Mexico City: 🇲🇽, 🌮, 🌸

Ah, Mexico City! I had been thinking I’d spend one or two months in CDMX in 2019, but due to time constraints and a November spent in Taiwan, it only ended up being three weeks in Mexico. As expected and endlessly recommended, Mexico City was dreamy.

It had lovely weather, great food, tons of culture, interesting people, public transportation galore, and was quite cheap. While I was hoping to stay in neighborhoods that were a little less well-trodden by visitors, I did end up basically in Roma and Condesa, split between three AirBnbs -- to get to know different parts of the city, ala Tokyo. I went to CDMX with my usual packed items and nobody else in tow. Yes, it was a pure solo trip, my first in some time. Friends, where are you?

From San Diego, it was recommended by many to just take the Cross Border Express from the border to Tijuana. The CBX is a short walkway that connects the countries and it truly was an easy route, with immigration being a breeze. And with no direct flights from SAN to MEX, it was actually cheaper to do it this way, including the Uber down to the border from my house.

All in all, flights cost me $550 — including a hundred in extra luggage fees and a seventy dollar change fee for a flight I booked incorrectly. However, if I had planned earlier it could have been slightly cheaper. (Flights from SAN, LAX, or NYC all seemed about five to six hundred dollars.) I flew Volaris down and Aeromexico back. The CBX tickets were about $50 round trip and then you have to pay $30 for a visa if you’re staying in Mexico for longer than a few days. With the ride shares to and from the airport -- $150 total, $60 on the way down and $80 on the way up because we took an XL on the return -- everything cost about $750 to get door to door.

• Airbnb 1 (Roma)
• Airbnb 2 (Condesa)
• Airbnb 3 (Condesa)

The exchange rate is roughly twenty pesos to one U.S. dollar, and things were more expensive than Taiwan, but not by that much. I rented pretty big Airbnbs each time, because it was relatively cheap and I was halfway expecting visitors. The three places were about $80-90 each, and for nineteen nights the bill came out to a total of $1,900.

Overall, I spent about two thousand dollars on other things while down there. The bulk of that was food of course, with $300 in shared meals, $180 in solo dining out, $50 in snacks, $50 in groceries, and $35 in boba. Yes, there is plentiful boba in Mexico City and I had it seven times. Delicious!

For the most part, single meals were roughly twenty bucks if you went fancy — like expat brunch at Lalo — or half that for Uber Eats delivered poke. If you went to taquerias and such, an entire meal was probably about eight bucks. I did have one big meal at Iyazaka Kura ($120 for two), another at a steak house ($120), and then a few fifty dollar meals at assorted places. Broadly speaking, snacks and coffee was about two or three dollars. Plus I developed a habit of getting chocolate croissants each day from the local bakery, and those were like four dollars for all the deliciousness.

Recommendations: Go Myang for sundubu-jjigae, Super Mikasa for Japanese and udon, Green Corner for brunch, Marlindo for fish tostadas, Lardo for pastries, and La Casa De Tono for basic Mexican staples.

Museums in Mexico City were plentiful, but knowing I would go back soon, I basically only hit four or five of them. Entrance fees were roughly five dollars or so, excepting the Museo Juguete Antiguo (Antique Toy Museum) which my friend highly recommended to me. I'm coming for you next Soumaya and Casa Barragan.

The biggest ticket item for the trip was front row tickets to Book of Mormon, which was glorious because there was nobody else in our row for the second half and seeing a musical that up close and personal is the way to really live. It reminded me of the days when we’d win the Rent lottery and get to be within spitting distance of the cast.

I watched quite a few movies while down there too, mostly in malls, which were about five dollars per ticket. There’s a movie theater, the Cineteca Nacional, that I wanted to visit because it looks so beautiful, but I haven’t been yet. And of course I hit up a few karaoke places, which cost maybe fifteen dollars an hour for a private room, or about the same for a few hours at a public karaoke spot. I’ll be exploring the karaoke of Mexico City in full next time down.

As for clubbing, I only went to two places: Departamento and Patrick Miller. Entrance to Departamento was ten dollars, and it was a smaller place that is basically just all dancing. I found it my first night out and basically it became my spot immediately. Things are open late here, another huge plus. Patrick Miller is only open on Fridays, and the dance circles are wild, well worth checking out for three dollars person. There are a ton of other clubs and places to check out nightlife, but I haven’t explored them yet. I did hit up a few bars, but not too many since well, I don't really drink?

Oh I also did a bit of shopping, in preparation for a wedding, mainly getting two pairs of shoes at Galerias Insurgentes. There is this Mexican brand, Panam, which makes athletic shoes for quite cheap, like fifteen dollars, and they were much higher quality than the night market shoes in Taiwan. Excellent stuff. Shopping in Zona Rosa and a Zara set me back maybe seventy dollars for two jackets and a shirt. And I got two haircuts, for seventeen dollars each.

And I can't not mention SIM cards! Even though Verizon has free texting messaging, I found out quickly that you are throttled after 500MB a day, and that just wouldn’t do. So I stopped into an ATT store and got a SIM and fifteen gigs of data for fifty dollars.

Ubers were cheap, mainly three to five dollars, I took forty-three of them, totaling $150, with the max one being six bucks. The Uber from the airport to my first place was eight dollars. And I had to bike ride while I was there obviously, and while there are many bikeshare options, I went with the seemingly most popular one, Ecobici. Weekly passes are eighteen dollars, and it’s not much more for an annual pass, but I believe you need a Mexican phone number and address to get an annual pass. I’ll have to find out next time I’m there. Oh, the subway and bus rides are like five pesos, so a quarter regardless of distance or transfers I believe.

The last thing I want to highlight is the food tour that I took, on the recommendation of my friend. He used Eat Mexico when he was there and while I’d never actually done one before, it made a lot of sense to me!

I chose the Navarte at Night option and it was $120 with tip, and it led to meeting my first new friends in the city. In the future I’m curious about more tours in foreign cities -- especially any art tours -- but I could also just explore on my own too I guess. Once you find local friends, every day is a guided tour! Still, even with more time down there, tours seem like a fun and new way to get to know a new place. If you’re on a short trip, I’d highly recommend it! Maybe next time I’ll be leading a boba and karaoke tour...

Overall, I spent $4,600 for three weeks in Mexico City, with $750 to get there, $1,900 for AirBnbs, and $2,000 for expenses. That a hundred dollars a day of variable expenses was roughly what I spent per day in San Franciso earlier in the year — and that trip included free housing — or the same amount I spent for two weeks in Bali. For a winter retreat, Mexico City seems tops so far!