By: Sarah McWilliams Guerra
Mexico City Travel Comfort Ratings
Traffic and Getting Around
★★☆☆☆
Traffic is consistently heavy, and getting across the city can take much longer than expected. While rideshares are plentiful and neighborhoods like La Condesa and Roma are walkable, overall mobility is slowed down enough to warrant a lower rating.
Stress Level
★★★☆☆
Some areas feel calm and relaxed, especially the residential neighborhoods, parks, and cafés. Major roads, busy intersections, and crowded markets can feel chaotic. It’s a mix, but manageable if you take the city at your own pace.
Language Ease
★★★☆☆
Many people in hospitality, hotels, and restaurants speak basic English, especially in tourist-friendly areas. Outside of those zones, English becomes less common, and having a translation app helps.
Safety
★★★☆☆
Safe for tourists in well-known areas like La Condesa, Polanco, and Roma. Normal big-city precautions apply. Pickpocketing can happen in crowded places and markets. Most visitors feel comfortable once they understand which areas to avoid.
Cost
★★★★★
One of the biggest advantages. Fine dining, cocktails, transportation, and markets are significantly more affordable compared to major US cities. You get high-end experiences at a fraction of the price.
How to Experience a Big City Without Rushing Through It
Mexico City is a destination packed with major attractions, world class museums, historic sites, and enough activities to fill weeks of sightseeing. Although we lived in Mexico City early in our relationship (my husband full time and me commuting back and forth), we typically didn’t venture far from our condo in Santa Fe. So during one of my husband’s work trips, I decided to tag along to explore La Condesa.
It is a dream for travelers who want to experience as much as possible in a short timeframe. That was not the purpose of our visit. My husband Ricky and I went for something different. We wanted to enjoy a few sights, but our real goal was to experience the culture, the warmth of the people, the incredible service, and the luxury of fine dining at prices that feel almost unbelievable compared to the United States. Most of all, we wanted time to wander without pressure.
Staying in La Condesa
We chose La Condesa as our base and it was exactly what we were looking for. At the heart of La Condesa is the famous Angel, and surrounding it is historic sites, tons of restaurants, and markets. Each morning we walked through the parks, grabbed coffee, and let the city set the tone for the day. La Condesa is ideal for travelers who want to feel the rhythm of daily life rather than rush from attraction to attraction.
Using the Hop On Hop Off Bus
Spoiler Alert: If you knew how typically anti-tourism I am, this might surprise you. But I LOVE a hop on and off bus in the city. For $21 per day, you have your own bus lane to skip traffic and take you to all the top sites. This is the second time we’ve done this in Mexico City. We also snuck on our own roadies (which typically isn’t that frowned upon in Mexico).
Even though we were not chasing a packed itinerary, we still wanted a simple way to see different parts of the city. The Hop On Hop Off bus gave us the best of both worlds. We could sit back and take in the views, hop off when something caught our attention, and skip anything that did not. It is an effortless way to see the city without committing to the structure that more intense sightseeing requires. It also felt a little bit like a pick your own adventure book.
Wandering Through Markets
Markets became our favorite part of the trip. Mexico City has a market for nearly everything and they are vibrant, energetic, and deeply rooted in local culture. We walked through aisles filled with produce, flowers, crafts, knock off purses, handmade everything, Mezcal, and pretty much all the things. There was no rush. Just slow exploration and appreciation for the everyday life happening around us. We don’t haggle as we found the prices to be more than fair, however, my husband being hispanic likely got the native discount that might not be afforded to me.
Visiting the Congress and Historic Center
We did make time for a few larger sights. One afternoon we stopped near the Congress building, which is both impressive and easy to explore at a relaxed pace. From there we wandered toward the historic center and into the main square. You absolutely feel the weight of history here, but you can also experience it casually. You do not need a tour or a schedule to enjoy it. The tour groups felt a little cringey to us, BUT traveling with a Spanish speaker afforded us opportunities. You can certainly travel around the city without speaking Spanish, but we could walk up to anyone to get directions or ask an easy question that gave us opportunities others might not have, and would prefer to have the guide.
The Main Square
The main square is one of the best spots for travelers like us who enjoy observing a place rather than racing through its monuments. You can sit outside, order a beer, and simply watch the activity around you. Ricky and I spent hours there soaking up the atmosphere. For us, that experience was as meaningful as any major attraction.
Final Thoughts
Mexico City has more than enough to keep even the most energetic traveler busy. If you want to see and do it all, you absolutely can. But it is also a wonderful city for people like us who prefer a slower, more immersive approach. Stay somewhere walkable like La Condesa, enjoy fine dining without the price tag you expect back home, take the Hop On Hop Off bus to get a sense of the city, wander through markets, and give yourself time to simply exist in the place you are visiting.
It is a reminder that sometimes the best way to explore a city is not to see everything, but to feel it.