What's up guys! We're here in Oaxaca City. We're spending about seven days here
and in this video we're going to show you the best things to do in and around the area.
And it's a really colorful city as well as a culinary destination in Mexico,
so we're going to be eating a lot of food and showing you all around. So enjoy this video!
We are Zac and Ine. Full-time digital nomads from the United States and Belgium.
We met while studying abroad in 2018 and have been traveling the world together ever since.
We're here to inspire your next adventure, whether it's hiking in the Canadian Rockies,
a road trip through the US, or backpacking across Africa. On our channel, you'll find
unfiltered videos of hiking guides and the best things to do in destinations around the world.
Located in southwestern Mexico, Oaxaca City is the capital of the state of Oaxaca.
It's truly one of the best places to visit in Mexico thanks to its mix of interesting history,
world-class cuisine, and colorful examples of indigenous and colonial cultures.
Beautifully colored buildings line the streets, each as lively as the next.
This, combined with a temperate climate and a breathtaking surrounding mountain scenery,
is why Oaxaca City is a place you should spend at least five days at.
In this video, we'll break down 10 incredible things you have to do in and around Oaxaca City.
At number 10, we recommend watching the sunset. Since Oaxaca City is surrounded by mountains,
it's possible to enjoy sunsets and sunrises here. Go to any rooftop in the city or hike
up to Auditorio Guelaguetza for an amazing view. The latter option gives you a scope of how big
the city actually is, with neighborhoods lining the beautiful hillsides of Oaxaca
As the culinary heart of Mexico, Oaxaca is a food lover's paradise.
From some of the best experimental restaurants to delicious street food,
the Oaxacan cuisine is uniquely influenced by its cultural diversity. The area is best known for
its seven varieties of mole, which is a complex sweet sauce often served with chicken and rice.
Other must try dishes include tlayudas and tamales. One of the things we loved most about the
cuisine was its affordability, even at high-end restaurants. And if you can't get enough of
the Oaxacan food, then try a cooking class. Find more details about this in the description below.
So this is a tlayuda and it's basically a Oaxacan version of pizza it looks very tasty.
About a one and a half hour drive from Oaxaca City you can find the Pueblos Mancomunados.
This is a community-run eco-tourism reserve located in the Sierra Norte mountains.
The reserve is made up of seven mountain villages, which are connected by gravel
roads and hiking trails at an elevation sometimes reaching 10,000 feet or 3,050 meters.
We visited the largest village named Cuajimoloyas, which is easiest to get to by local bus from
Oaxaca City. There are a wide variety of outdoor activities that you can do here including hiking,
mountain biking, zip-lining, and even bird watching. The park offers local guides who
explain the history and biology of the different forests as well as ensure you get around easily
and safely. You can come for the day, but we highly recommend staying at least two days here.
There's a little bridge at the bottom of the town of Cuajimoloyas
and you can just like pay 50 pesos and just walk across.
It's kind of nice and there's also a good viewpoint to watch the sunset from.
Another incredible thing to do in Oaxaca City is to visit its local markets.
Mercado 20 de Noviembre and Mercado Benito Juárez
are great places to start and dive into the extraordinary food this area has to offer.
They're both located in the historic center just one block from the main square Zócalo,
you can find fresh produce, beautiful handcrafts, stacks of dried chiles, mounds of mole paste,
and plenty of mezcal. But you can also find many food stalls that serve Oaxacan traditional dishes.
It would be a shame to visit Oaxaca and not try its most famous spirit made from agave plants.
There are many mezcalerias in the city where you can taste mezcal,
but for the real authentic experience, head out of town and visit one of the surrounding mezcal
distilleries, also called "palenques". Here, you can learn how mescal is made.
From the process of cooking the hearts of the agave plants underground,
to the actual fermentation, you can find hundreds of distilleries within
a hundred kilometer radius of the city and many are found on the "Ruta de Mezcal."
Another awesome thing to do is taking a day trip to Mitla,
located about 31 miles or 50 kilometers to the south of Oaxaca City.
Mitla comes from the word "mictlan", and one of its meanings is "the underworld". It's therefore
believed to be a sacred place and the gateway to the afterlife by the local Zapotec culture.
Today, you can visit ruins that are of Zapotec and Mixtec origin in the center of town.
Another lesser-visited site are the prehistoric caves,
which provided shelter for centuries with rock art evidence from 10,000 years ago.
At number four, we recommend taking a free walking tour through the historical center of Oaxaca City,
which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The city of Oaxaca has been able to preserve its
unique character thanks to its beautiful colors and interesting architecture.
From the beautiful church of Santo Domingo to the vibrant Zócalo square, and Oaxaca's
museum of contemporary art, there is so much to explore here. Every day at 10am and 5pm,
you can meet a local guide at Teatro Macedonio Alcalá to do a free walking tour. During the
two and a half hour tour, you'll learn a lot about Oaxaca's culture history, gastronomy, its
political arts, and its challenges. Find more info about the walking tour in the description below.
Hi, I'm Dhejon.
I recommend people coming to Oaxaca because we have a lot of food, we have a lot of murals,
i mean we have a lot of information to give them about Oaxaca. You need to walk around the city
a lot, alright. So, uh, we have a lot of hidden places in Oaxaca, so feel free to do it all. The
city center is super safe, so you can do it without any problems. Yeah, and you're more
than welcome to come to Oaxaca and well, if you see me in this video I will see you around
then and you can recognize myself. Yeah, sounds good. Thanks so much. Thank you very much man.
Oaxaca is known to have some of the most incredible festivities,
where the creativity of the locals is expressed at its best. The most important ones include Días
de los Muertos in November, the Holy Week during Easter, Fiesta Guelaguetza in July,
and the Night of the Radishes on the 23rd of December. But besides these celebrated holidays,
you can find entertainment in the city throughout the entire year.
Whether it's a traditional Oaxacan wedding or a vibrant graduation party in the streets.
We got invited by our tour guide yesterday who's graduating today, so now we're just walking the
streets to a graduation party in Oaxaca. You never know what you're gonna get in this city.
The historic settlement of Monte Albán is located on a mountaintop just eight kilometers, or five
miles, to the west of Oaxaca City. Ut combines Zapotec architecture with amazing panoramic vistas
of the city. Founded in the 6th century BC, it's one of the most important archaeological zones
in Mesoamerica. It functioned as the Zapotec's capital between 500 BC and 800 AD and was once
home to some 35,000 people. The highlights of the site include many terraces, pyramids, and canals,
with the structures around the grand plaza being the most impressive ones.
You can easily get to the ruins by taxi, by local bus in front of the hotel Riviera de Angel,
or by tour bus. Book a tour of your own using the link in the description below.
Our favorite thing to do near Oaxaca City was to visit the petrified waterfalls of Hierve
el Agua. Located 1 hour and 45 minutes from Oaxaca City,
this is truly one of the most unique natural wonders in all of Mexico.
You can hike to the top and the bottom of the waterfalls or freshen up at the infinity pool,
which offers some amazing views of the surrounding mountains. To get to Hierve el Agua from Oaxaca
City, you can drive yourself, take a tour, or come by public transportation via Mitla. We recommend
driving yourself as the site can get extremely crowded by tour buses during the day. Having
a rental car allows you to come early or stay until sunset, which is the best time to visit.
We stayed at Hierve el Agua until 6pm and had the pool almost all to ourselves from 5pm onwards.
And that's it for our video on the best things to do in Oaxaca City.
We'll catch you on the next adventure.