Oaxaca City, Mexico

This small (read: walkable) city is an ideal long weekend getaway if you live in southern parts of the U.S., but for those of you who live farther north, it’s still worth setting aside four-or-so days to see. It’s high on most food lovers’ travel lists for mole—sample the seven standard types with rice at Los Pacos Centro, which came highly recommended to me by a taxi driver—and mezcal, which is typically served in shallow clay cups in these parts. Most bartenders will happily walk you through the seemingly endless varieties of the agave-based liquor, but the most passionate ones are at Mexcalogia, where you can also take in some live music.

For a half- or full-day affair of seeing the city’s surrounding areas, Mezcounting offers English-language tours of the city’s surrounding agave fields as well as traditional, home-taught Mexican cooking classes, all of which benefit local charities and sustainability efforts. Definitely eat any street food you spot, especially tejate—a cool drink made of ground corn, local cacao, cinnamon, and mamey fruit seeds, which are often served in hollowed gourd shells that are painted over in blue and red patterns.

There is no shortage of museums, churches, boutiques, and markets to wander here. Standouts include the Oaxaca Textile Museum and the Institute of Graphic Arts, which has a huge library of art books and a courtyard canopied by pink bougainvillea, where you can grab a table and flip through some of those books.

Right by the iconic Santo Domingo de Guzman church is the botanical garden, and if you go on a Saturday or Sunday, you’ll almost definitely catch the start of some traditional wedding parades—processions of dancers and musicians that carry larger-than-life effigies of just-married couples. Leave room in your suitcase, because you definitely want to go back with colorful hand-blown glass from Xaxique—just one of the city’s many artisan home goods boutiques.


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