Top 10 Things to do in Mexico City

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Heading to the lively Mexico City? This city is HUGE, so obviously there are heaps of things to do. How do you even know where to start?

Right here! After traveling all over the country and using Mexico City as a hub, we have narrowed down the 10 best activities to fit into your itinerary. 

Dig into the rich historical center, visit ancient ruins, experience the culture through food and Lucha Libre, and take a couple of day trips to nearby towns. There is so much life in Mexico City and these top 10 activities show you a vibrant array.

Best Things to do in Mexico City

1. Hot Air Balloon Flight over Teotihuacan

Mexico City is a grand adventure on its own, but the opportunities outside the city are seemingly endless. This hot air balloon flight over Teotihuacán Valley could quite literally be the high point of your visit to the Mexican capital.

Seeing the sunrise over Teotihuacán Valley, while suspended in a hot air balloon is the definition of a bucket list experience in Mexico if you ask me! As you soar higher, the sprawling ruins of the once-mighty civilization come into view, revealing their intricate details and mystical allure. 

You might have already experienced Teotihuacan on the ground, but the grandeur of the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon is even more awe-inspiring from above. Your flight can last anywhere between 30 and 50 minutes depending on the wind conditions on the day but every second will be worth it in the end. Check out the 1,700+ glowing reviews to see why this is a well-loved experience!

You will also be spoiled with a hearty breakfast in a cave once you have descended to earth, giving you time to reflect on the experience. It is one of the most affordable hot air balloon experiences we’ve seen and for $145 USD per person, you will get round-trip transportation (optional), breakfast, and extra time to see the pyramids.

This experience is likely to sell out – secure your hot air balloon flight in advance here!

2. Visit the ancient Aztec ruins at Teotihuacan

By far, the most famous thing to do in Mexico City is to visit the ancient ruins of Teotihuacan. These ruins are spectacular and date back over 2,500 years.

We think taking a tour makes the experience all the more meaningful. You can learn a ton about the ruins (and there’s a lot to learn – trust me), and the tours usually include bonus stops along the way. That’s why we love this Teotihuacan, Guadalupe Shrine, Tlatelolco, and Tequila Tasting Tour!

Temples and tequila, the two magic words to get us excited about any tour. Start by exploring Tlatelolco, where the vibrant Aztec market once thrived. Then marvel at the iconic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where a sacred cloak holds the image of the revered Lady Virgin.

For lunch, we popped into the restaurant Tlacaelel for some yummy Mexican food and drinks. While lunch is on your own dime, the alcohol is included in the tour price! Sampling pulque (an ancient drink made from agave), tequila, and mezcal was a fun way to try some different drinks and get to know the other travelers on our tour.

But the adventure doesn’t stop there. Step into the mystical realm of Teotihuacan, the legendary City of the Gods. Wander amidst the awe-inspiring ruins and see the towering pyramids of the Sun and Moon. From their majestic summits, soak in panoramic vistas that stretch to the horizon. 

This was a full day but such a great tour. We aren’t the only ones who loved it – check out the 7,300+ 5-star reviews here!

This tour is one of the best ways to see Teotihuacan from Mexico City. For as little as $57 USD per person, you can sit back and relax as your guide takes care of all your entry fees and transportation needs. You can also upgrade this to a private tour for $255 USD.

Secure your spot on this top-rated tour now, and get FREE cancellation 24 hours before you go.

3. Historic downtown walking tour

The historic center of Mexico City is filled with exciting places to visit. The only problem is it can be hard to know exactly what you’re looking at. This is where a tour of the historic center comes in handy!

We went on this top-rated historic downtown walking tour and learned so much. We like to take walking tours our first few days in the city so that we can get our bearings and know where to go back to. Over three hours, our tour guide took us by the most iconic Mexico City spots, giving a history lesson and their own local perspective. 

Our tour started in the Zocalo, which is the massive city square in the photo above. This is the hub of Mexico City’s historic district, and nearly everything we passed by on this tour is central to the Zocalo.

From here, we took off exploring the ancient ruins of the Templo Mayor, the stunning Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Plaza Manuel Tolsá which locals frequent. But my two favorite stops were the Palacio Postal, the world’s most beautiful post office, and the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This is a famous art museum, but the building itself is a work of art!

The tour guide was amazing, and their knowledge was so impressive. Group sizes can be up to 25 people, but ours had much fewer. The tours are available at 9:30 am or 4:30 pm daily and are only $20 USD a person – which is a steal!

This is the top-rated history walking tour in Mexico City with over 650 glowing reviews. You don’t want to miss out on it!

Secure your spot on this top-rated tour here and get flexible payment and cancellation options.

4. Watch a Lucha Libre show

Lucha Libre in Mexico City is one of the most entertaining shows I have been to, period! Essentially, it’s a Mexican style of wrestling that’s more of a show than an actual fight. It’s very comparable to WWE wrestling but with a Mexican twist.

The shows are loud and the atmosphere is really awesome. It’s definitely one of the best things to do in Mexico City!

We did this Lucha Libre tour and from start to finish the tour was really good. Our tour guide was a former luchador, so we were able to learn all the rules, history, and significance of the sport. This made our experience watching the show way better because we knew what the heck was going on!

Before we got to the famous Arena Mexico for the Lucha Libre show, we stopped for a mezcal tasting. This not only helped loosen us up for the show, but we also got to try a variety of this classic Mexican spirit!

Then we headed to the show. Brace yourself for a night of extraordinary athleticism, theatrical performances, and the mesmerizing sight of luchadors adorned in their striking masks. As the crowd erupted with cheers and chants we rallied behind our favorite team and quickly became die-hard fans.

This is certainly a Mexico City bucket list experience. It lasts about 4.5 hours and includes your ticket to the show, mezcal tastings, and a luchador mask to take home for $95 USD. Be sure to pay attention to their moves so you can practice them later!

Check out the hundreds of positive reviews and book this tour here before it sells out!

5. Go on a food tour

By now you should be well aware of the fact that your tastebuds will do much of the talking during your time in Mexico City. But with the overwhelming array of culinary options, you might want a little expert insight into the alluring world of Mexican gastronomy, which this Historic Center food tour offers in spades!

With a local foodie as your guide, you’ll explore San Juan Market (a favorite among chefs!) and find secret eateries among some of Mexico City’s busiest streets. I know we wouldn’t have found half of these places without our guide!

Throughout the tour, you’ll try too many dishes to count, but the huge variety of Mexican cheeses, fresh seafood, and the delicate essence of edible flowers deserve a special shoutout. Each tasting offers a unique culinary experience, showing you exactly why Mexican food is favored the world over. 

There are a lot of food tours in Mexico City, but with over 750 5-star reviews, this one is the top pick! Check out all the glowing reviews here.

This 5-hour tour is a fully immersive experience allowing you to trot through markets, meet chefs who uphold centuries of traditions, and taste food that is both authentic and simply mouthwatering. You will also enjoy a few drinks along the way to keep the spirits high! 

At $109 USD per person, it was a steal as it included hours of entertainment and a ton of food to boot. 

This tour is likely to sell out – reserve it now and gain FREE cancellation 24 hours before you take off!

6. Xochimilco, Coyoacán, and Frida Kahlo Museum

Okay, I know that visiting Xochimilco and the Frida Kahlo Museum could be two separate items on this list. But honestly, we went on this full-day combo tour that took us to both sights and had such an amazing experience, that I had to list them together! We aren’t the only ones who felt this way, this tour also has 5,000+ positive reviews (you can see them for yourself here).

There are dozens of points of interest to cover during this sightseeing marathon and here are some of our favorite stops along the way.

We began in the historic streets of Coyoacán, which is a historic neighborhood full of goregous colonial buildings. This is where Frida Kahlo grew up, so we explored the neighborhood while our guide told us stories of her life. It’s like we were walking through her history, especially when we visited the oldest university in North America, where she studied art!

We then visited Casa Azul, which was Kahlo’s former residence and has now been turned into a museum. It was a true bucket list experience seeing her artwork first-hand!

Then we took to the canals of Xochimilco to cruise in a vibrant trajinera – a flat-bottomed boat. These are historic and iconic – we couldn’t come to Mexico City and skip out on this activity. The sights were incredible as we passed by floating gardens and we loved buying tacos and elote from the boat vendors. We were sure to have a few michelads on board too!

This tour is $78 USD per person which includes admission to the Frida Kahlo Museum and promises 10 jam-packed hours of discovery. If you don’t want to visit the museum, the tour cost drops, but we highly recommend including it.

Check availability and book this tour of Xochimilco and Frida Kahlo’s home here, with FREE cancellation options.

7. Day trip to Puebla and Cholula

Puebla and Cholula are two gorgeous cities that are only 135 kilometers (84 miles) from Mexico City (about a 2-hour drive). Puebla and Cholula are also only 10 kilometers (6 miles) apart, so it makes sense to visit them both on a day trip from Mexico City! 

This full-day tour gives you a fantastic overview of the two cities and includes a walking tour of both around the most beautiful buildings. Along the way, your guide will teach you a lot about the rich history of Puebla and Cholula.

Puebla is one of the biggest cities in Mexico and there are plenty of interesting areas to explore. There’s a ton of history within its cobblestone streets, lined with colonial-style buildings that are hundreds of years old. Puebla is famous for its street food, so of course we stopped for tacos and elote along the way.

Meanwhile, Cholula is smaller and more historic. This little town has hundreds of churches, so having our guide explain the significance was really special! The most impressive was the ornate Templo San Francisco Acatepec, which took around a century to build.

We also stopped by Santa Maria Tonantzintla. This church is unique because it blends modern Christian religion with the Indigenous tradition, and it’s considered a work of art in the state of Puebla. Our last stop was at a traditional craft market, and of course, we picked up a few souvenirs to remember our day!

This full-day tour was a great way to experience both beautiful cities. It costs $65 USD, not including lunch (or anything you choose to buy at the end!), but the convenience of transportation and the knowledge from our guide made it well worth the cost!

Book this tour with over 1,000 5-star reviews here, before spots fill up!

8. Take a cooking class

Food and Mexican culture go together like chips and salsa. Our favorite thing to do in Mexico City was stop and eat taco after taco (and other yummy dishes!). What better way to dive into the culture than learning the art for ourselves? We joined this cooking class with a professional chef to craft an authentic Mexican meal that I still think about today!

Staring the experience off right, our chef took us to a local market to shop for our own ingredients, giving us the most immersive experience possible. It was really fun to experience the market with a local and see some spots that are off the main tourist track.

Then it was time to cook! We made some guacamole and salsa to snack on as we cooked, and let me tell you – freshly made salsa hits differently. It was so fresh and spicy! We learned how to make homemade tortillas (which is much harder than it looks) and made guisados as our main dish. Guisados is like a meat stew, so it’s so juicy and flavorful.

We had a lot of fun learning the traditional cooking techniques and secret family recipes from our chef. The group was small, so he could jump in and help whenever we needed it (which was pretty frequent with my cooking abilities!). It made for a memorable and tasty way to experience Mexico City.

This tour is $118 USD for 3.5 hours of cooking, market shopping, and lots of eating! You can choose between an afternoon or evening tour.

Check availability and book this tour in advance here with FREE cancellation options.

9. Day trip to Tolantongo

Taking a day trip to Las Grutas Tolantongo was one of the best things that we did in Mexico City. It’s famous for its Insta-worthy hot springs, which are on the side of a mountain, so you get epic views as you soak in the warm, therapeutic waters. 

Some of these hot springs are inside the Las Grutas caves! You actually walk right under waterfalls to get inside and explore – plus you can stop for a relaxing soak along the way, which is a pretty epic experience.

And as if that weren’t enough, as well as the gorgeous hot springs, Tolantongo is also home to a zipline and suspension bridge. The zipline is extra, but only 200 MXN (~$11 USD), so we thought it was totally worth adding on. It made this place feel like an adventure park crossed with a spa! 

It’s a pretty long drive from Mexico City (at least 3.5 hours each way), so we only recommend doing a day trip if you take a guided tour. We took this tour and although it was a long day, it was an awesome experience and the tour company really thought of everything. 

They broke up the long journey with a stop in San Cristobal for breakfast, which was included in the price of the tour. They also gave everyone a backpack with everything that we needed to explore the caves and waterfalls safely, and we really liked having a guide to make sure that we got the most out of the park.

The tour cost $149 USD, so it was one of the more expensive tours we did in Mexico City, but we think it was worth the splurge. It was an absolute blast, but it would have been way too much driving to do it ourselves in a single day. Plus, it was still cheaper to do the tour than to stay overnight. 

This tour has over 600 5-star reviews – check them out and book it here!

10. Visit the Chapultepec Castle and Anthropology Museum

You don’t have to venture very far to experience more incredible history! Located in the heart of Mexico City, the National Museum of Anthropology and the Chapultepec Castle are two of the most visited sights in the city. They are popular not only for the unique history and artifacts you’ll find there, but they are also really beautiful buildings!

We joined this top-rated tour to get all the insider’s info on these historic places. Starting with the Anthropology museum, our guide led us from exhibit to exhibit, giving even more information about ancient pieces from the Aztec era, such as the Aztec Stone of the Sun! While you can certainly explore the museum on your own, we found having a guide to be really insightful, it took our experience much deeper than just reading the information plaques. 

After the museum, we took a stroll through the famous Chapultepec Park, which is the largest park in Latin America. We definitely came back after seeing how lovely it is!

But the big-ticket item on this agenda is visiting the Chapultepec Castle! This stunning 18th-century castle is massive, so we spent 2 hours exploring the exhibits. It’s now a museum, but its foundation’s date back to Aztec times, then was rebuilt and used by Emperors and many of Mexico’s presidents. There were some cool artifacts, like swords used to liberate Mexico during their fight for independence, and murals dating hundreds of years back. 

We loved this tour and thought it was well worth the cost – we learned so much! It includes admission tickets to the Anthropology museum and the Chapultepec Castle, plus the guide who was like a walking encyclopedia. It’s $43 USD for a shared tour (up to 25 people) or $79 USD for a private tour, either option lasts for 5 hours.

Check out the 980+ positive reviews and reserve this tour before you go here.

Where to Stay in Mexico City

Mexico City is massive, and there are lots of different areas to stay in depending on what you want to get out of your trip. For this reason, we wrote a full guide on the best areas to stay in Mexico City as well as the best hostels in Mexico City! These blogs should help you choose an awesome hotel for your stay!

However, for a quick overview, here are some of my top recommendations.

Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico – $$$

For luxury travelers, Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico is a top choice. This incredible 5-star hotel has the BEST location since it’s right in the Zócalo – the main plaza in the city. This is a beautiful, historic hotel with a lobby that looks like it belongs in a movie! You’re within walking distance of so many of Mexico City’s best sights and the rooms are spacious. Plus, breakfast on the rooftop terrace is a highlight!

Rooms start at $220 USD per night, but you’ll save a lot on transportation costs since you can walk to so many amazing places! Book a room online here.

Hotel MX Roma – $$

Hotel MX Roma is a clean, medium-budget hotel in La Roma, close to shops, bars, and restaurants. It has both standard and family rooms equipped with air conditioning, private bathrooms, free Wi-Fi, and flat-screen satellite TV. It offers a space with a terrace to enjoy with family or friends, private parking, a gym, free bikes, and 24-hour front desk service. It’s also an allergy-free property, so there’s no smoking and they use hypoallergenic products.

Rooms run $150 USD in peak season. However, you can snag one as cheap as $70 USD a night when you book in advance online!

Selina Hostel – $

For budget travelers, the Selina Hostel in downtown Mexico City is a great, well-known chain. I stayed here during one of my visits and loved the downtown location. Although the area may seem unsafe to some, it’s the historic center of Mexico City and where I spent most of my time. They have a common area, pool table, board games, and a bar – so it’s easy to meet others. If working remotely, there’s also a coworking space for an extra fee.

Bunk beds cost around $25 USD, and private rooms start at $80 USD. If you’re traveling on a budget, you can book Selina Hostel online through Hostelworld or Booking.com.

Plan Your Mexico City Trip

Booking tours in Mexico City

We are partnered with Viator (a TripAdvisor company). They are one of the largest tour providers in the world and act as a middleman between the tour operator and you. In Mexico, we personally loved using Viator as they have a huge selection and lots of reviews to help us make an informed decision.

So, if you would like to browse other tours not recommended by us in this blog you can check out the Mexico City tours on Viator.

Renting a Car in Mexico

Undoubtedly, one of the best ways to get around Mexico is in a rental car. 

I struggled to get around by bus and taxi for the longest time. But after renting a car in Cancun in 2023, I never looked back. It allowed me to explore the country without worrying about tours or taxis. It was why I fell in love with Mexico and eventually decided to live here periodically. 

I refuse to use local services whenever I rent a car in Mexico. The truth is they sometimes can’t be trusted or come with hidden fees (or costly insurance that doesn’t make sense.) There are even rental car scams! So instead, I use Discover Cars, the company most experienced travelers or ex-pats in Mexico recommend. Read my honest review of Discover Cars here for more details!

The rates on Discover Cars are cheap, too, with the average rental costing around $25 USD per day. Full coverage insurance can be added for an extra $10 USD a day too. 

Driving in Mexico also only requires a driver’s license using the Roman alphabet. If yours uses another like Japan and China, you simply need an international driving permit. 

Insurance is required, but if you book with Discover Cars and get the full coverage, that’s all you need! Oh, and being over 18 is required, and if you’re over 25, your rental will be much cheaper! 

Thanks for reading!

There is so much to do in Mexico City, this list just scratches the surface! Whether you hang out in the historic center, take a day trip, or explore ancient ruins, you’re sure to have a good time. I’ve spent weeks in Mexico City and always love returning to explore more parts of the city. Enjoy your time here, it’s a very vibrant city that welcomes all visitors with open arms!

If you liked this blog then check out all our other Mexico blogs or check out the ones listed below!

How to Spend 2 Days in Mexico City

Things to do in Puebla

Things to do in Puerto Escondido for nonsurfers