For our family’s first-ever visit to Mexico City (CDMX), we had the opportunity to spend a week journeying and eating our way through the capital city’s lovely, historic, and vibrant streets. We found the city to be very COVID-safe, somewhat diverse (especially among age groups), and with great options for food and entertainment.
Read on about our experience and why CDMX has won our hearts as one of our favorite international destinations for families!
Click to jump ahead to
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Trip Purpose & Details
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Getting There
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Base Cost
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Before We Went & What We Packed
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Where we Stayed
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Trip Highlights
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Places You Can Skip
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Mishaps
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Itinerary
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Wishlist for our Next Visit
We acknowledge that the land in and around Mexico City is the stolen land of the Mēxihcah people.
Trip Purpose
Visit Mexico City for the first time on our way to Puerto Vallarta for a wedding.
Our main goals for this trip were to:
- Go at our own pace;
- Catch up with an old friend over dinner at Pujol;
- Do a cooking experience;
- Visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan.
DESTINATION: Mexico City, Mexico
AGE OF OUR KID: 4 years
LENGTH OF STAY: 1 week
TIME OF YEAR: July (rainy season)
WHAT WE SPENT
- Airfare: $280/person basic airfare from SFO
- Accommodations: ~$70-$125/night/room
- Transportation (Uber, bus fare): $7/person/day
- Meals: $25/person/day
- Admission fees for museums: $45/person total
Add-Ons:
- Checked bags: $30/bag/flight
- Shopping and souvenirs
- Dinner at Pujol: $200/person
Getting There
There are direct flights (~4 hours) to Mexico City from the Bay Area’s major airports. Due to cost and timing, we opted for a red-eye Aeromexico flight from San Francisco International Airport to Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México. Our kid slept, while other kids on the flight slept not a wink!
From the airport, it takes about 30 minutes to drive into the city center.
How We Prepared
All optional, if you’d rather play it by ear:
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Renewed our soon-to-expire passports
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Ordered currency from our bank (we used ~$350 in cash, and used our credit cards the rest of the time)
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Made dinner reservations at Pujol
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Booked a cooking experience through Traveling Spoon
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Bookmarked sites in Google Maps (email us if you’d like a copy of the list!); downloaded offline maps
What We Packed
- Standard diaper bag essentials
- Plane ride essentials
- Travel carseat (you could do without if you opt not to ride cars or if you don’t mind your child going without a carseat)
- Umbrella stroller, if needed
- Ergobaby or soft baby carrier, if needed
- Passports 🙂
Where We Stayed
Hotel Block Suites, Roma Norte (review coming soon!)
Hotel Casa Jacinta, Coyoacán
Trip Highlights
Read our Guide to Mexico City (coming soon!) for a full list of recommended family-friendly activities!
Affordability
Your U.S. dollar goes a loooong way in Mexico. We knew it would be more affordable, than say, Europe, but we were sometimes appalled when we had an amazing meal for half the price of what it would typically cost us in the Bay Area.
For example, my friend and I went out for dinner at Pujol, one of the world’s top-rated restaurants. The 10-course meal cost us $200 each, whereas in the U.S. the same meal would cost double (if not more!).
As an affordable destination, Mexico City lends itself to interesting experiences that your family might not otherwise be able to spend money on at home or elsewhere.
Hopping Neighborhoods
Staying in two different neighborhoods within CDMX was an awesome way to experience the city, and we thankfully had the privilege of an extended trip where it made sense to hop from one hotel to another. We enjoyed Roma Norte for its old world charm and proximity to restaurants, shops, and sights, and we enjoyed Coyoacán for its quiet, suburban feel.
Working on our Spanish
Our child goes to Spanish immersion school and our whole family loved getting to flex our (very basic) Spanish skills on this trip. Listening comprehension still proves very difficult, lol. One of our favorite catchphrases learned on this trip was to say “para llevar” whenever we wanted to purchase or pack food “to-go.”
ALL OF THE FOOD
We thoroughly enjoyed almost every single meal we had in CDMX. From Cafe Nin to Tacos de Canasta Los Especiales to Contramar to Pujol, everything was spot on. We had 2 meh meals during our entire stay, and one was due to some shady business practices for an overpriced menu.
Visiting Teotihuacan
While transportation to and from the pyramids of Teotihuacan was a challenge for us since we were coming from the city and were trying to get an early morning start, we would do it all again because the pyramids are amazing. Walking the Calzada de los Muertos (Avenue of the Dead) between the larger-than-life pyramids was a walk through history, and the museum there is amazing. We easily spent five hours here! Read our full review (coming soon!).
Museo del Papalote
Every day after our visit to the Museo del Papalote, our kid would ask us, “Can we visit the kid’s museum again?” She clearly enjoyed herself and so I was pleased that the museum made an impression on her! Read our full review (coming soon!).
Cooking Experience
We booked a cooking experience through Traveling Spoon, which was my first experience with the site. The ladies we paired up with are chefs and food stylists, and they were awesome! We had such a blast and would highly recommend it (full review coming soon!).
Places to Skip
Mercado Centro
This warranted its own post (see here!), so please listen to us when we say, do NOT eat at Mercado Centro/Terraza Mexicana near Zocalo Square. Or if you do, at least know what you’re getting yourself into, which is a great view of the Cathedral and Zocalo Square, at exorbitant pricing (we’re talking in the hundreds USD!) and shady business practices. We’ll let the Google reviews speak for themselves.
Mishaps
When things don’t always go according to plan…
- Don’t get ripped off like we did at Mercado Centro–it’s such a scam! Read about our experience here.
- Did we mention it can be hard to get an Uber ride to/from Teotihuacan?
- So are you telling me I don’t need to keep my kid in a carseat? We were ready and rarin’ to go with our travel carseat, not quite making the connection that Mexico’s carseat laws are lax and therefore do not require your kid to sit in a carseat! Ride at your own risk, but we opted to leave the carseat at the hotel instead of hauling it around our walks.
- We did not realize July is rainy season in Mexico. If you visit during the U.S. summer, bring a poncho!
Itinerary
Here’s how we spent a week in Mexico City.
Notes: The few things we booked in advance were dinner at Pujol and our cooking experience in San Angel. Everything else I tried to group by geography, and we went where our energy took us. Plus, sometimes we had to shift plans because we got rained out.
DAY 1
- Arrived in Mexico City; took an Uber to Hotel Block Suites
- Rested at Hotel Block Suites
- Grabbed pastries and coffee from Panaderia Rosetta and Casa Bruna
- Ate a late lunch at Contramar
- Walked to Parque España; spent time at the playground
- Ate gelato from Bendita Paleta
- Ate dinner at Casa de Toño
DAY 2
- Ate breakfast at the hotel
- Took a bus (then a taxi) to Centro
- Ate lunch at Tacos de Canasta Los Especiales
- Visited Diego Rivera’s Murales de la Secretaría de Educación Pública
- Caught a glimpse of Templo Mayor
- Visited Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México
- Ate a snack at Mercado Centro (do not recommend)
- Got some more tacos from Tacos de Canasta Los Especiales
- Walked to Palacio de Bellas Artes
- Rain forced us to take a taxi back to the hotel
DAY 3
- Grabbed pastries and coffee from Panaderia Rosetta
- Visited Museo Nacional de Antropología
- Walked through Bosque de Chapultepec
- Attempted to go to Castillo de Chapultepec
- Visited Papalote Museo del Niño
- Parted ways so that Mom could go to dinner at Pujol; Dad and kid ate dinner then took an Uber back to the hotel
DAY 4
- Ate breakfast at the hotel
- Attended mass at Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia
- Visited Mercado el 100
- Ate lunch and shopped at Huerto Roma Verde
- Walked to Mercado Medellin
- Walked back to the hotel to rest
- Ate dinner at Milk
DAY 5
- Took an Uber to Teotihuacan
- Visited Teotihuacan, including the pyramids and museum
- Took an Uber back to CDMX
- Ate a late lunch at Terrazza Cha Cha Cha
- Walked to Palacio Bellas Artes
- Had coffee and merienda at Finca Don Porfirio
- Walked to and shopped at Mercado de Artesanías La Ciudadela
- Took an Uber back to the hotel
DAY 6
- Ate brunch at Cafe NIN
- Visited and shopped at Mercado de Artesanías Roma Norte
- Ate churros at El Moro
- Checked into Hotel Casa Jacinta in Coyoacán
- Ate dinner at La Barraca Valenciana
DAY 7
- Ate leftovers for breakfast
- Ate an early lunch at El Pescadito
- Got our nails done at Manura
- Cooking/dinner experience in San Angel
DAY 8
- Ate brunch at Café Ruta de la Seda
- Walked around Coyoacán
- Visited Parroquia San Juan Bautista
- Ate dinner at Júpiter Cervecería
- Walked by Casa Azul
Wishlist for our Next Visit
- Hot air balloon over Teotihuacan
- Visit and tour Casa Azul
We actually do plan to visit Mexico City again in a couple months, so I’m excited to put this wishlist to good use!
I can’t wait to share more about our trip to Mexico City.
Look out for some posts in the coming weeks, and let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see covered!
We’d love to hear what other BIPOC families have enjoyed at this destination, so let us know in the comments!