy.

But first, a brief introduction of who am I because I am the one writing and giving you my opinion. My name is Eddie and I am a travel designer in Hoteleus. I was born in Mexico City and grew in Coyoacan, one of the best neighborhoods of the city and home of Frida Kahlo's Museum. I have lived in a neighborhood called Condesa with my girlfriend in Mexico City since 2011. Before I lived in Europe some years, mainly in Spain and Netherlands.

Luckily, I have many friends and family from U.S., Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. And we have received many of them doing different types of trips (family, friends, adventure, culture, etc...). Me and my girlfriend have travelled around with all our foreign visits. And also helped them plan their trips around Mexico.

Also, I do travel as my primary job. You can read more about me in my profile: https://hoteleus.com/en-us/travel-designer/eddie-christian

Now that you have a little bit of my background, I will share with you why I think tour Mexico City is good and what are the things that our visits had enjoyed and disliked the most.

To explain why you should visit Mexico City I first have to outline that it is one of the most diverse and culturaly rich places in the world. Here many cultures had clashed and created a strange but beautiful caos. 

I will devide this article into the following sections:

• Culture in Mexico City. Why it is so rich?
• Weather of Mexico City, When I should go? 
• Gastronomy, Why is sooooo delicious?
• Surroundings, What else can I do?

• Why not tour Mexico City

Culture in Mexico City. Why it is so rich?

As a local I think I am not the best person to tell you why my city's is so culturaly rich. So I asked many of the visits I recieved in Mexico City to describe how they felt about the culture of Mexico City and to describe it.

Most of them described it as very rich, but what does rich culture means? How can I describe to someone why is Mexico City's culture so rich? How can a culture of one city be richer than the culture of another city? 

The Cambriege Dictionary defines culture as the way of life, general customs and beliefs of a group of people. Personally, I relate culture with the cultural activities available in a place such as museums, theaters, fairs, concerts, etc...

Given the definition from Cambrige Dictionary I belief the richness of Mexico City derives from the diversity of the customs, ways of life and beliefs that coexist in Mexico City. And from my perspective I think the cultural activities offering of Mexico City is immense.

Many people don't know that Mexico City has the second most visited catholic shrine in the world. The Basilica de Guadalupe receives around 7 million pilgrims only in the first two weeks of December. Mexico City has more museums that any other city in world (around 180). And not any museums, for example the MNA is are world class museum. Mexico City holds thousands of events each year. It also has world known festivities like the "Dia de Muertos". 

Mexico City has Bosque de Chapultepec, a park that has 7 museums, 4 lakes, a Castle, a zoo and that is two times bigger than Central Park in New York.

Mexico City is surrounded by montains and has many forests, parks and lakes that can be vistied: Bosque de Tlalpan, Ajusco Mountain, Bosque de Xochimilco, Cuemanco Lake, Cuicuilco Pyramids, etc...

Mexico City has the second largest central plaza in the world in Centro Histórico. Next to the plaza is one of the largest churches in Mexico, which has been constructed over a pyramid, which has been constructed over a lake and that of course is sinking (weird but interesting). 

Mexico City has Teotihuacan, one of the most important anthropological sites in the world with some of the world's biggest pyramids.

Mexico City has people coming from: all corners of Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, Italy (all Europe), Central America, Venezuela, Lebanon, Colombia, Lebanon, Argentina, U.S., Israel, China, Japan, Korea .... etc ...

That is just a brief description of the caos, richness and diversity of the culture of Mexico City.

Weather of Mexico City. When is the best time to tour Mexico City?

The weather of Mexico City is definetely something to talk about if you are a tourist because it is generally great all year round. The average temperature in the day is around 23 degrees celsius (73° F). The morings can be colder in winter coming down to 10 celsius degrees (50°F) around 4 am, but the good news is that from that hour the temperature only gets better.

There is a rainy season, but it usually rains only for 1 or 2 hours. So most of the day in the rainy season there is no rain. 

The weather is very pleasant and allows tourists to enjoy breakfast, lunch, and dinner outside.

So when is the best time to tour Mexico City? Whenever you can, is a good time.

There are some interesting festivities that might be interesting such as the Dia de Muertos (first days of November) and the Dia de Independencia (16 of September). On the día de muertos there is a parade that crosses the city with people dancing and disguised. The Dia de Independencia is the time when Mexicans celebrate their independence and shout VIVA MEXICO with music and tequila.

Gastronomy tour Mexico City. Why is so delicious?

We could write a book about all the food available in Mexico City. There is something about Mexican cooking that makes it special. It might be that people in Mexico City just enjoy so much eating that when they cook they do it with love.

About the raw materials for cooking you can practically find everything because of the diversity of the ecosystems and cultures in Mexico. Sea food from the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, gulf of Mexico and Mar de Cortes. Vegetables and fruits from almost all the ecosystems: forest, dessert, manglar, jungle and more. And also so many kinds of animal food: pork, chicken, armadillos, cow, cocodile, iguanas, dears and even lion meet in Mercado San Juan (who knows where they get that meat from).

So you can find great restaurants of Mexican food with all the varieties which are many. But also superb restaurants of Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, Korean, Japanese food and much more. Of course, also a lot of street food. Street food everywhere selling tacos, tamales, tortas, hamburgers, chorizos ... juices, fruit cocktails, candy, bread, etc ...

Mexicans feel proud of their food and gladly share it.

Surroundings of Mexico City

There are many interesting places in the surroundings of Mexico City. Mexico City is the starting point of many day tours in which you can visit ecoturistic attractions and colonial towns.

Just to name a few:

• ​Puebla - A beautiful city 100 km away of Mexico City
• Tepoztlan - A town next to a mountain with a pyramid on the top
• Volcanos - Visit the Iztlaccihuatl mountain next to the Popocatepetl volcano
• Mountain hikes - Do a mountain hike in Ajusco, Dinamos or Desierto de los Leones
• Valle de Bravo - A town with a big lake in the middle of a forest

These are some of the most common but there are much more.

Why not tour Mexico City?

We have talked of many whys to visit Mexico City.  But there are also some why nots and it is important to speak about them too.

The main reason not to come to Mexico City is because it is a big, crowded and poluted city. Many tourists are concerned about the safety too. In my humble opinion I think that it is as unsafe as many other bigs cities such as Paris and New York. To stay safe you only have to use your common sense and try not walk into the dark alley.

The other thing to do is read. I have designed some travel itineraries in which I share advise of what to do, what no to do, how to do, where to go and where not to go in Mexico City.