(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and if you've been thinking about planning the perfect getaway to Mexico, or maybe you haven't, but now you're intrigued, you're gonna love this episode, because we've got Zach Rabinor, founder of Journey Mexico, who has dedicated his career to curating unforgettable experiences in one of the world's most mesmerizing destinations.

We'll cover the main places you already know, as well as places you didn't even realize you wanted to go, the best times to travel, ways to get around the country, some hidden gems, must-try eats, and so much more. Then after, I'll cover some tips and tricks for getting the best deals for your next trip.

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(upbeat music) Zach, thank you so much for joining us. - Great to be here, thanks for having me. - So I think Mexico is a very different travel destination than all the ones we've done before, which all have you cross an ocean. I was thinking about how I would describe an itinerary to a foreign country.

And often it's thinking, oh, I'm gonna go to this place for two weeks and try to fit the whole country in. Mexico feels so close to home for people living in the US and Canada that you might approach it differently. I think I'll just start by kicking off. How do you think people should be thinking about Mexico as a travel destination, given that we might all have a lot of different preconceived notions?

- Sure, well, you hit it on the head. We see a real dichotomy in the way that people travel through Mexico, the longer haul origin markets, right? So if you're coming from the UK or Europe or further afield, you'd come for at least two weeks and often three or four weeks, and you'd treat it as a once in a lifetime trip.

You'd travel all over, you'd go from north to south, you'd visit the cultural centers, the beaches, and all the diversity that Mexico has, or at least as much of it as you can fit in in the time you have. For North Americans and Mexicans as well, Mexico is a repeat destination, right?

It's really close, it's a really unique destination in that it's close to home, it's familiar, but it's exotic. You've got a different language, you've got different customs, you've got different cultures, different history, especially for North Americans. So yes, you often would travel for a long weekend or a week max, right?

And you would come back, perhaps one type of trip would be sun and sand, the beach, you know, get out of the cold, the winters are long in North America. And we do see incredible correlations of spikes in bookings when those first cold fronts come and the first snowfalls come, and all of a sudden, boom, you know, we see bookings spike.

But then there's also the cultural side of Mexico. Mexico City has been so popular recently, San Miguel de Allende, Oaxaca, the Yucatan Peninsula, Merida, there's a lot. So I think there's two decidedly different ways to travel in Mexico for the closer to home trips in North Americans and Mexicans as well, which would be either your typical sun and sand type of trip or your more cultural trip.

And yes, Mexico certainly is a repeat destination that people come back to over and over again. - You mentioned a lot of places, you just broke it up pretty easily into two. How do you think within there about even trying to process all of these options? I imagine someone on the East Coast is probably like, well, I've probably been to Cancun and someone on the West Coast is like, I've been to Cabo and maybe been to Mexico City or Puerto Vallarta, but there's so much more.

How do you start to break it down for someone who's like, I have a week, I wanna think about it, what should I do? - Sure, well, absolutely, people are very interested, especially when it's a short haul trip, they want direct flights. So you start looking at flight access and you ask people, don't tell me where you wanna go, tell me what you envision, what do you wanna do?

What hat do you have on? Do you have your beach lounging hat and escape the cold hat? Do you have your culinary hat on? Do you have your history and culture and art hat on? So really listen to someone about what it is they wanna do and then try to direct them towards, or at least explain the different options and what there is to do and what type of experiences there are in different destinations.

- Are there a few places that stand out in your mind, you're like, I don't know why these places don't get the credit that some of these other more popular places get, but they probably should? - Sure, I mean, my mission with Journey Mexico was to share the beyond the beach destinations.

And it's interesting, through the pandemic, we've seen a lot more focus on a lot of the more cultural, more off the beaten path, more remote destinations. But I always wondered why people had never been to Mexico City or people had never been to Oaxaca, people hadn't been to Chiapas or the Yucatan Peninsula like Merida, the Haciendas, Campeche.

These are all incredibly culturally, historically rich destinations that people often hadn't heard about. During the pandemic, when people couldn't go and get their Italy fix or their safari fix or their Far East fix, or these kinds of more exotic destinations, people really started exploring Mexico in ways they hadn't before.

So that was a great silver lining, if you will, of the pandemic is that Mexico saw a lot of people in destinations that they hadn't seen before. - And what is it about Mexico? I mean, you started an entire company dedicated to the country. What about Mexico do you think is so special?

- I had worked as a tour leader and a guide. This was on the back of just exploring and backpacking and being a mountaineer and a surfer. And as I led people through these destinations, I was fascinated and I covered all of Latin America, right? So I was leading tours to Mexico, Central America, South America, and in particular, Mexico blew me away because I too had the stereotypes and traveled to Club Med as a child with my family.

And all of a sudden we were in these incredible UNESCO World Heritage cities, the architecture, the food, the culture, the history, the archeological sites, the people, it really blew me away. And that's where the light bulb went off. And I said, this is an untapped resource. This is a treasure.

So that was the inspiration. - And a treasure that for, you know, the majority of people listening to this show is much cheaper and easier to get to than a lot of other places in the world. - You make such a good point there. I said it before, it's close enough and familiar enough, but exotic enough and far away enough.

So that's right. It's got so many compelling reasons to visit, not the least of which is the proximity, the value. When I say value, I'm not saying it's a cheap destination. Everyone who's been to Mexico recently, especially will attest to the fact that it's not the cheapest destination, although the whole world seems to be a little wacky in terms of prices these days.

But the service you get, you know, apples to apples, pound for pound, Mexico, especially when you look at the competitive set in sun and sand terms, right? Often people are considering a beach holiday over Christmas or New Year's. I'm either going to Hawaii, Mexico, or the Caribbean. You know, that's kind of the competitive set.

And not only the value you get in terms of the quality of the hotel or the experiences, but the service. I think that's where really the difference is stark is Mexico is such a hospitable country. The culture is so hospitable. Mexican culture is so warm. It takes two seconds before someone's inviting you into their home, inviting you for a drink, a meal.

You know, a very common expression is (speaking in foreign language) My house is your house. So I think that that's where it just really goes off the chart in terms of value. You're getting better product, you're getting more for your money, and you're getting far superior service than you would get in almost anywhere in the world.

- And for someone who just heard that expression, right? You know, the idea of getting invited to someone's home. To me, that seems a little foreign, having been focused most of my trips to Mexico, maybe more like your childhood, where it's Cabo or Cancun at a resort with family.

Is that something that you think people visiting might actually experience if they just got off that kind of standard track? Because it feels a little foreign to think about it. - Absolutely. That's, again, part of our mission is I can't encourage people enough to get out of the hotel, to go and visit archeological sites, to interact with the locals, even if that means having a local guide or, you know, it's not always that easy, right?

Especially if you're not fluent in Spanish or you don't have someone who you know or friends in the country. But that said, I think, yes, getting out of the hotel, opening your eyes, even speaking to the taxi drivers or your transfer driver or the people in a store, you'll really find an incredible warmth and you'll find invitations do flow freely.

- And do you think Spanish becomes more necessary the further away you get? How much of the country's ability to speak English is focused just on kind of hospitality and major tourist destinations? - Tourism is a tremendous and important revenue generator for Mexico. And so, obviously, that's another part, by the way, of the services.

Mexico has had real professional-level tourism and travel for 70, 80 years now. You know, it's well ahead of a lot of Latin America in terms of the development and the maturity of its tourism market. So you really do have incredible human infrastructure, right? The people are well-trained, they're professional, they're second, third, fourth generation hospitality professionals.

So you will find a lot of English. However, you get off the beaten path, and I mean, even in Cancun or Los Cabos or Puerto Vallarta, you know, you step into a convenience store and the clerks are not speaking English, right? So Spanish is an incredibly valuable tool. I can't stress enough, whether it's Mexico or wherever you may travel, how valuable and how important it can be to know even just a few words.

And of course, more is better. But yeah, certainly for me, what led me into the tourism field was my travels and then my fascination with the culture and then a real focus and a real passion for learning Spanish language. I ended up getting a master's degree in international affairs and being able to penetrate and get into the culture and be able to converse and interact with people in their own language.

That's a whole nother level of interchange and of sharing that you can do. - For anyone who didn't check out, we did an episode recently with Benny Lewis, "Fluent in Three Months." And we talked a ton about, you know, both becoming fluent, but also just like crash-coursing yourself in a language in a short period of time and effective ways to do that.

So if someone listening is thinking, "Gosh, I took Spanish in school. "I need to brush up." There's some good tips in that episode to go back and check out. So I wanna jump into a few regions, but before that, talk generally about getting around. You know, you mentioned people target places with direct flights.

What's it like to actually get around outside of the main hubs in Mexico when it comes to transportation? - There's all kinds of transportation to the most remote places in Mexico from very modern buses. Of course, you've got taxis, you've got even some trains like in the Copper Canyon and some other areas.

You've got internal flights that you can hub and spoke at a Mexico City or Guadalajara or Monterrey, but all kinds of very good and constant transportation, very frequent, regularly running. You've got ferries, you've got boats, you've got all kinds of stuff. Remember, the large majority of the population does not have a car.

So they are using public transportation. And then you can rent vehicles, you can contract vehicles. Our company organizes transportation, of course, but there's loads of ways to use public transportation and it's very effective, efficient, and cheap. - And when it comes to timing throughout the year, are there times to avoid or times to you think Mexico really shines?

I know Caribbean has like rainy season. Is there, how would you tell someone to think about when to plan a trip? I imagine there'll be people that end this episode and think, I've always thought of Mexico in one way. I now think of it in a new way and I'm ready to go experience that.

When should they be thinking about it? - I think anybody who has true flexibility and freedom with when they travel should target non-peak periods. I mean, that's obvious, right? That's a no brainer if you can. The peak periods are gonna be the most crowded. They're gonna be the most expensive.

They're gonna be a hassle in general, right? And then you look at rainy season. When's the weather best? So you've got in general, rainy and dry season throughout all of Mexico. The rainy season spans from about June through October with the worst of it being late August into late October.

And so you probably wanna avoid that. But even the early parts of the rainy season, June, July, even early August, we kind of look at it as the green season. It's lower prices. I think that's a travel hack, if you will. What most people think is rainy season, but it only has a little bit of thundershowers in the late afternoon.

But generally, you've got nice weather and much better prices, less people, more availability. And that goes for everything, right? It's not just the hotels. It's guides, it's in the archeological sites, Mexico City restaurants, seen everybody's after these iconic restaurants. So I would say those are great months. Also, I love November.

November's a great month outside of Thanksgiving week, which is a peak little week there. But otherwise, all the way into early December, before the Christmas rush, you can find great values and the same deal. You've got good weather. You've got great availability. You can get into the restaurants. Traffic is more mellow.

And then you really have to go destination by destination. Like we've seen a real uptick in travel to Mexico City over Christmas and New Year's. In the beginning, people thought, well, I don't really wanna visit because a lot of Mexico City shuts down. But that also means you don't have the crazy chaotic traffic, right?

You can get around, it's more mellow. Sure, I mean, maybe one or two restaurants or clothes that you wanted to go to or an attraction, but the calmer pace in a very chaotic city is very attractive to people. Yeah, I think that those are some good kind of insider tips on when.

- We did a trip as a family. Well, we planned a trip as a family to Mexico City over Christmas. And for whatever reason, everyone in our family bailed. And so my wife and I just went, the two of us, and I give my full endorsement to that time of year.

Restaurants might've been closed a day or two, but it wasn't impossible to get incredible meals. - I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much more. But sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which actually gets harder as you build your wealth.

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That's A-T-H for all the hacks. Don't forget, that's code A-T-H-FALL for 50% off your first order with DoorDash. I think for people who probably haven't been to Mexico City or really left major tourist hotels and stuff, how would you describe Mexican food? Because I feel like there's American Mexican food, there's Tex-Mex, and when you're truly in Mexico and experiencing everything, how different is it?

Sure, that's a great question. And there's not an easy answer to that because Mexico, like the U.S., is a vast country, really big, and cuisine is very regionalized. So the food you get in Baja California is very different than the food you're gonna find in the Yucatan. There are some commonalities, right?

You've got the staple ingredients of corn, chili peppers, tomatoes, lime, that you can find ubiquitously, it's everywhere. But the preparation, you've got regional specialties. You know, the tlayudas of Oaxaca, you've got panuchos in the Southeast, in the Yucatan. Mexico City's famous for its tacos. You've got a special way of preparing fish and shrimp in Baja California.

So I always say having a bad meal is a sin in Mexico because the food is so good. You know, it's like having a bad meal in Italy. You've really gotta have bad luck or really screw it up. But Mexico, the cuisine is so good. We were the third country in the world, after France and Italy, to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for our gastronomy, for our cuisine, and that's an intangible heritage of Mexico, and you can read more about that.

But so interesting, the food is just amazing. It's one of the most visible, the most obvious things that I miss when I'm traveling out of Mexico, it's just heavenly, it's amazing. - If you were just randomly transplanted to a city in Mexico and you had to find the best restaurant with no knowledge, are there ways to get that information?

I feel like asking someone, especially as a foreigner, can often lead to, well, let me take you to this place that maybe I'd make some money for sending you to. How would you suggest people find great places to eat? - Well, first of all, absolutely, what you said is true.

I think it's important to slow people down and really ask them, no, don't tell me where I should eat. Where do you eat? Where do you go when you have day off and you're gonna take the family for a nice big lunch? And by the way, that's another important thing to keep in mind.

Mexico, the important meal is the lunch. It's not dinner like we do in North America, right? So where do you take your family for lunch? And also be specific, like we like seafood or we'd like tacos or we'd like certain types of meal. What's your preference in terms of different foods?

But yeah, urging people, stop your stock answer or where you might make a commission, but where do you go? Where do you go for the best taco or the best lunch spot or the best seafood or whatever it is that you have a hankering for? - And is there any website or app that Mexicans are using to rate and review places that might be helpful?

- That's interesting. I never thought of that because it's so ubiquitous in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. It's not as common because it's all word of mouth. We have restaurant guides that we put out and so you can find them on our website. But yeah, I think that asking locals, and this is really interesting, as the world becomes more commoditized and as you've got AI, you've got access to so much information, getting those recommendations from people you really trust and you feel like you share the same taste with, that's real gold and getting those recommendations.

And not just what's the most famous restaurant in Mexico City, but the little hole-in-the-wall places, the under-the-radar places, and also the places that are still good, right? It was not just that it was good yesterday, but is it still good today, right? That's the type of local knowledge that's really valuable.

- And in general, two kind of logistics, from a timing and reservation perspective, how should people think about going out to eat? - Listen, if you go to Mexico City, you gotta get on that. If you're interested in the iconic, super sought after reservations, you should be making your restaurant reservations when you make your hotel reservations, even if that's months out.

Otherwise, it's really difficult to get a bad meal. I mean, there's so much good food. I don't think you have to worry much. There are no Michelin star rated restaurants in Mexico, which is laughable to me. But if you want the iconic best of the best in Mexico City, or even in Oaxaca or perhaps Merida, it's good to make those reservations early, especially in Mexico City.

- And timing wise, what time do people eat dinner? And I feel like I've gone and I don't remember. Is there a hack, you know, if you wanna get into some of these places, go a little earlier, go a little late? - For sure. Mexico City and Mexico in general, dinner is typically not eaten before eight o'clock at night and often as late as 10.

Lunch doesn't begin until two and can often be eaten as late as four. So it's very much in the Spanish tradition. You've got the siesta, people often leave for lunch and don't come back. So it's a much later cycle. So a good hack is eating earlier. Absolutely. If you're okay with eating dinner at 6 p.m., as long as the place is open, you may have to wait for them to get the grill fired up.

But yeah, that's a good way to go about it. - You know, I keep thinking back to that recommendation you gave in Puerto Vallarta. I'm literally gonna go there for dinner. And so I'm gonna push back a little since I know you put together a few things in advance.

Maybe give people a couple places, even just one in a few areas that would just really top off a trip in the food, drink, cafe area. - It's so vast, right? But there are these gems that really stand out to me and it's so rich and there's such a range of different types of things.

But Mexico City in particular, you know, the street food and the tacos and it all changes, right? So definitely before you go, check back in with me. Need to make sure that it's still putting out the goods. But El Venadito, which is carnitas in San Angel, you literally eat standing up outside, but it's the best carnitas tacos you'll ever have.

Carnitas are fried pork and pork rinds. Also the Tacos Moran, which is the suadero, that's in San Miguel, Chapultepec. Those are two amazing taquerias. I was also thinking about in Oaxaca, this little trendy place that we just went to, Levadura de Olla. Check that out. And then a really local place is called La Teca.

You know, really locals only, kind of hole in the wall, but just delicious. I mean, I actually dream about the mole that I had there. And there are places like this all over, Merida, Riviera Maya. You know, you were talking about Cancun. Right outside of Playa del Carmen, there's a place called Cocos Cabañas, about seven miles north of Playa del Carmen.

It's owned by this Swiss-Mexican couple. And our operations manager, who lives in Playa, she's Swiss, so she probably has an affinity for the Swiss-Mexican combo, but just beautiful. A mixture of like European and Mexican. Everywhere you go, there's such a plethora of amazing places from high cuisine to tacos on the street.

Interestingly, that's the trend lately, is people wanna eat at Pujol, which is Enrique Olvera, Mexico's most celebrated chef, Michelin star, if Mexico had Michelin stars. And the next day, they wanna eat tacos on the street, like standing up and dripping taco juice on their shoes. So, you know, let me know when you go and we'll fill you in on all the little details.

But there's so much and it's always changing. It's a moving target. It's so much fun keeping on top of it. - I haven't had lunch yet, so I am very excited to eat just in general, but even more excited for the next trip. - That's awesome. - So what I think would be helpful, you've divided into two broad regions, vacation, sun, beach, and kind of more heritage.

And I don't know if Mexico City falls in heritage or a third category on its own, but let's pick those three. Let's start in beach and relaxation and maybe hit on some of the favorites and the highlights from your perspective, where people wanting that kind of trip should look.

Both, if it's a place that they've heard of, but still worth going, I'm hoping to maybe hear of a place I've not considered for that experience. - So there's the big three these days, at least for international tourists, which are Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, couple that with Punta de Mita, and Cancun, Riviera Maya, all the way down to Tulum.

Right, those are the three big beach destinations. Acapulco used to be in that category and it's since fell out of favor, at least internationally, a big destination for people from Mexico City and within Mexico. But there are more off the beaten path destinations. And I think that's very much in high demand these days.

People wanna know what's the next Tulum, right? So you've got places like Sayulita, you've got Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast. I think quite a bit of the Pacific coast is still relatively unexplored. You've got Ixtapacihuatanejo, which is lesser visited, more popular than these kind of very little fishing towns.

At Todos Santos in Southern Baja is another place that people are keen on looking for off the beaten path, smaller beach destinations. Even going further than Tulum, down to Bacalar, which is down all the way towards Chetumal, that's another interesting spot that's just starting to be noticed. Those are a few of the lesser visited sun and sand.

- How would you compare the three more visited for someone's like, I'm going to Mexico, I wanna beach. It's funny 'cause I've been to all three and I don't know if I have the right answer. So if someone asked me, I'm hoping I now have a place to send them to compare.

- Sure. In broad strokes, you've got the Caribbean, which is this turquoise water, this fine white sand. If you're a snorkeler, scuba diver, this is heaven. That said, it's also the most visited, right? So the Cancun airport gets flights from, well, it did get flights from Moscow, not quite so much anymore.

But from very far flung international destinations, thousands of flights landing and taking off daily. And it's crowded, it's busy, it's commercial. So you really have to dig there, right? Get out of Cancun, used to be Playa del Carmen, now Playa del Carmen, it's full. You go down to Tulum.

Tulum seems to be a bit overcooked at this point as well. So you've really got to kind of dig and find little off the beaten path places to find any kind of peace and quiet or more relaxed atmosphere. - Quick question, where does Cozumel fit in there? My wife went as a child every year and neither one of us have been there in a decade and you didn't mention it, so I thought I'd just ask.

- Cozumel is a big dive spot and it's also a huge cruise port. So that is what dominates Cozumel travel and tourism. I don't know if your wife's family were divers. There you go, yep. Yeah, and then you've got Isla Mujeres, you've got a bunch of little different Puerto Morelos.

There's little spots that you can try and hit. So it's important to dig a little further. Then you've got Puerto Vallarta. I would say Puerto Vallarta is probably the most traditional beach destination. That's where I've lived for the last 16 years. There's a colonial historical center. It had an economic life and historical life before tourism and travel came.

Tourism and travel came back in the '50s. If you remember Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton film, "The Night of the Iguana" there. So it's been on the radar. It kinda was a jet setty type of destination back when Acapulco had fame and it still really retains a lot of local charm.

One of the things that I love about Puerto Vallarta is the initial waves of travelers and tourists that came and even settled there were largely North Americans, also some Europeans, that came to live like Mexicans. They put on their huaraches, their traditional sandals, and got their little bag and went to the market and they were very respectful and created a very symbiotic type of relationship with the local people.

So that in turn created a very kind, generous, open-hearted outlook from the locals towards the tourists and towards the settlers, right? And we found that as a family living in Puerto Vallarta. Cancun, on the other hand, really was an invention, right? It was a business operation. They saw the potential.

They came in, Fonatur, and created Cancun with the sole purpose of bringing travelers there and it was literally wetlands and mangroves and there was no community there, right? So everything is imported, including even the locals. There's no real locals. There's a few local fishing and it was more migrant, right?

Seasonal fishing. So you feel that difference very starkly. You've got traditional architecture and it reflects in the food as well. When we talk later about the more cultural heritage destinations, people often ask me to compare San Miguel Allende and Oaxaca and not to detour too far off what we're talking about.

So Oaxaca has a lot of indigenous, pre-Columbian culture, history, people. And so that influences the food and the culture and the history and the clothing and the language and everything. It's the same way with Puerto Vallarta. You've got more of a historical, you have more roots there. And that shows through in the food, in the architecture, in the history, in the culture, and also the sense of pride that the local people have about their own hometown.

So that's Puerto Vallarta. Los Cabos is really the new kid on the block. You know, the Baja Peninsula was considered literally an island for a long time. We're talking historically, right? Back in the 16 and 1700s, before people realized it was connected all the way up at the border with it.

Well, I guess it was still part of Mexico, all of the Southwest of the United States. But in that sense, it's very removed. It's very expensive, Baja, because of the same reasons, right, you have to import everything. A lot of the products and even the history and the culture come from North America, not from the mainland of Mexico.

But Los Cabos, yeah, is new and glitzy and shiny and fancy and definitely more expensive, but it's also got a very high level in terms of quality, of service. And many people say that it really does feel almost like an extension of Southern California. And you know, you had Baja California, Baja Sur, and this was just lower California.

And you still feel a lot of North American influence there. I'd also add to that, just geographically, it's this very stark desert contrasted by this sparkling, dazzling Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. So that juxtaposition of the desert with this deep blue Pacific and the sparkling, dazzling blue Sea of Cortez.

And the Sea of Cortez in itself is worth mentioning. This is what Jacques Cousteau called the world's aquarium. So this is like a Galapagos level marine wildlife environment. So there's a lot there. - So before we move on from beach, I wanna think there's probably some high percentage of the audience who's going to, in the next year or two, go to one of these three destinations.

If we cycle through each of them, what's one or two things people should consider adding on, whether it's for the day, for a couple nights, that's nearby to enrich a trip to Riviera Maya, Los Cabos, or Puerto Vallarta? - Bit of a can of worms here. There's a lot.

If I could generalize, I'd say make sure, even if you're in an all-inclusive hotel, which offer great value, and I'm not down on that, but get out of the hotel. Get out there. There's some must-see type of things. If you're going to the Riviera Maya or the Caribbean, you're probably gonna have to see an archeological site if you haven't been, whether it's Chichen Itza or Tulum or Coba.

But, you know, interact with your driver, with your guide. Stop into a local restaurant. Try to mix it up with the locals a little bit. So I'd say, in general, get out of the hotel, try to interact with the locals, go have a local meal at a local restaurant.

Often, taxi drivers are great source, and remember to ask them to go to somewhere they would go, not someplace that they want to take you to. Tell them that you'll even pay their commission. You'd be happy to pay for their honest recommendation and not just someplace they might get a kickback.

I'd also say, look around, and of course, we're a resource, but look around on the internet or with friends or other resources. What are some small towns around where they're staying that they might be able to go in and have a beer at sunset or meet the locals or something that wasn't so built up?

You know, if you can find a little small town to go have a coffee or a meal or a drink, that's a great opportunity to feel a little bit more of the authentic nature of a destination. - So I'll push a little bit on each one, maybe one at a time, just to get a couple specific things.

So someone's going Riviera Maya. Let's say they're in Cancun. Maybe give them a couple things, whether it's a restaurant, a bar, or a day trip that would elevate the trip that they might've otherwise taken. And in my case, since I've done this, stayed at the JW Marriott for a while.

That was 10 years ago. - Absolutely. If you're going to the Riviera Maya or the Caribbean, I'd say definitely go visit Puerto Morelos, for example, and just kick around the town and go down to the beach and get a ceviche and try to find that small town feel. You know, it used to be Tulum.

Tulum is now, as I mentioned, a bit overcooked. It's still cool, it's still bohemian chic, but yeah, it's gotten quite crowded and busy. So go to Puerto Morelos, or if you want something totally away from the sea, go over to Valladolid, which was the first capital of the Yucatan Peninsula.

That's to the west of Cancun. Colonial town in the middle of the peninsula. You could actually combine it with a trip to Chichen Itza and just walk around and feel that colonial history that really you don't get if you just stay at the beach resorts. That would be the Caribbean.

If you go to Puerto Vallarta. - Which by the way, my family and I are going the first week of December. So have plans, looking to add something on. So this one, I'm like- - To Puerto Vallarta. - Yes. - Okay, well, I'd ask you if you'd been before, but I'd say take a trip over to Sayulita, which is a little town north of Punta de Mita.

You could also go and get tacos in Piteal, which is a little local part of Puerto Vallarta city. Walk the Malecon, which is the seaside promenade at sunset, along with all the other Mexican families and their kids. I could go on and on. There's some amazing beach clubs in the south side of the bay.

Majahuitas, or there's a whole string of them. Casamaraycas that are amazing. I think you have to get out on the water in Puerto Vallarta and see that perspective with the mountains and the whole Bay of Banderas. So those are a few things that you might consider in Puerto Vallarta.

And in Los Cabos, I encourage you to go one way or the other up the coast, either to Todos Santos, which is on the Pacific side, amazing little colonial village, an oasis town, a lot of artists and expat surfer vibe, great little restaurants as well. You go for a surfing lesson in Los Cerritos Beach.

That could be one way. Or go the other side of the peninsula, which would be up towards Cabo Pulmo. Cabo Pulmo is home to the northern most tropical reef in North America. And you can do some incredible snorkeling with giant fish balls of mahi and of whitefish. And yeah, I think that's a world-class experience.

And also there's some great little cevicherias and marisquerias right there, little seafood restaurants in Cabo Pulmo. So again, get out of the main town, get in a car, go take a drive, open your eyes, meet some locals, eat some good food. I think that's a good formula for Mexico of getting a bit more of a feel.

I feel like I'm gonna be a little embarrassed to say this, but I'm gonna do it anyways for the sake of everyone listening. They've probably been to Los Cabos, I don't know, plenty of times. Many times for a bachelor party 'cause from California, it's the easy option. And we've never spent any time in San Jose del Cabo.

Is that a huge mistake? - I like San Jose del Cabo. And again, there is a village there. There is a town there that was there before tourism. You've got colonial architecture, you've got some shops. So I absolutely think it's worth a visit, especially you're right there. It's not a big investment of time.

Go check it out for sure. - Okay, last thing before I move outside of the beach is, since I actually am going to Puerto Vallarta, we're going with kids, so keep that in mind. Maybe we could escape them for a day also. But is there a place that my wife and I, if we leave for a day or an hour or two to get a meal, we should be checking out specifically?

Since this one, at least for me, is like, yep, I'm gonna go book it, we're gonna go do it. I'll report back to the listeners. - Here's an even better one. You can bring the kids, go to a little restaurant called Barracuda. They have a couple locations, they're buddies of mine.

And the one in the center of Puerto Vallarta, so it's Barracuda Centro. The reason I say bring the kids, so you've got this beachside restaurant that has wonderful seafood, amazing view, but it's right there on the sand and the kids can run around on the beach. They'll eat their food and then they can run right out there.

It's safe, you can see them, and you guys can hang out and have a margarita. And you can even get tables right on the sand there. So that could be one. Now, if you really wanna leave them behind and you got a little more than a couple hours, there's this amazing restaurant called The Ocean Grill.

You've gotta go over to Boca de Tomatlan, or you can actually leave from downtown Vallarta. You get a water taxi and you gotta make a reservation. They only go by reservations and it's this incredible setting where you're nestled into this cliff on the south side of the bay. They don't allow kids and it's just really simple, fresh seafood.

It's a grill, they throw on the grill either fish, octopus, lobster, shrimp. I think they make a little bit of meat as well. And it's really a special experience and kind of a time travel, if you will. You know, you feel like you've gone back in time and you're in this little tropical paradise with the jungle all around you and the sparkling sea.

And there's this cool little area you can, if you like to jump off of stuff, you can jump off into the ocean and it's awesome. - I feel like nice dinner, jumping in the water is an activity I am interested in. My wife would be like, no, I did my hair for this nice dinner.

We left the kids at home. I'm not jumping off, but we are bringing our au pair who's never been to Mexico and she's so excited, which means that we will be able to sneak away for at least one evening. So adding that to the docket, we will make that reservation.

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So please consider supporting those who support us. Okay, I wanted to go a little deeper on the new things to try while you're in those places, 'cause I imagine most people maybe don't do that normally, but a lot of these other destinations, more heritage-focused cities are things that I know a lot of people haven't checked out in Mexico.

So how would you break down those options? I don't know if you wanna start or end with Mexico City, but you let me know. Sure, so Mexico City definitely fits in the whole heritage, culture, history category. I think you gotta start and finish with Mexico City. Mexico is a very centralized country, right?

Everything begins and ends in Mexico City. It's a very centralized place in terms of politics, economy, culture. It is such a fascinating, dynamic city. I believe that everybody who likes cities and enjoys traveling in cities should go. You've got culture, you've got history, you've got music, you've got cuisine, you've got incredible museums.

The hotel scene is amazing, the bar scene. You could spend a long time in Mexico City. Not only is it the most important place in modern-day Mexico, but this is where the Mexica, which Mexico is named after, they came to Mexico City, they saw an eagle with a snake in its claw on a rock and said, "This is where we're forming our capital." That was Tenochtitlan, that's ancient capital of the Mexica.

And so it's been the most important capital city of Mexico from the very beginning. We're talking about thousands of years ago. I couldn't recommend it highly enough, and you definitely need inside knowledge to make the most of your time. You need a minimum of four days in Mexico City, but I think you can easily fill up a week or two, depending on your interests.

Just doing the highlights takes four days, and those are the top-level highlights. And then if you wanna get under the skin a bit and go a little deeper and explore, you need at least a week. - Okay, so I'm very curious to see what we may have missed or not missed.

We went for, I think, five days. I'll second everything you said. I think for someone in the States looking for an international city to go on an adventure to, I can't think of a better place. Like, easy to get to on flights, super affordable, incredible hotels, food, drink, everything.

So let's talk about some of these highlights, because if someone listening hasn't been to Mexico City, I think it just has to be on the list. - And by the way, one other thing I'd mention about Mexico City is one of the greatest thing about not just Mexico City, Mexico in general, are the Mexicans.

I mean, the most hospitable, warm, dynamic people. So one of the fascinating things about Mexico City is it's such a big city that it's not a touristy place, right, it's really dominated by Mexicans, right? The city is living and breathing and pulsing with Mexicans. So you're there, you're not real important, you're just observing and flowing and trying to flow with that city, 'cause if you're flowing against it, it's the chaos, the traffic, it's a bad scene, right?

So that's why you really do well to go with an expert or someone, if you're really lucky, a friend, or you're an invited guest. But if you're not, someone who understands the city and how to get around and how to avoid that chaos. Now, as far as the highlights, you've got several UNESCO World Heritage sites within Mexico City.

You've got the historic city center, which has the Metropolitan Cathedral. It's got the Zocalo, which is the central square, which is the third largest central square in the world. It's got the Templo Mayor, which was the Aztec capital archeological site. You've got the Palacio de Gobierno, which is the government palace, which has the Diego Rivera murals, which by the way, you can't see right now, unfortunately.

You've got the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the fine arts center, which has other incredible Orozco murals and other of the great muralists. The whole city, they call it the city of palaces, because it literally was just lined up with palace after palace during the colonial era, each family trying to outdo the next with the grandeur of these different palaces.

They now have taken on the function of the Correos, the mail room or the post office. And then some of them are government offices and some of them are museums. So it's an incredible center, really tight, dense historic center with architecture and all the rest. Speaking of architecture, you could spend a whole day exploring the architectural riches of Mexico City, including La Gorreta or Barragan.

These are just incredible world-renowned architects that have their work spread out throughout the city. You also have the pyramids, right? Which are the third and fourth largest pyramidal temples in the world. They're about 45 minutes outside of Mexico City. That's a must do, must see for sure. You've got the south of the city, which includes Coyoacan and San Angel.

This is where Xochimilco is. These are very traditional neighborhoods where you can still feel the Mexico City of the '40s and '50s and '60s, before it just got subsumed by this massive metropolis. You've got Spanish colonial architecture. You've got cobblestone streets. You also have the Saturday Market in San Angel.

And then you've got Xochimilco, which is some of the last remaining preserved Aztec waterways, right? All of Mexico City actually sits on what were basically wetlands and canals, much like Venice, right? So the mode of transport back in the day of the Aztecs, when the Spanish first arrived, was by canoe.

And Xochimilco is some of the last preserved, traditional floating gardens, the chinampas and the canals. And you can see what that was like. We also have some access to lesser visited ones. The Xochimilco is a very raucous touristy. A Saturday or a Sunday there is filled with Mexican families and mariachis and beer slinging vendors.

It's a lot of fun, but it's pretty dynamic, let's say. We've got access to some areas that are not as busy, and you can get a little bit more peaceful experience of what those canals were like. So that right there, I think I've named enough stuff to be three or four full days, right?

And that's full days. You then have the neighborhoods of Condesa and Roma, right? If you wanna go check out the gallery scene and the art and just cruise and have a coffee and see the contemporary creative class and what's going on there. By the way, Mexico City and especially Roma Norte and Condesa have become these international enclaves, especially full of North Americans and Canadians, remote working, global nomads, people living and working remotely.

And you can hear quite a bit of English these days on the streets, it's interesting. And then you've got so many other more subtle things. If you're into art or if you're into handicrafts or if you're into museums, we didn't even mention the anthropology museum, all the different museums.

So you've got a week minimum to make sure that you hit all of the great museums, galleries, the highlights that we mentioned, check out Reforma, then the nightlife, the restaurants. So there's a lot to do. - Yeah, I think we under indexed on museums and over indexed on food as we often do.

You know, we're like, how do we fit four meals in a day? How do we try all the things? I was blown away at the quality of the food you get and the price. Meals that would be hundreds and hundreds of dollars in the U.S. for less than a hundred dollars.

- And how about the service? - It doesn't feel like you're sacrificing anything other than a couple hours on a plane. - And trust me, I've thought about it more than once, get on a plane just to get some tacos for lunch. I mean, it is that good, but I meant the service is so good and it's so natural.

And before you even know you need something, it's there in front of you. The service in Mexico and in Mexico city in particular is phenomenal, it's world-class. But don't sell the museum short, right? You've got the Anthro Museum, which you could spend literally days in. You've got the Casa Azul, which is Frida Kahlo's childhood home.

You've got the Dolores Olmedo, if you're interested in Diego and Frida. You've just got all kinds of museums, even within Chapultepec Park. There's several other museums, there's nonstop. You really could spend a week just going through the museums. You know that the Sona Maco, which is the largest contemporary art fair in Latin America is held every year in Mexico city.

And it's fascinating the amount of private collections, which by the way, we can open for people who are interested in that through the relationships that we have. So there's just so much to do. - You've mentioned a few things that you guys might have access to. And one question that I imagine someone, myself included are wondering is, when you work with people to help them plan these amazing trips to Mexico, if someone's just looking for really interesting tour for a day in Mexico city, can they reach out to you and do that?

Or is it more of let's plan the whole thing? - We would love to be able to help everyone with even the littlest tiny bit, but we are a small boutique company. We don't have the resources to be able to help you with one day trip here or there.

So we do tend to focus on whole holidays, whole trips. But if you catch us in a moment where we're not too busy, we'd be glad to help with whatever you need. But in general, we do stay busy, thankfully. So it is generally the whole thing, yeah. - You've gotten so many recommendations that I'm like, these show notes are gonna be long.

We might even need a second page for them. But on the food side, if someone's really looking to eat in Mexico city, do you have any favorites to suggest either food or drink or both? - Yes, loads. And I think that there's an over-focus on kind of the iconic, you've got Pujol and you've got Rosetta and you've got Gusino Oaxaca and you've got these restaurants that people are so focused on that they have to go to.

But there's a whole world of restaurants that you're not sacrificing anything in quality. Maybe they haven't done as good marketing wise, but yeah, Contramar and all of these kind of more recognized places are wonderful. They're awesome. I'm not taking anything away from them, but it's a real challenge to get in, especially if you're not making your reservations months in advance.

So we pride ourselves on staying up on the latest and greatest, and we're happy to share them. It doesn't make a lot of sense to share them right now out loud because tomorrow they're not good, today they are. We don't put them on the website, but we have those restaurant recommendations.

They're very carefully guarded and curated and updated constantly. And we're glad to share them with those who are planning travel with us. - So if someone's not excited about Mexico City, I think you're missing out. But let's talk about this third category of other places in Mexico, not beach, that I think probably go maybe the least noticed by the average North American traveler.

Talk about some of the ones that you think need to be on people's kind of radar for something. - So I'm gonna go just to help myself organize my thoughts from Northwest to Southeast. I think of it geographically. I mentioned already Todos Santos, which is this kind of magical town.

And by the way, the Pueblos Magicos, or Magic Towns, is a program that Mexico's tourism board developed to shine a light on some of these lesser visited cultural heritage hotspots. So check that out, by the way. You can search that. We have articles on our blog. We'll put that in the trip notes as well that point to some of these different Magic Towns.

But in addition to Todos Santos, don't forget the Valle de Guadalupe, which is the wine producing region in Northern Baja. You've got the whole Sierra Cortez side, right, that includes Muleje, Loreto, La Paz. These are all incredible places in Baja. Moving across onto the continent now, you've got the Copper Canyon.

This is a place that, no matter how much I've championed it, it goes unnoticed. It is four times the size of the Grand Canyon in the United States, okay? It's composed of seven major canyons and 22 minor canyons. And it's like visiting the Grand Canyon 100 years ago. There's indigenous people living in the caves and on the side of cliffs.

There's just incredible jaw-dropping landscapes. There's amazing opportunities for hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, you name it. And there's a train that crisscrosses and traverses the whole canyon system called El Chepe. So that's another amazing place. Los Alamos, which is also up in Sinaloa, another amazing town. Now, coming down a bit further down the coast, I'd say don't miss Sayulita or San Pancho, which is north of Puerto Vallarta.

Those are amazing little villages that are really worth visiting. You've got tons in the cultural interior, right? Cities like Durango or Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Miguel Allende. If you think about the Rocky Mountains in the U.S., they don't stop just because you've got a border with Mexico. They continue and the name changes.

It's called the Sierra Madre, the Mother Mountains. And within these mountains exist these beautiful mountain towns. So I'm talking about a few of them, Guanajuato, San Miguel Allende. Mexico City is found in that same mountain range, but going a little bit further south, you've got Oaxaca, San Cristobal de las Casas down in Chiapas.

These are some of the most beautiful, lesser visited cultural heritage destinations that you can find in Mexico. People travel halfway around the world to find cultural richness, history, indigenous culture that they can find right here in Mexico. - I feel like there's like 10 trips I could take to Mexico that I haven't really processed before.

Some of them will be repeats. I feel like just talking about Mexico City makes me wanna go back. So that's on the docket. Did we miss anything? - So much. - Obviously we missed so much. - I mean, can we go on? We gotta go on for days here, but next time you go to Mexico City, go and have a visit to Puebla.

Puebla is two hours south of Mexico City. In fact, you can take this little road that goes from Mexico City to Puebla that goes between two volcanoes that are almost 17,000 foot volcanoes, Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl. If you can pronounce those real fast 10 times, I'll give you a free trip there.

But the road is called the Paso de Cortés because when Hernán Cortés came from the port of Veracruz, which is in the Gulf of Mexico, he had intel about what was going on in Mexico City and the Aztecs and everything else. And he was coming up with La Malinche, which was the traitorous, well, I won't get into that whole story, but he comes up from Veracruz to Puebla and then crosses from Cholula into the Valley of Mexico.

If you get a chance, read the book "Mexico" by James Michener. It gives this incredible account of that journey. It's a little bit of historical non-fission, but it's worth reading. And it's this little dirt road that goes between the saddle of these volcanoes. And as you come down into the Valley of Mexico, you really, it's jaw-dropping.

And we're talking about you're in pine forest with glaciated volcanoes on either side of you, one of which is very active, by the way. So you gotta check to make sure that it's open on the day that you decide to go. We'll give you some tips to do it, but it's an amazing, amazing way to do it.

And you go and check out Puebla, have more than 360 churches in Puebla, got incredible colonial architecture. It's the home of Mole. And then actually don't go back to Mexico City, keep going to Oaxaca. Have you been to Oaxaca, Chris? - I have not. - Yeah, you gotta get to Oaxaca.

- I had a list of things I wanna discuss. The last question was, I was like, I don't feel like we've talked about Oaxaca and I feel like I keep hearing people have incredible trips. - Yeah, so the two places that I think, Oaxaca is probably more well-known, but Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las Casas are two of the most beautiful mountain towns where indigenous pre-Columbian culture is most intact.

Probably San Cristobal is more so. Oaxaca has become more popular and more visited, but still really retains its charm. So the beauty of Oaxaca is the fact that it has this really strong pre-Columbian indigenous cultural roots that are still living on strongly to this day. And you've got people, these are Mixtec and Zapotec people that are still speaking their native languages.

I mean, they obviously also speak Spanish and some of them even speak English. And these are artisans and these are farmers and they're people that are producing mezcal, they're producing handicrafts, they're farming the land. They're living very much traditional lifestyles that have gone on for centuries. And this, as I was mentioning earlier in the show, the indigenous roots, the pre-Columbian culture lives on so strongly that it influences everything about it.

So the food, the dress, they're still wearing traditional clothing. They're still living subsistence agricultural lives, many of them in the valleys surrounding Oaxaca. But the influence on the food, the art, the history, the culture is overwhelming. And really it's hard to find such a pure evolution and a real organic evolution of the indigenous culture into contemporary life.

And I think the pride that these people have and the recognition and the celebration of the international community has helped to preserve this and celebrate it and protect it. So very much worth a visit. But if you really wanna get even more off the beaten path, check out Chiapas, the state of Chiapas and the town of San Cristobal de las Casas and then the lowland jungles where you have one of the most incredible archeological sites, Palenque.

- And are these places that someone who, let's just assume for this conversation, hasn't planned a trip with you guys, people can just go to? - Oh yeah. - Do they need to set up tours and guides? Do they just show up? - That's a good question about anywhere, right?

How comfortable, how intrepid are you? But yes, there's a Lonely Planet, there's guidebooks, there's public transportation, there's the internet. You don't even need this stuff anymore, but I'd gauge it by how intrepid you are and how comfortable you feel navigating lesser visited places where maybe everybody speaks English. But certainly with the internet and email and everything else you can set up accommodation and experiences on your own, just depends on your own comfort level.

- And how much work you wanna do. - That's correct. - Do you wanna spend hours and hours planning this or not? What experience do you want? There was a window where I remember people asking about safety in Mexico. Is that still a concern? Should people be thinking about that at all, planning a trip?

- Well, it's funny you should say that. I knew that the pandemic was coming to an end when people's questions of concern shifted back from COVID questions to safety and security questions. And so it's a constant headwind that we face when planning travel to Mexico. Unfortunately, there's this stereotype and people are always asking, is it safe?

And will I get sick? That kind of stuff. And honestly, Mexico has come so far from the days of Montezuma's revenge. That doesn't mean that you can't get sick when you travel to Mexico. You can get sick when you travel anywhere. The first recommendation I'd have is don't drink yourself silly, use sunblock and don't get sunburned and don't get dehydrated, right?

That's usually the beginning of all of this stuff. But the whole education and consciousness about water purification and even ice purification, you don't have to ask anymore. Is the water purified, right? I mean, in tourists, in restaurants, locals are not drinking tap water. Locals are drinking purified water. Locals are drinking purified ice.

And in terms of safety and security, look, anywhere you can have issues, the idea is to be in the right place at the right time. Mexico is safe in general and it behooves you. And it's really your responsibility as a traveler to make sure that you understand what are the safe places.

I mean, what about parts of Upper Manhattan? What about parts of Chicago and Detroit? I think you said you're in the Bay Area, right? There are certainly places in the Bay Area you wouldn't want to be after dark. There's parts of LA and San Diego as well. So knowing where you should be and where you shouldn't, being well aware of your whereabouts, and those are all kind of recommendations you make for any place you travel in the world.

Mexico is still a developing country. So you have to keep your wits about you and be well-educated and aware. Would I recommend to my own mother, my own sister, my own family to travel just about anywhere in Mexico? I would. And if there are places that I would recommend they don't travel, I'd let them know that as well.

- I always tell people, you read guides online that say, well, this place might not be safe. Keep your money in a money belt and all this stuff. I always point out that if you go pick up The Lonely Planet for New York, it says a similar thing. We don't read guidebooks for our own towns.

So we don't realize that the general advice applies everywhere. Would you say that like a hotel concierge or the person at the front desk is like a good person to ask? - Absolutely. - Or how would someone get acquainted with where to and not to go? - Your hotel staff, I think even taxi drivers.

Official taxi drivers, that's another recommendation we always make. You don't take just a taxi off the street, you get it at the airport, the official taxis, or at the hotel, an official taxi stand. But locals don't want visitors getting heard or in trouble. So absolutely, I think the concierge, the reception, they're gonna give you good advice as to where, what, when, with whom, how to get around and how to keep yourself safe.

- So you said official taxis. What other things just running through the, how to get the best optimized trip to Mexico? I'll give one question. I always remember my cousin and I were in Puerto Vallarta. My grandparents had a timeshare for 20 years in Puerto Vallarta, the Mayan palace, and then they kept upgrading.

And we were always thinking we wanted to go dune bugging in high school. Everyone seemed like they were gonna make 20, 30%. And the way it always worked was pay us a 20% down payment and pay the rest when you get there. So we had convinced ourselves that if we could just find the source, we could avoid the 20%.

Is that the way it works? What advice do you give someone who's trying to avoid getting taken advantage of in that way? - So I think that you wanna think about it in a different way. What you really want, especially when you're going dune bugging, is to find the best operated, safest dune buggies, right?

And so you need a trusted source to get you there. Not just someone who wants to make money on you. The cost of distribution, right? You know how wholesale and retail works. The dune buggy guy is focused on running his dune buggies. He's not focused on marketing and selling you tours.

So he has a whole army of people from timeshare salesmen to concierge companies to airport transportation people. So I think that the key is working with expert company that is locally based, that has their eyes and ears to the ground, and can really, at the end of the day, everyone has to make their money.

And if you buy the tour directly from the tour company, you're still gonna pay the retail price, but you just don't know which tour company to buy from. So I think using travel professionals who are really experts and have local presence and eyes and ears on the ground, that's my recommendation.

- And where do the hotels fit into that? Is it find the experts in organizing trips and adventures? Is that over using your hotel as a source? - That's a little tricky. I do think in general that hotels want you to have a good experience. They want to see you coming back from your tour day with smiles and having had a great time.

That said, hotels are also incentivized by commission, but I would like to think that in general, they're gonna get a commission from whomever they work with. They'd like to work with the people that are gonna return you safe and sound and with a smile on your face. - Anything else we missed that needs to be here?

Obviously plenty of things not there. Tips for traveling or booking or saving money or anything that kind of falls outside of the general overview? You mentioned money and how to avoid excessive surcharges and commissions. I found the best way to get cash is actually using your ATM card. Just check before you leave what are the affiliated banks in the country you're going to.

And in addition, when you take out the money, make sure that you decline their conversion. The ATMs in Mexico, you'll say, "Okay, I want 10,000 pesos." And then they'll say, "Okay, 10,000 pesos equals this much dollars. "Do you accept our conversion?" You say, "No." And then your bank will do the conversion at a pre-negotiated rate and you're avoiding another level of commission.

So that's the way that I would get cash. Paying local currency is always better than using dollars where you're gonna get an onerous conversion or exchange rate. - And do you need cash? Or are we at a place now in Mexico where cards and Apple Pay are-- - Cards are ubiquitous.

Cards are widely accepted, but it's always good to have a little bit of cash. - Cool. In the States, I walk around with a $100 bill folded up inside my wallet, just in case, right? - I carry a hundred, a 20, and a two. - Exactly. - Cool, this has been great.

I really appreciate it. Where can people go find all of this stuff? We're gonna put lots of links in the show notes, but where can people stay on top of all these great things you're finding? - We have an extensive website, journeymexico.com. We've got all kinds of links to accommodation, to sample itineraries, to best times to travel, to different ceremonies and celebrations, different natural migrations, whales, turtles, all kinds of stuff.

So yeah, I like to think that we've been told that it's a comprehensive resource. You can find that in the trip notes too. - Awesome, thank you so much for being here. - Thank you, Chris. - All right, I don't know about you guys, but I am really excited to go to Mexico.

I already have one trip planned, but I feel like there's a lot more coming in my future. So before we wrap, I wanted to dive a little bit into flights and hotels to help make your next trip even better. I'm actually gonna do an entire episode sometime in the next six or seven months that includes how to search for flights, how to search for hotels, and get the best deal with points and miles.

So when I do these country deep dives, I'm gonna focus mostly on some unique specific things that are maybe a little different than what you need to do for any trip in general. So when I looked into flights, first off, Mexico is not that far away for people who live in the US or Canada, and flights can often be pretty cheap.

So it's a little bit of a different experience than trying to book flights to Iceland or Japan or other places where you have to cross an ocean and you might really value being in business class versus a short flight where economy is just fine. That said, I'm gonna hit both of those things.

And when you're searching for flights, obviously Google Flights is your friend. It's a tool I use. But because you're in North America and Southwest flies to Mexico, you'll definitely wanna check the Southwest site as well. And make sure you're looking at a couple other airlines, Solaris, Viva Aerobus. They also fly to the US.

They're not the most obvious. But I'm gonna drill in and quickly focus on a few unique things I learned about points and miles just to help you get your searches going. So first off, I did a bunch of searches just in October this year to try to get a sense of where you wanna book for.

So on the SkyTeam side, Aeromexico has a ton of flights to the US. And when you're trying to book those flights, I found the best way to do it is through Delta. And so if you have Amex points, you can transfer directly to Delta. That's a great option. Not that you can't book those flights on Aeromexico, but they're just gonna be more expensive.

So for example, I looked at a flight from Chicago to Mexico City, and the flight was $322. But on Delta, it was only 10,000 points despite being 30,000 points on Aeromexico, which is as high as three cents per point, which is a great redemption value. In business, flights are about $550 and 25,000 points on Delta.

So you could get a little bit lower value, 2.2 cents per point, but in general, pretty good redemption value. I know a lot of times we talk about needing to go on really far, fancy business class flights to get good value from our points. And I know even more, we talk about Delta being really hard to find any value, but 10,000 points for a $320 flight is an awesome deal if you have some Delta points, or if you have Amex points that you can transfer to Delta.

Next, I looked at a flight in OneWorld on American from Chicago to Cancun. In economy, that flight was $291. And yes, you could book directly with American for 20,000 points, but you can also book that flight on British Airways for only 11,000 points. And British Airways often has transfer bonuses from Chase and Capital One and American Express.

But even without that, it's great because British Airways is a transfer partner of almost every single major card program. And so you can get obvious points very easily. That ended up being about 2.6 cents per point, which is awesome. And the taxes and fees on British Airways domestically or within North America are so much better than they are if you're looking to fly internationally.

In business class, flight was $486, and you could do it for 22,000 points on British Airways or 30,000 points on American. So not quite as good of a value, but not terrible. So again, really good values on short-term flights, but knowing which airline to book through is part of the challenge of getting the best deal.

So SkyTeam, Delta was the best. American, British Airways the best. Last, I looked at Star Alliance. I looked at a specific flight from Washington, D.C. to Cancun and on United, the flight was $200. You could actually get it for as low as 10,000 points as long as you booked on Air Canada.

It was about 12,000 on United, about 2 cents per point, not too different booking between the two programs. But when you look at business class, it changed a lot. If you booked through Turkish Airways, a flight that was $469 was 15,000 points, Air Canada was 20,000, and United was 35,000.

So you could get a much, much better deal booking on Turkish Airways, and you could get as high as 3 cents per point that way. Not saying you need to use all your points for a first class or business class flight going to Mexico, 'cause if you're in North America, the flights are pretty short, but it is worth pointing out that where you search and where you book might be different.

And just because it's a United plane doesn't mean United is gonna be the right place to book. Also worth noting that taxes and fees across different airlines can be different. So while Air Canada looked like the better option in coach because it was 10,000 versus 12,000 points, the taxes and fees were about twice as high.

So definitely compare both number of points and taxes and fees on that route. A few other things related to flights that are interesting. Number one, Southwest Companion Pass, if you have a lot of trips to Mexico planned, it can be a really great option. I've talked about this in the past, so you can go to allthehacks.com and search, but in general, if you can manage to, through credit card points or flight points, build up enough points, which I think right now is 135,000 on Southwest, whatever year you hit that milestone, you get the Companion Pass that year and the next year.

And because you can go to Mexico with Southwest, you can get two for one flights for that entire period, which could be as much as almost two years. Last cool flight hack, which is very niche, if you live in San Diego, I only recently learned about this, maybe it is common knowledge for everyone there, but there's actually a border crossing at the Tijuana Airport, where you can drive, park in the US, and the Tijuana Airport is literally right on the other side of the border.

So you can go through cross-border express, do all your customs and immigration much, much faster, literally cross a bridge over the border into Mexico, into the Tijuana Airport, and then buy domestic flights within Mexico. And they are so, so, so much cheaper. Not worth it if you need to fly to San Diego and then take an Uber or a Lyft between airports, probably not a good thing, but if you're already in San Diego and you haven't tried that, a friend of mine did that and had a great experience.

Okay, when it comes to hotels, similarly gonna do a whole episode here, because I think that the strategies for each of these episodes, when I talk about a country are pretty much the same. So for Mexico, between Hyatt at 59 hotels, Marriott at 274, Hilton at 93, and IHG, I couldn't figure out, but Google Bards says IHG has 524 hotels in Mexico.

I assume that number's wrong, but I think the moral of the story is there are hundreds of hotels you can book with points in Mexico. So going through all of them would just be way too much. I will highlight a few places that I'm either excited about, have stayed at, or have heard good things.

If you're going to Cabo, the Waldorf with Hilton points, I've heard is incredible. The Cape with Hyatt points, I've heard is incredible. And Solaz, which closed down for a couple of years using Bonvoy points through Marriott, we have stayed at, and I can say that it was really, really great.

Everything from the pool to the food to the drinks, we had a wonderful time. I would definitely go back there. If you're going to Punta Mida, the St. Regis and the Conrad both look great. I have not been to either. If you're going to Cancun, Riviera Maya, the Andaz Mayakoba is one that we've had on our list.

That entire Mayakoba complex, you can search around a little bit, looks amazing. If you really want to splurge, you can go to the Rosewood Mayakoba, which looks just a level above, but we talk a lot about points, so I haven't been there yet. I have been to the JW in Cancun on a family trip almost a decade ago, and it was a great experience for exactly what you want.

A really nice JW Marriott hotel, pools, beaches, everything. It was just good, but there was nothing that really set it out side of craziness for me. In Mexico City, we stayed at the St. Regis, super central, fantastic experience, really loved it, but Las Alcobas also looks like a cool hotel we might check out next time.

And then across a couple of different cities in Mexico, I know at least Cancun and Cabo, Hyatt has these two brands, the Zalara and the Ziva, and they're both all-inclusive, and I've heard really great experiences about both. One of them happens to be adults only, so Zalara is all-inclusive adults only, and Ziva is like all-inclusive families.

Definitely something that I wanna try out on a future trip. Ziva's probably the one in our future, but if anyone's had good or bad experiences there, let me know. Also, I've been fortunate to go to Cabo quite a few times for group trips, many bachelor parties in my years, and booking villas is also a really great option.

So just because you can't use points there doesn't mean it's not worth considering. Having a big house for a lot of people, we did this also for my family over the holidays a couple of years ago, you can hire a chef, and it just really creates an amazing experience.

So if anyone needs help with that, I have a bunch of good relationships with some villa companies, happy to connect you there. You can just shoot me an email, podcast@allthehacks.com. Also for houses, you can use Capital One points or Wyndham points, and Capital One transfers to Wyndham, to book vacasas, and you can get as high as two to three cents per point there.

So you can go search online, or I'll put a link in the show notes to find the Wyndham to vacasa transfer flow and how it works, but that's an option. And then last, I just put together a site that I'd love to share with anyone who's interested, just shoot us an email, podcast@allthehacks.com, to help you use our upgrade program online.

Alternatively, you can go to allthehacks.com/upgrade, or email upgrade@allthehacks.com. Alternatively, you can go to allthehacks.com/upgrade and read a little bit more about it. But we have a site where you can look online and book all of these five-star properties, not with points, but through the various programs where you get upgrades and perks.

So for example, in almost all of them, you'll end up getting free breakfast, you'll get an upgrade if it's available, early check-in, late check-out if it's available, and usually a property credit of somewhere around $100 for your stay there. Very similar to the Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts perks, except it's about 3,000, 4,000.

And we finally have put together a site so you can use that yourself and do your searching on your own. So if you want access to it, shoot me an email or go to allthehacks.com/upgrade. And then last, I wanna do an episode on this, but I'll do a quick rundown 'cause there's a few sites and tools for booking award rooms with hotels that I've noticed recently, and I just wanna do a really quick overview of them.

So first, I've talked about Aways a lot, and you can go to allthehacks.com/aways to get a special deal there. I think Aways is the best tool for a search where you say, I wanna go to Paris, and I wanna use my points, and I have points in these programs, what should I do?

And that is the search that I think they nail, and they do a really fantastic job. And usually that's how we're doing our searches, so it's usually my first place to go. However, one of my favorite sites for searching for flight availability is seats.arrow, and they just launched in beta rooms.arrow.

And if you go to that site, they don't support IHG, but they have Hilton, they have Hyatt, and they have Marriott. And it's really good if you're open to anything. You're like, I want a really great property, I'm flexible where I stay, flexible on my dates especially, and they'll show you options across everything.

So they basically index all the stays at all the hotels and have a big database you can filter on. So you really need flexibility there, or you need to enjoy filtering big databases. Two other sites, staywithpoints.com and maxmypoint.com, both of them are tools to be able to set alerts and then also find availability at very specific properties.

So this is great if you're like, I want to stay at the Ventana in Big Sur, and I just wanna see what's happening. You can do that same search on aways and rooms.arrow, but this is their sole purpose. But the big thing they do is they allow you to send alerts.

So if there's a place you wanna stay and you wanna set up an alert so you get notified when it opens up, you can do that there. staywithpoints has a better UI, but when I was looking at a few examples, it seemed that their availability was less accurate, but probably won't let the UI win in that case.

And maxmypoint, in my opinion, had a very outdated older UI, but at least worked. And you can get your first alert free and with referral links, you can get more. And so if you wanna help me out and give me access to these tools, you can use our referral links for any of these, allthehacks.com/seatsarrow, allthehacks.com/maxmypoint.

And like I said earlier, allthehacks.com/aways with a Z. So those are some of the tools. I'll do a much bigger deep dive on how to search for and book hotels with points, but I just wanted to flag those 'cause I've been starting to play with them a bit more.

(upbeat music) I think that's it. I hope that's super helpful for you guys to plan and book your next trip to Mexico. I wanna hear about it because it's awesome and I might actually partner with every person I do one of these country episodes on to plan future All The Hacks trips.

So the URL is still a little focused on the Iceland trip we're planning for next year, but if you go to allthehacks.com/iceland, there's a survey there. Even if you're not interested in Iceland and you really just wanna go to Mexico or Japan, you can go fill that out and let us know.

And that's a good opportunity for us to learn what people are looking for so we can plan some of these trips for listeners and readers and subscribers. All right, that's all we got this week. If you need anything, podcast@allthehacks.com and we will see you next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)