The Yucatán5 places
- CalakmulOne of the largest Maya cities ever built, capital of the Snake Kingdom and Tikal's great rival, sunk deep in a jungle…
- IzamalAn entire town painted egg-yolk yellow, built around a colossal Franciscan monastery that the Spanish raised directly…
- Chichén Itzá & the YucatánThe most famous Maya city, crowned by a perfect stepped pyramid where, twice a year, the sun casts a shadow-serpent…
- San Francisco de CampecheThe walled city the Yucatán tourist circuit drives past — pastel streets inside genuine pirate-era ramparts, a sea wall…
- BacalarA freshwater lagoon fifty kilometres long that runs through seven distinct shades of blue, four hours south of Cancún —…
The Bajío (Silver Highlands)4 places
- ZacatecasA silver-boom city wedged into a narrow ravine at 2,400 metres, built entirely from pink cantera stone, with one of the…
- Guanajuato & the BajíoA jewel-box colonial city that silver wealth built, its rainbow houses spilling up steep ravines, its traffic hidden in…
- Huasteca PotosinaA green corner of San Luis Potosí where mineral-rich rivers run an unreal turquoise and fall over limestone in…
- Grutas de TolantongoA turquoise thermal river running through a canyon in Hidalgo, with terraced hot pools built into the cliff face a…
Oaxaca & the South3 places
- Mazunte, Zipolite & Punta CometaA string of small beach towns on Oaxaca's Pacific coast where a cabaña with an ocean view has cost around ten dollars —…
- San José del PacíficoA village strung along a ridge at 2,500 m in the Sierra Sur, where the cloud comes up the valley from the Pacific and…
- OaxacaMexico's culinary and cultural heart, a graceful colonial city where the food is a religion, mezcal flows, indigenous…
The West (Jalisco & Michoacán)3 places
- GuadalajaraThe birthplace of mariachi, tequila, and the wide-brimmed charro hat, which is to say the place most of what the world…
- Laguna de Santa María del OroA turquoise lake filling the crater of an extinct volcano, ringed by jungle-covered walls, with a handful of family…
- The Monarch Butterfly ReserveEvery winter, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies complete one of nature's most astonishing migrations, flying…
Central Mexico (Mexico City)2 places
- Mexico City & TeotihuacánOne of the world's great capitals, built on the ruins of the Aztec island city of Tenochtitlán, layering ancient…
- Orizaba & Pico de OrizabaA well-loved and frankly well-visited Porfirian town in a green Veracruz valley, with the highest mountain in Mexico —…
Baja California1 place
- Baja & the Sea of CortezA long, wild desert peninsula between two seas, where cardón cacti march to the shore and the Sea of Cortez, so teeming…
The North (Deserts & Copper Canyon)1 place
- Copper CanyonA network of vast canyons deeper and larger overall than the Grand Canyon, crossed by one of the world's great railway…