Lydia Carey

Mexico City was built atop a series of lakes and canals and the waterways that are left may be the key to its survival in the future—and a key source of quality food.

It’s mid-morning in Monterrey, Mexico, when Humberto Villareal—“Beto”—picks me up, but it’s already blazing hot. The air-conditioning running, his car is laced with the smell of cigarettes, and his gravelly northern accent takes me a minute to get accustomed to. Beto is a friend of a friend and a local chef in Monterrey. Today, in the early spring heat, he’s going to teach me how to make cabrito, Monterrey’s most iconic dish of baby goat.

A short drive from Guadalajara, the town of Tequila pulses with the dry heat of the Central Mexican desert and is hemmed in by vast fields of blue agave cactus. Their pointy arms stretch skyward in worship of Mayahuel – the Maya goddess of the maguey cactus, and coincidentally, of drunkenness.

While many associate Northeastern Mexico (and Southern Texas) with barbecues and charro beans, this region of Mexico actually has a much more ancient and ample food culture stemming from the mix of its earliest European transplants and native flora and fauna.

Visitors to Mexico City are often committed urbanites, travelers that crave the chaos and sophistication of one of Latin America’s biggest metropolises. Here are five modern, urban hotels that will put you right in the middle of the action in the big city.

While Mexico City has gotten major press in the last few years for its wellspring of great food, art, and culture, Guadalajara, flying under the radar, is forging its own reputation for excellent food and drink.

by Lydia Carey | Jan 12, 2016

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There's more to Mexican cocktails than the margarita. Next time you find yourself in Mexico City, branch out and try one of these favorites. They're full of local infusions, endemic flora, and surprising flavors.

by Lydia Carey | Jan 30, 2016

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So you've already been to Mexico. You're an expert on vitamin T (tacos, tlacoyos, tlayudas...). You fear no salsa. You feel pretty good about your Mexican foodie knowledge. But what about tejate, tepache, and pozol? Ponche, rompope, and a pulque curado?

Mexico City’s organic movement may be the key to saving an important and threatened local resource.

Ask those in the know and they will tell you that a buzz is building about Guadalajara, Mexico's third largest city, as a new dining and drinking hotspot.

In the past ten years, renovations in the Centro have encourage young people to move back downtown and various hip new hotels have opened including Downtown Mexico City and the Historico Central.

There aren't many places left in the world where you can stop on the street and snack on something made in almost the exact same way as it was 500 years ago. Mexico happens to be one of those places.

Center stage in an overflowing metropolis, Stara Hamburgo combines intelligent design with old world charm for one of the most urban stays in Mexico City.

At an altitude of 2,250m above sea level, Mexico City will get you high au natural. But if you want to speed up the process, head to one of these bars with dizzying views and impressive cocktails.

Traversing the whole Baja Peninsula on its single Route 1 highway, a couple doubting the "wild frontier" stories gets led astray by dubious signs pointing to sketchy roads of sand.