Americans tend to hold a mythos in regards to Mexico that from my experience, having lived and traveled there for some five years or so, simply isn’t accurate. It’s the Sicario caricature: that the whole place is some terrifying narco-war where violence is the rule rather than the exception. While this misconception draws influence from what is a sad reality for some living in the country, it does a disservice to Mexico on a whole as it disinclines many to visit, and generally distorts how gringos perceive their southern neighbors. But for those who venture south of the border, the rewards are beautiful, delicious, and bountiful.
As is the case with any place, a good old-fashioned road trip is the best way to get the lay of the land. Flying in can only take you so far—you really need a chance to see the spokes and spaces between the hubs.
Accordingly, I’ll be taking us along a 2,500-mile route that runs from the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border crossing down to Mexico City, then back up again. It will carry you through some of Mexico’s most remote cities, each of which offers its own singular charm.
Now, before we disembark we must swap a few words of caution. Yes, as I mentioned previously the violence in Mexico is rather exaggerated. It is certainly an issue, but the fact is that it almost solely impacts those who have the misfortune to get caught up in the realm of narcos. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pay to travel with an awareness of how to avoid lapsing into the danger zone.
First off, you will be driving through the notorious deserts of the north, where it is advised by locals that you stick to the toll highways and avoid driving at night, at least outside the cities. Second, it is best to seek accommodations that boast secure parking, whether that means a hotel with a protected parking area or an Airbnb with a garage or fenced driveway. Shit does happen.
You begin by crossing the border at Juarez, which is fairly straightforward. You need a couple of bucks cash for the bridge toll (no cards), after which they’ll likely just wave you on at the checkpoint, though I have heard that they occasionally stop people to look in the trunk.
Honestly, I don’t see much reason for staying in Juarez. Passing through is more a necessity than anything else. If you cross early enough in the day, I advise driving four hours directly to Chihuahua. If you arrive later, get yourself a comfortable Airbnb and head over to a little place called Anteros Café Sofa Bar that has a cozy living-room vibe and tasty pub menu.
On the way to Chihuahua, you will have to stop at a government checkpoint about 20 miles outside Juarez where you collect the temporary permit for your vehicle. It’s a fairly straightforward process: enter and go to the window to the left where you tell them how long you’ll be in the country and they check your passport and registration; take the form they provide across the lobby for copies; take these to the Banjercito window where you pay a deposit that fluctuates based upon the age of your vehicle—anywhere from $50 to $400 USD that will be promptly refunded when you pass back the other direction. This will get you a TVIP vehicle permit and an FMM tourist permit, both of which are good for up to six months. Keep these handy, because it is quite possible that you will need to show them at police checkpoints along the way (more on that in a minute). You also need Mexican tourist auto insurance, which you can usually set up via your U.S. provider before you go.
Chihuahua is a compact city in the middle of the desert where you should plan on spending a night or two. Feel free to stay downtown near the bustling market streets adjacent to the main cathedral, where you can shop for handicrafts—particularly leather goods—aplenty. This is also a good time to stop by La Sotoleria to fortify yourself with a shot of sotol: a tequila-like liquor made from the shrub Desert Spoon rather than agave. Be (or at least feel) cool and get the kind with the snake—la culebra—steeping in the bottle.
Alternatively, I’m a big proponent of finding an Airbnb in the more residential neighborhood east of downtown called Mirador for two reasons. First, it’s got a quiet atmosphere that provides a tranquil break from the road. Second, it’s where you’ll find Rico’s Tacos, a taco and barbeque joint so popular among the locals that they had to open a waiting area across the street. The tacos de la Doña are some of the best tacos I’ve had in the entire country.
From Chihuahua you’ll be venturing into the segment of our journey that strays furthest into the realm of the Sicario stereotype while driving to the old western city of Durango. Located alongside the cartel-rife region of Sinaloa, the state of Durango is no stranger to crime and violence, though the city itself is a delight. Leave Chihuahua with plenty of time to complete the eight-hour drive before dark just to be safe (though I found myself driving deep into nighttime and didn’t come across anything hackles-raising).
You will notice while meandering through Durango many police checkpoints going in and out of various towns and cities, at which you will likely be stopped and asked about where you’re going and whether or not you have your vehicle permit. These checkpoints are ostensibly for protection against the cartels, but their presence can pose their own problems. It is not uncommon for the underpaid and undertrained police throughout Mexico to shake down tourists for bribes. If that’s the tack they want to take, they will grumble and shuffle around the papers for too long, and money will arise in the conversation like a rabbit pulled out of a hat. It’s often couched as a “donation” or some such euphemism. But just keep cool, stay confident, and as long as you have your TVIP there will be no issue and you’ll be waved on your way.
Durango the city is so vibrant and engaging that I prolonged my stay there. Get an Airbnb right in the Centro area around Calle Constitucion so you can pop out into the night markets to shop for art and handcrafts. For a restaurant with plenty of unique décor and traditional regional dishes check out Fonda de la Tia Chona, and pop into Botica Concina Bar down the street for some cocktails and jazz.
From Durango you’ll be heading to Zacatecas—a town so nice you’ll be visiting it twice before the trip is over. I’ll be delving into its finer points at length in a bit. For now it’s the perfect stop to break up the long drive to Guadalajara, or more specifically, the region of Tlaquepaque on the city’s southern edge.
Guadalajara itself is famed for its impressive cathedral and artistic offerings, but I’m suggesting that you focus on Tlaquepaque to get a bit more off the beaten path. Tlaquepaque has emerged as one of my favorite places in Mexico thanks largely to the abundance of genuinely impressive art that can be found in its Centro neighborhood. The gallery owned by the renowned Mexican surrealist Sergio Bustamante is particularly wonderful—and I mean that in the literal sense: as in “inspiring of wonder”)—and you should also check out Almacen Central Arte en Cobre right next door, which houses shops run by a slew of local artists and artisans. Further down Calle Independencia you’ll also find Gallery el Dorado, which sells some flat-out stunning furniture and other handmade pieces. This entire area in general makes for a marvelous way to spend a few evenings of shopping, taking photos, and eating at joints like El Patio Tlaquepaque or Real San Pedro, where you’ll also be treated to some authentic mariachi music, the state of Jalisco being famous for its mariachis.
After a few days you’ll be off to Guanajuato, a charming little mining city with a distinctly old European aesthetic.
Guanajuato is famous for two reasons. First, it was here that Mexico kicked off its war of independence from Spain (a massive statue of the great hero from this battle—El Pipila—looks over the city from its highest point). Second, Don Quixote. While the town holds no direct connection to the errant knight nor Cervantes, during the Spanish Civil War, one of Guanajuato’s residents became obsessed with the book while fighting (and imprisoned) on behalf of the Republic. Upon returning home he began a Quixotic collection that grew into a museum dedicated to all-things Cervantian. Today there are statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza scattered all over the city while hundreds of young men in Medieval Spanish garb wander the streets offering tours. Accordingly, Guanajuato is now home to one of the world’s largest annual Don Quixote festivals.
While there, check out a funky rooftop bar called La Chavela, and stay at Hotel Hacienda de Cobos, which has a fun décor and free breakfast but—more importantly—a secure parking area, which is hard to find in Guanajuato. Be sure to take a taxi across town, for the simple reason that it will carry you through the subterranean tunnels that have been carved into the mines.
From here it’s just a few hours’ drive to Mexico City, which has so much to offer that it warrants an entirely separate article. Most visitors stay in Condesa or Roma—which are both awesome neighborhoods, to be sure—but try staying in a less-touristy (but still safe) district like San Rafael, Juarez, or Narvarte, where you should focus your food search on the markets, street carts, and hole-in-the-wall taquerias. For the ideal Mexico City experience, get some duck tortas from El Authentico Pato Manila, bring them to the botanical garden in the Chapultepec park, and kick back with a copy of The Savage Detectives.
Finally it’s time to head back north, and enroute we’re going to take a look at my new favorite place in Mexico: Zacatecas. It’s a long drive clocking in at just under eight hours from Mexico City, so feel free to break it up with a stop in Guanajuato or San Miguel de Allende (a popular destination that I skipped over on this trip in favor of saving it for a more in-depth visit later on).
It’s hard to pin down exactly why Zacatecas charmed me so thoroughly. It all comes down to the vibe. The place is a photographer’s dream, with plenty of unique architecture, gorgeous vistas (like that provided by the cable car you can ride over the city), moody ruins, and bustling street life. And while the aforementioned bustle is real, there’s simultaneously a tranquility to all of it that is exceedingly pleasant. On top of all that, this pint-sized city has oversized art offerings, boasting plenty of solid local galleries, quirky-looking young people doing quirky-looking things, a great abstract art museum, and a pair of art and history museums (Museos Pedro Coronel and Rafael Coronel–founded by the city’s famed brother-artists) that house everything from ancient indigenous art to contemporary artists to works from Picasso, Miro, and Dali.
In Zacatecas, you must eat at Villasuncion, an unassuming restaurant where the service was tremendously welcoming. When I visited, their special—a roasted pork dish called Chamorro de Puerco—was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. The meat was so tender, a sideways glance in its direction was enough to make it fall off the bone. While exploring, keep an eye out for tacos envenenados, a Zacatecan-style fried taco of pork, potatoes, beans, and peppers. Check them out at El Minero in particular, a little family-run joint where they are exceedingly friendly and proud of their food.
When you’re not eating, shop the markets, leather goods, and gem shops (like Guanajuato, Zacatecas is an old mining town—and you can actually visit the mines), and generally have yourself a good wander.
At this point in my own journey, I decided to blast straight to Chihuahua—a solid ten-hour drive through some thousand pesos or 50 dollars of tolls (cuotas in Spanish: they are frequent on toll-highways and add up fast, though they also tend to be the best-protected thoroughfares). You should feel free, however, to stop off at the halfway point in Torreon; a safe, somewhat industrial city that is most known for its manufacturing of an enormous statue of Jesus. But I had places to be and things to do, so I pushed on through and stopped off for the night in Chihuahua for another round of Rico’s fantastic tacos. (“Rico” is a double entendre: it is both someone’s name and the Spanish word for “delicious.”)
Through the entirety of this particular trip—which I completed over the course of two weeks down, one month in Mexico City, then one week up—I didn’t encounter a single moment of trouble, danger, or even undue inconvenience: until reentering the United States. This brought the most tedious hours of the whole thing.
I’d passed through the checkpoint south of Juarez and returned my vehicle TVIP to get back my deposit (just pull your car up to the window, they collect your documents and give you a receipt, then the deposit is back in your account within 24 hours), then made my way to the border-crossing where the line was… long. And slow. That was to be expected, but it was the Indy 500 compared to what was about to come.
At the first U.S. border checkpoint I was flagged for an intensive search due to my “excess baggage,” which entailed spending nearly three hours having each and every item in my vehicle removed and probed (keep in mind that I’d been traveling for several months at that point, and my van conversion was crammed to the hilt), ultimately to have the whole process negated by the use of a drug-sniffing dog and massive x-ray machine. Why we could not forgo the lengthy, fruitless search in favor of these faster means of ascertaining that I was indeed not “up to something” I will never know. But all the world’s a stage for the Theater of Security, and apparently each of us is both audience and performer.
Finally the last of the gatekeepers came over and handed back my passport. He took a skeptical look at my 15-year-old Honda Element, which had driven over 15,000 miles in just a handful of months and had visibly seen better days (I hadn’t washed it in at least 7-8K miles).
“You really gonna drive this all the way up to Seattle?”
I was.
“Well, good luck. You can get going.”
And I did.
