Oaxaca
You can be here in December for about €1,712, 4 days, 1 stop.
Why now
Prime time in December: 25°C days, dry.
The dry months from about November to April are pleasant and busy, with Day of the Dead and the Guelaguetza dance festival in summer filling every hotel in general terms; the rainy season is green and quieter, with afternoon storms that pass. Sundays bring the Tlacolula market, the best of the valley.
Best months here: January, February, November. December is not one of them — the label above measures the month against a fixed bar, not against the rest of the year here. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Oaxaca is a low colonial city of green stone and painted walls in a high valley, surrounded by Zapotec villages that each make one thing: black pottery, woven rugs, mezcal, carved animals. It has the best food in Mexico by many accounts and a calendar of fiestas that spills into the streets; it suits eaters, walkers and craft buyers, and it is now popular enough that the centre fills with foreigners in the busy months.
What you can do
- 01Eat mole negro, tlayudas from a street griddle, chapulines and a tejate at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre's smoke hall.
- 02Climb to Monte Albán early for the Zapotec city on its flattened hilltop, then the tombs at the museum below.
- 03Walk the Andador Turístico from Santo Domingo's gilded church to the Zócalo, stopping at the Textile Museum.
- 04Visit a palenque in Santiago Matatlán to see mezcal distilled in clay and copper stills, and taste it there.
- 05Spend Sunday at the Tlacolula market, then Mitla's mosaic-stone palaces and the Hierve el Agua petrified falls.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Stay in the Centro or Jalatlaco so that markets and restaurants are on foot; hotels on the outskirts save little and cost you the evenings.
Unusual things
- ◦San Martín Tilcajete and Arrazola, villages where families carve and paint the fantastical alebrijes in their courtyards.
- ◦Teotitlán del Valle's weaving workshops, where cochineal, indigo and pomegranate dye the wool for the rugs.
- ◦The Ethnobotanical Garden behind Santo Domingo, native plants in the old convent grounds, visited only by guided tour.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Shared van, 20 min, ~€5
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- The centre is walkable and colectivo vans and buses reach the valley villages cheaply from the second-class bus station; taxis are inexpensive for evenings. The airport is about 20 minutes south by shared shuttle.
- Clock
- 14 hours behind Hong Kong (America/Mexico_City) derived
- Daylight
- 11.1 hours of daylight in December · sunrise 06:48, sunset 17:55 derived
- Currency
- MXN
Good to know
Teachers' union protests periodically block roads and the airport approach, usually announced a day or two ahead; check local news before travelling to the airport.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 4 days from Hong Kong in December, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
AlUla
Lima
Dakar
Orlando
Sydney
Buenos Aires