Mexico City

The currency is the Mexican peso (MXN), and it's written with the same sign as the dollar, so don't panic at the first menu: “$250” means 250 pesos. Check the day’s exchange rate with Banco de México before converting your budget. Approximate 2026 price ranges: a street taco 15–25 pesos; a guajolota 25–40; a comida corrida lunch, with soup, main and agua fresca, 90–160; specialty coffee 55–80; a beer in a cantina 45–80; dinner at a midrange restaurant in Roma or Condesa 400–800 per person; a three-star hotel 1,200–2,400 a night. Cards work in restaurants, hotels, large markets and shops, but street food, public markets, trajineras and concession buses take cash only: carry 20, 50 and 100 bills and coins for change. Withdraw money from ATMs inside bank branches or malls, never from standalone machines on the sidewalk, and decline conversion into your card's currency, which always comes out worse. Tipping is 10% to 15% in restaurants (check first whether it's already on the bill) and 10 to 20 pesos for whoever watches your car on the street and whoever bags your groceries at the supermarket.

Benito Juárez Airport: 5 km from the Zócalo, with an internal aerotrén

Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX) is about 5 km east of the Zócalo and has two terminals linked by an internal airtrain that only takes passengers who already have a boarding pass. There are four ways into the center. An authorized taxi, with a ticket bought at the counter inside the terminal, costs 250 to 400 pesos to Centro, Roma or Condesa, and Uber, DiDi and Cabify pick up at designated points. Metrobús Line 4 leaves from both terminals and allows luggage; at the airport stations the fare is 30 pesos, compared with 6 pesos on the rest of the network, paid with the rechargeable card, never in cash. Metro Line 5, whose Terminal Aérea station is a few meters from T1, costs 5 pesos, but large suitcases are officially banned on the cars. The second airport, Felipe Ángeles (NLU), is about 45 km to the north, 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes by car. Buses to other cities leave from four terminals, one for each point of the compass: Norte (Teotihuacán and the north of the country), TAPO (Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca), Sur (Cuernavaca, Acapulco) and Observatorio (Toluca, Michoacán).

Twelve lines and 195 stations since 1969

The Metro has run since 1969, has 12 lines and 195 stations and carries several million passengers every weekday; in 2026 the fare is still 5 pesos, although the real cost of each trip is about 13 pesos, largely paid by the city's subsidy. Buy the Tarjeta de Movilidad Integrada as soon as you arrive, for 15 pesos plus credit: it pays for the Metro (5), Metrobús (6, or 30 at the airport stations), Cablebús (7) and Tren Ligero (3). Metrobús runs in dedicated lanes on the big avenues (Insurgentes, Reforma, Eje 4) and is more comfortable than the Metro outside rush hour. Cablebús is an urban cable car serving the hillside neighborhoods of Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero, with Line 2 reaching 10.6 km. For car trips, use an app instead of hailing a taxi on the street. Ecobici has about 700 stations concentrated in Centro, Juárez, Roma, Condesa and Polanco, with 1-, 3- and 7-day passes. Walking works within each neighborhood and almost never between them, because the distances are long, the sidewalks are uneven and at 2,240 m even a short slope leaves you out of breath.

The real risk here is property crime, not violence against tourists: pickpocketing and opportunistic theft. Backpacks and phones are targets in crowded Metro cars, mainly on Lines 1, 2 and 8 and at the Pino Suárez, Hidalgo and Tacuba transfers, plus La Merced and the Zócalo on event days; keep your phone in a front pocket and don't use it on the platform. Don't hail a taxi off the street: call Uber, DiDi or Cabify, or ask the restaurant for a sitio taxi, because express kidnapping by way of ATM stops still happens with cars parked on the curb. Avoid Tepito, La Merced at night, Doctores and the edges of the Centro after 10pm; Roma, Condesa, Juárez, Polanco, Coyoacán and San Ángel are safe to walk at night. Don't drink tap water: at home and in hotels you drink from the garrafón jug, and no one finds that odd. The city is seismic: if the warning siren sounds, walk calmly to the meeting point marked on the sidewalk, don't use the elevator and don't run for the stairs; on September 19 there's a national drill in memory of 1985 and 2017. The sound catches off guard anyone who wasn't warned. Protests at the Zócalo and along the Reforma are frequent on weekdays and almost always peaceful, but they close avenues: detour rather than cross.

Say “mande,” not “¿qué?”

When you don't catch what someone said, answer “mande” or “¿cómo?”. A blunt “¿qué?” sounds rude, especially with someone who is working.

Start with “usted”

Address vendors, drivers and older people as “usted” until they switch to “tú.” To call someone over, “joven,” “seño” and “maestro” work much better than “amigo.”

“Provecho” between tables

When you walk into or out of a small restaurant, people commonly wish “provecho” to whoever is eating. Reply “gracias, igualmente”: it's a polite formula and doesn't call for conversation.

“Ahorita”: anywhere from five minutes to never

“Ahorita” can mean in five minutes, in three hours, or never. If you need a time, ask for a time: “¿a qué hora?”.

Women's car and bus section

The Metro's front cars and the front section of the Metrobús are reserved for women, children and the elderly all day, not just at peak hours. There's a pink line on the floor and police on the platform; men don't board.

“¿Pica?” is courtesy: ask for salsa on the side

When they ask “¿pica?” before serving, it's courtesy. Ask for the salsa on the side if you don't know your limit; sending a plate back half-eaten is worse than asking for less.

At 2,240 m alcohol hits faster

Arriving from sea level and rushing around. At 2,240 m your breath shortens, alcohol hits faster and the hangover is worse: it's easy to walk too much on the first day and pay for it on the second. Drink water, eat early and take the first day slow.

It's 12 km from the Zócalo to Coyoacán

Thinking the city can be covered on foot. It's 12 km from the Zócalo to Coyoacán and almost 30 from the center to Xochimilco; use the Metro or an app for long distances and walk within each neighborhood.

The main meal is between 2pm and 4pm

Having lunch at noon and dinner at 8pm. The main meal is between 2pm and 4pm, many fondas close at 6pm and at night people eat tacos, not a full lunch. If you stick to European hours, you'll find the kitchen closed and the dining room empty.

Anthropology and Templo Mayor on Monday

Scheduling museums for Monday. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Templo Mayor, Chapultepec Castle, Casa Azul and almost the whole public network close on Mondays; leave that day for markets, parks and neighborhoods.

Buying the ticket before getting the Mexican visa

Brazilians have needed a visa to enter Mexico since 2022, when the free electronic authorization ended. Since February 5, 2026, those arriving by air for tourism get the electronic visa online, on the Mexican foreign ministry's site (visaelectronica.sre.gob.mx), without going to the consulate: it costs US$10 and is valid for a single entry and a stay of up to 180 days. Holders of a valid visa or permanent residence in the US, Canada, Japan, the UK or the Schengen area are exempt, but must carry the document.

¿Me da un taco al pastor, por favor?

Could I get a taco al pastor, please

¿Cuánto le debo?

How much do I owe you? The usual way to close the bill on the street and at the market

Sin chile, por favor / con la salsa aparte

No chile, please / with the salsa on the side

Mande

“Sorry, what?”: the polite way to ask someone to repeat

Con permiso

Excuse me: said when passing someone or getting up from the table

¿Está muy lejos caminando?

Is it very far on foot?

The closed basin and the drained lake

The city occupies the bottom of an endorheic basin of about 9,600 km², at 2,240 m altitude, ringed by mountains on three sides: the Sierra de las Cruces to the west, the Ajusco and the Chichinautzin range to the south, and the Sierra Nevada to the east, with Popocatépetl (5,426 m, active since 1994) and Iztaccíhuatl (5,230 m) visible on clear days. The basin has no natural outlet to the sea, and the five shallow lakes that occupied the bottom were drained through artificial tunnels between 1607 and the 20th century; more than half the urban sprawl sits on that saturated clay bed.

The ground that sinks and shakes

Two consequences govern daily life: the ground sinks when water is pumped from the aquifer (the Cathedral and the Palacio de Bellas Artes have dropped meters since they were built) and the clay amplifies seismic waves, which explains why earthquakes with an epicenter 300 km away bring down buildings here.

The layers of the grid and the boroughs

The urban grid reads in layers: the colonial checkerboard around the Zócalo; the Paseo de la Reforma cutting diagonally since 1865 and concentrating the skyscrapers; the Ejes Viales, fast one-way avenues imposed in 1979 over the old fabric; and the 20th-century expansion, which climbed the west and south and filled the east with Iztapalapa and Nezahualcóyotl. Mexico City has 1,495 km² divided into 16 boroughs, and about 59% of that territory is officially conservation land: forest, volcanoes and farming in the south, which recharge the aquifer.

The State painted history on the wall

After the Revolution the State hired painters to teach history on the walls: between 1922 and the 1950s, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros covered the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, the Secretaría de Educación Pública, the Palacio Nacional and Bellas Artes with murals that are still today's official version of the Mexican past. The city has over 150 museums (Anthropology, Tamayo, Carrillo Gil, Soumaya, Jumex, MUAC) and the modern architecture that came with them: UNAM's Ciudad Universitaria (1952, Unesco World Heritage since 2007), Luis Barragán's house-studio (1948, Unesco since 2004) and the Anahuacalli, a volcanic-stone museum Rivera built for his own pre-Hispanic collection.

Mariachi, cumbia, rock, lucha libre and soccer

Mariachi, cumbia sonidera and Spanish-language rock share the city's soundtrack. Mariachi has had a fixed address at Plaza Garibaldi since the 1920s and is hired by the song rather than by the hour. Cumbia sonidera fills whole blocks in Iztapalapa and Tepito, with sonideros sending shout-outs over the microphone in the middle of the track, and Spanish-language rock came out of here in the 1980s and '90s with Caifanes, Café Tacvba and Molotov. Beyond music, lucha libre is weekly theater with fixed rules (técnicos against rudos, mask wagered against hair), and Arena México, from 1956, has about 16,000 seats and a show on Friday nights. In soccer, América plays at the Azteca and Pumas at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario, while Cruz Azul, with no stadium of its own, has moved home several times since 2025.

Novels, films, shrines and nightlife

The city is a character in books and films that help you understand it before you arrive: “Where the Air Is Clear” (Carlos Fuentes, 1958), “The Savage Detectives” (Roberto Bolaño, 1998), which roams the Roma and Juárez of the 1970s, and “The Labyrinth of Solitude” (Octavio Paz, 1950); on screen, from Luis Buñuel's “Los Olvidados” (1950) to “Amores Perros” (2000) and “Roma” (2018). On the streets, popular religion coexists with Catholicism without asking permission: the Santa Muerte altar on Calle Alfarería, in Tepito, holds its devotion on the 1st of every month, and the Basilica of Guadalupe receives more pilgrims than any other Christian shrine outside the Vatican. The night starts late: bars open after 9pm, the old cantinas close around midnight and the dance floors of Roma and Juárez keep going until 3am.

“Where the Air Is Clear,” Carlos Fuentes (1958)

The novel that turned the city into a character: dozens of voices crossing classes in a capital that jumped from 3 to 5 million inhabitants. The title is ironic. It comes from Alfonso Reyes's line about the valley's air, which by then no longer existed.

“Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón (2018)

Shot in black and white in the Colonia Roma of 1970 and 1971, it rebuilds street by street a middle-class home, domestic labor and the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre seen from the sidewalk.

“Massacre in Mexico,” Elena Poniatowska (1971)

A montage of testimonies about the Tlatelolco massacre, built from the voices of people who were there. It's the key to understanding the city's distrust of power and what gets commemorated on October 2.