Oaxaca
You can be here in October for about €1,108, 4 days, 2 stop.
Why now
Good time in October: 25°C days, 15 rainy days, fares below average.
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. October 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
- 8 hours behind Naples (America/Mexico_City) derived
- Daylight
- 11.8 hours of daylight in October · sunrise 06:19, sunset 18:06 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 Naples in October, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Mykonos
Thessaloniki
Ibiza
Tel Aviv
Porto Santo
Cape Verde