Mexico City 5 Day Itinerary (No Traps)
Five days is our 4-day plan plus a genuinely slower day, San Angel in the morning and a real rest in the afternoon, because five days of museums back to back is how altitude fatigue actually catches up with people. Day trips still live in our Mexico City Mexico itinerary , not here.
Book these before you go:
- Casa Azul or a Coyoacan tour on GetYourGuide : mandatory advance tickets, no walk-up, book 2-4 weeks out
- A Xochimilco trajinera tour : skips the haggling with unlicensed boat touts
- Lucha libre at Arena Mexico via Viator : Tuesday, Friday and Sunday cards
- A Roma Norte or Condesa hotel on Booking.com : the walkable base for all five evenings
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Zocalo, Templo Mayor, National Palace, Anthropology Museum, Roma Norte dinner |
| 2 | Casa Azul, Coyoacan plaza, Xochimilco trajinera, Condesa dinner |
| 3 | Chapultepec Castle, Bosque de Chapultepec, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Centro dinner |
| 4 | Polanco, Museo Soumaya, lucha libre at Arena Mexico |
| 5 | San Angel, Bazar Sabado, rest afternoon, Roma Norte farewell dinner |
Day 1: Historic Centre and the Anthropology Museum
The Zocalo and the Metropolitan Cathedral are free. Templo Mayor, the excavated Aztec temple a block northeast, runs roughly 100 MXN for the museum and archaeological zone (hours on inah.gob.mx ), home to the Coyolxauhqui stone found by accident in 1978. The National Palace across the square is free and holds Diego Rivera’s mural cycle around its main stairwell.
In the afternoon, get to Chapultepec Park for the Museo Nacional de Antropologia : 210 MXN for foreign visitors, 105 MXN for nationals and resident foreigners, closed Mondays. Budget a full afternoon; the Aztec Sun Stone and the Mayan hall are worth it.
Dinner in Roma Norte, tacos first, then a sit-down table after 8pm.
Day 2: Coyoacan, Casa Azul and Xochimilco
Casa Azul is 320 MXN, includes the Museo Anahuacalli, and sells every slot through boletos.museofridakahlo.org.mx , booked two to four weeks ahead. Give the plaza and artisan market outside equal time to the house itself.
In the afternoon, take a trajinera through Xochimilco’s chinampas, the floating-garden system that fed Tenochtitlan. The regulated rate is roughly 750 MXN per boat per hour, split across your group, contracted only at an official embarcadero pier. Condesa dinner closes the day.
Day 3: Chapultepec Castle and Bellas Artes
Chapultepec Castle costs 210 MXN, up from 100 MXN before the January 2026 INAH increase, free Sundays for nationals and resident foreigners only, with the best terrace view in the city over Paseo de la Reforma.
Palacio de Bellas Artes, back in the Centro, charges 75 MXN for seventeen permanent murals by Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco and four other muralists, per palacio.inba.gob.mx ; tickets are in-person only, sales end at 5:30pm, closed Mondays.
Day 4: Polanco and lucha libre
Museo Soumaya, free, holds Carlos Slim’s 66,000-piece collection, heavy on Rodin, inside a faceted silver building that is the most photographed piece of modern architecture in the city. Spend the morning here and lunch in Polanco before the expense-account crowd fills it.
In the evening, CMLL runs lucha libre at Arena Mexico three nights a week: Tuesdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8:30pm, and Sundays at 5pm, tickets through Ticketmaster.mx. Time this day to land on one of those nights if you can.
Day 5: San Angel and an actual rest afternoon
San Angel, a colonial neighborhood southwest of Coyoacan, is worth a slow morning: cobblestone streets, art galleries around Plaza San Jacinto, and on Saturdays the Bazar Sabado craft market fills the plaza, so shift this day to a Saturday if your dates allow.
Do you actually need a rest day five days into a Mexico City trip? Yes. Five straight days of museums and neighborhoods at 2,240m is a genuinely different physical load than the same itinerary at sea level, and travelers who skip a slower afternoon tend to feel it by day four, not day one.
Spend the afternoon at your hotel pool, a cafe in Roma, or simply walking without a destination; this is the one day on the itinerary with nothing booked. Close the trip with a farewell dinner in Roma Norte, the neighborhood that has anchored most of your evenings.
Before you go
Book Casa Azul the day your flights are confirmed. Spread the museum days out rather than stacking two in a row if your schedule allows it; the altitude adds up. Uber or Didi beat a street taxi after dark, and bottled water is sold at every OXXO you pass.