People ask us for "the Mexico itinerary" as if the country were the size of Portugal. It is bigger than Western Europe, and the mistake most first-timers make is trying to see the Caribbean and the Pacific in one week. Three weeks is the honest minimum for a loop that touches the capital, the colonial heartland and both coasts. This is the version we give friends, built around the twelve destinations on this site and the flights that actually connect them.
The shape of the trip
Fly into Mexico City, go north by road through the colonial towns, fly to the Pacific, fly across to the Caribbean, fly home from Cancún. You never backtrack, every leg is a two-hour flight or a three-hour drive, and you finish on a beach.
Days 1 to 4: Mexico City
Four days is the minimum, and you will still leave things undone. Day one is the Centro Histórico: the Zócalo, the Templo Mayor, the cathedral, Bellas Artes at sunset. Day two is the Anthropology Museum in the morning and Chapultepec in the afternoon. Day three is Coyoacán and the Frida Kahlo house (book weeks ahead). Day four is Roma and Condesa with no plan at all: cafés, bookstores, a long lunch, an early night before the road.
Days 5 to 8: the colonial heartland
Rent a car or take the excellent first-class buses north. San Miguel de Allende is four hours from the capital and worth two nights: the Parroquia at dusk, the rooftop bars, a morning at the hot springs of Atotonilco. Then ninety minutes to Guanajuato for two more: the alleys, the Pípila viewpoint, a callejoneada with the student troubadours. If it is October, the Cervantino festival is on and you should have booked months ago.
Days 9 to 10: Guadalajara and Tequila
Three hours west by road. Guadalajara gets one night for the cathedral, the Orozco murals and Tlaquepaque, and the second day is the agave landscape around the town of Tequila with a distillery tour. Do not drive back the same night; there is a reason the tour includes a bus.
Days 11 to 15: Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit
Five hours of spectacular mountain highway, or a 45-minute flight, brings you to Puerto Vallarta, our home base. This is where the trip slows down, and where our network is deepest. Read Visita Vallarta before you arrive; it covers every beach and neighborhood. Spend two nights in Old Town for the Malecón and the restaurants, then move north into the Riviera Nayarit: Casa Mamica runs boutique apartments in Bucerías, La Cruz and San Pancho, which puts you within reach of Sayulita's surf and Punta Mita's coves. One day on a private boat to the Marietas Islands is not optional.
If you have an extra two days and want to see a Pacific beach with nobody on it, Mayto, three hours south in Cabo Corrientes, is a hotel on twelve kilometers of empty sand with a sea turtle camp next door.
Optional detour: Los Cabos and Cabo Pulmo
If diving matters to you more than colonial towns, swap Guadalajara for a flight to Los Cabos. The resorts are the resorts, but two hours north on the East Cape, Cabo Pulmo Beach Resort sits on the only living coral reef in the Sea of Cortez, and the snorkeling there is the best on the Pacific side of the country.
Days 16 to 21: the Caribbean
A direct flight from Vallarta or Guadalajara lands you in Cancún. Give the hotel zone one night for the water, then drive south. Tulum gets three nights: the ruins at 8 a.m., a cenote every afternoon, one dinner on the beach road for the spectacle. Finish with two nights in Mérida if you want culture, Chichén Itzá on the way, and a Mayan-Lebanese dinner in the white city before you fly home from Mérida or back through Cancún.
What we left out
Oaxaca and Mazatlán both deserve a place, and both break the loop. Oaxaca fits as a three-day extension at the start, flying in from Mexico City; Mazatlán fits if you drive the Pacific north from Vallarta instead of flying east. For a trip that is all coast and no interior, our sister site Playa Por Favor covers twelve beach destinations in detail. And if you are coming from the western United States, the wine country of Baja is a separate long weekend: Mi Dulce Vista runs private tours through the Valle de Guadalupe.
Budget and timing
Go between November and April; the whole loop is dry season then. Three weeks done this way, mid-range hotels and one or two splurges, runs about 4,000 to 5,000 US dollars per person including internal flights. Book the internal flights first, the Frida house second, and everything else can wait until you land.
