Brightly coloured cities and celebrations; punchy flavours; vast murals and big art; ancient civilisations; vast deserts where it's cactus only up to the horizon; steaming-jungle-fringed perfect beach resorts with bright oceans - thinking of Mexico makes you think big and bold.
Diverse and cosmopolitan in places, and pristine and ancient in others, this is an incredible country, and unsurprisingly one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Visiting Mexico is about getting out there in amongst it in the sunshine, whether ‘it’ be the outdoor market places of a big city, a dense jungle, under the ocean, up a desert mountain peak, or just on the beach. With so much variety on offer it can be a daunting task to pick the best places to stay in Mexico, but we've done the hard work for you! Here's our pick of the best places to visit and why....
Some of our Mexican Collections:
Many of the best places to stay in Mexico are clustered along the spectacular coastline of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Riviera Maya and the Baja California Peninsula. Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities by population, offers the perfect city break with its sizzling skillet of strong colours and flavours. Taxco, the mountain town known for its silver, is nearby.
On the Pacific Coast you’ll find Oaxaca, Jalisco with its capital Guadalajara, and that famous party town, Acapulco - in the town's heyday this was where JFK took Jackie on their honeymoon. In the north is La Paz and the Sea of Cortez, where you can swim with whales and dolphins, much loved by kayakers, leading to the Baja Peninsula, boasting some of Mexico’s most wild and dramatic sea and landscapes.
If you’re interested in ancient Mexican cultures visit Puebla, known for traditional food, colourful pottery, and colonial architecture, located near the pre-Hispanic archaeological sites of Tlaxcla and Cholula. Cholula is the largest man-made monument ever constructed.
Then there's the Yucatán Peninsula. Its coastline is a colourful display of bright azure waters, lush green jungle, white sands and silvery Mayan ruins. Its colonial cites are graceful, its resorts lively and its landscape - dotted with small villages and run through with national parks and biospheres - is largely unsullied by overdevelopment. This is where you’ll find some of the world’s best diving and snorkelling, both at sea and in the strange cenotes or sinkholes which lie underneath the jungle.
Quintana Roo is the flashy end of the Yucatán Peninsula, with spectacular Caribbean coastline and some incredible Mayan Ruins. Home to famous beach holiday destinations Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel and Tulum, Quintana Roo’s jungle interior has some wonderful Maya-Mexicano communities, as well as the spectacular ancient sights at Coba. Yucatán is the northern part of the peninsula, it’s where you’ll find Mérida, the region’s jungle-set colonial cultural capital. Nearby is Chichén Itzá, the Yucatán’s largest and most famous Mayan ruin, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
Use our guide to the best places to stay in Mexico and start to plan your trip of a lifetime!