No doubt about it: Oaxaca, Mexico is having a capital-M Moment. All the travel publications are raving about it, and all of my in-the-know travel friends are posting photos of it on Instagram. And for good reason—this southern city (pronounced Wah-hah-kah) pulls off the impossible: It’s artistic but not stuffy; trendy but not self-important; indulgent but extremely inexpensive. We met plenty of fun 30-somethings while we were there and saw a healthy smattering of retired American expats, too.
Oaxaca at night
Want to know what, exactly, is drawing the masses to Oaxaca? Allow me, your newly-minted in-the-know travel friend, to explain:
1. Traditional food: If there’s one thing Oaxaca is known for above all else, it’s its cuisine. Can’t-miss restaurants are everywhere, and they’re almost all serving up regional dishes. (You could spend a lot if you really tried, but this is Mexico. Even the nicer places we ate at were only charging about $6/plate.)
My favorite (mess of a) meal in Oaxaca
Mole is king in Oaxaca—officially there are seven varieties, but everyone has their own spin. The best mole we had was at the local food market (20 de Noviembre). We followed the crowds to La Abuelita and split a sampler plate. My favorite mole? Coloradito—que rico!
Moles for days
Other uniquely Oaxacan dishes include tlayudas (very large, very thin tortillas topped with beans, cheese, veg, and your choice of meat); tasajo (a thin, almost jerky-like piece of beef); and chapulines (roasted, salted, and chili-seasoned grasshoppers). Yes, we tried them. They’re sort of vinegary and crunchy. I recommend adding them to your Tostiesquites (Tostitos topped with corn kernels and mayonnaise).
Tlayudas are typically served flat, but mine was folded quesadilla style (with tasajo on top)
2. Cooking classes: As Oaxaca’s popularity has grown among foodies, so has the demand for cooking classes. You can find anything you want—from vegetarian to indigenous to cocktails. We opted for traditional, and it fully immersed us in Oaxacan culture.
Shopping for salsa ingredients
We shopped for ingredients like squash blossoms, nopales (cactus), and huitlacoche (corn fungus) at the market. We pressed our own tortillas and filled them with homemade salsa and fresh Oaxacan cheese (like mozzarella but stringier—and, if I may, better).
Homemade Oaxaca tacos
We roasted peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos for mole amarillo , then took everything to the local mill to be pulverized.
Mole in the making
Members of the community can bring their moles, maiz, and cacao here to be ground
And at the end of our meal, we indulged in plantain fritters made with cinnamon, sugar, and ground cacao.
Plantain fritters with sweet sour cream
3. Mezcal: Oaxacans are absolutely obsessed with their local spirit. They drink it straight, mix it in cocktails, and top it with chapulines. (Never heard of it? It’s basically a smoky tequila.)
Agave hearts awaiting their smoky fate
All roads into Oaxaca are lined with craft mezcal distilleries. You could spend a day cruising the trail and not even scratch the surface. (Careful though: The distillery we visited let us sample 12 varieties!)
Two of the 12 mezcal varieties we tried
Don’t want to leave the city for a tipple? No problem! There are so many mezcal bars in Oaxaca—with easily distinguishable names like La Mezcalerita and Mezcalería—it’s a wonder anyone can keep them straight.
4. Handicrafts: Markets are everywhere in Oaxaca, and they’re packed with handmade trinkets, textiles, and artwork. I’m not usually much of a shopper when I travel, but I couldn’t drag myself away from the tents and stalls of Oaxaca. (My favorites were La Casa de Las Artesanías and the open-air ones by the Templo de Santo Domingo.)
Open-air art show in Oaxaca
Anthony Bourdain once posited that there’s one factory in Taiwan that churns out the same cheap souvenirs for pretty much every country in the world, and he’s probably right. But the Taiwanese aren’t making anything for Oaxaca. Everything is so unique there, from the barro negro pottery to the hand-woven rugs to the alebrijes.
This is a massive alebrije; most are much smaller
Oh man, the alebrijes—fantastical wooden animal figurines swathed in bright colors and patterns. I loved them. Sean and I agree that when we have a house, we’re coming back to Oaxaca to decorate it.
Hand-woven textiles from nearby Teotitlan del Valle
5. Ethnobotanical Garden: Sean and I have been to a lot of botanical gardens in our time, but none like the one in Oaxaca.
Ethnobotanical garden, Oaxaca, Mexico
It’s a vast, beautiful desert-scape, full of cacti, agave, air plants, and other species native to Oaxaca State.
Cacti at Oaxaca’s Ethnobotanical Garden
You can only visit with a guide, and English tours are only offered three times per week. It gets pretty packed, as you might imagine.
Cacti at Oaxaca’s Ethnobotanical Garden
6. Hierve el Agua: There’s a waterfall made of stone just 42 miles outside Oaxaca.
Hierve el Agua
The water there is extremely mineral-rich, and it barely trickles down edge of the canyon. Over time the deposits have built up in a cascade shape, et voila:
Hierve el Agua
The name means “boil the water” because the water looks like it’s boiling out of the ground, not because its hot.
Hierve el Agua pool
In fact, it’s barely warm enough to swim in—but an ice-cold dip was a welcome activity after a surprisingly difficult hike to the base and up again.
7. Zócalo: It’s always party time in Oaxaca’s main square. When Sean and I strolled through it around lunch time on our first day, it was humming with music from two concerts and buzzing with street food and craft vendors.
It was still Christmastime in Oaxaca when we arrived
Later that night, we could barely squeeze past the dance party and the families that had gathered to gawk at street performers. And the energy never let up—the Zócalo was buzzing all day and all night, all the dang time.
8. Safety: The state of Oaxaca barely registers on the U.S. State Department’s cautionary radar. (It’s a 2 out of 4, the same as Italy and the UK.) We noticed a lot of police, but they felt protective rather than threatening. As long as you stick to well-lit and densely populated streets, keep your wits about you, and leave your flashy jewelry at home, you’ll be fine.
Oaxacan street art
This list could be so much longer. There are plenty of other worthy places within a stone’s throw of Oaxaca City—from the ruins of Monte Albán to the highest-quality alebrijes in San Martín Tilcajete. We wish we would’ve spent more than four nights in Oaxaca so we could’ve soaked even more of it in.
What’s the first thing you think of when I say Colombia? Cocaine? Pablo Escobar? Narcos? FARC? Terrorism? That’s fair. But what if I told you everything you thought you knew about the country is wrong?