Tips for cheap travel in Mexico (and things to do for free!)

If you are planning to travel to Mexico, in this article we will be giving you our tips to travel cheaply in Mexico and do things for free so that money is not a limitation. Do not miss these recommendations.

Travel to Mexico
If you are planning to travel to Mexico, we have something to tell you. In this article we will be giving you our tips to travel cheaply in Mexico, so that money is not a limitation. And not only will we limit ourselves to telling you everything we would have liked to know before traveling, but we will also share things that can be done for free in Mexico, from museums and activities to archaeological sites.

If you’re thinking of traveling through Mexico and staying for several weeks or months, don’t forget to check out all the Worldpackers offers so you can exchange and volunteer in exchange for accommodation and other benefits. Look here all the volunteers in Mexico. Let’s go?

Tips for cheap travel in Mexico
Planning the trip can save you a lot
Mexico is a very large country, that’s why planning your route, defining your priorities and marking the destinations you want to visit to put together a geographically logical itinerary will save you unnecessary travel expenses and thus, in addition, you will be able to optimize your time.

If you enter the country by plane, you will surely arrive in Mexico City and that will be the starting point of your itinerary. Most travelers travel from Mexico City to the South because that is where the most popular attractions are.

A good practice is to choose all the places in Mexico that you would like to visit, regardless of where they are, and once you have them all selected, locate them on the map to put together the itinerary following a geographical order. It will not only allow you to locate yourself, but also better understand the country in a more global way.

Discover how to budget for a trip and what to do in Mérida? The best places in the capital of Yucatan.

Tips for cheap travel in Mexico (and things to do for free!) – Worldpackers – Mayan archaeological ruins in Mexico
Consume local products
Traveling to Mexico can be as cheap or as expensive as you like. If you consume local products, especially directly from the markets, then it will be very cheap.

Food in Mexico is very cheap, abundant and delicious, as long as you eat at street stalls or restaurants on the go.

And since we are talking about food, take note of The 15 typical dishes of Mexico that you have to try on your trip.

Don’t leave flights to the last minute
If you need to buy cheap air tickets to travel to Mexico, don’t leave it to the last minute: with time, you can get very low prices, especially considering that there is more and more competition that also generates a price war. The ideal is to buy the flights six months before traveling, in order to ensure the best rates.

Be flexible
“If you are flexible, you will stay straight,” said Lao Tzu. When it comes to backpacking, the more flexible you are, the less money you’ll spend.

If you can only travel during holiday periods or long weekends, that is, when the rest of the people can, then you will not be able to access the best prices for flights and accommodation.

Travel in low season
The key to traveling cheaply in Mexico is to go in the low season, which is when fewer people go and very tempting offers usually appear to attract travelers (in addition to the fact that you will have the attractions almost exclusively).

Discover these tips for cheap travel and 5 things to do in Valle de Bravo. Get to know Tecolutla in Veracruz and the culture of the magical towns

take advantage of breakfast
In Mexico they take very seriously that breakfast is the most important meal of the day: take advantage of it as such. Fortunately for those of us who travel on a low budget, more and more hostels offer it included in their rate, and it does not consist of just bread with jam as in many countries, but it is a complete meal with beans (porotos), chilaquiles, eggs and maybe even some sautéed vegetables or nopal (cactus).

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Tips for cheap travel in Mexico (and things to do for free!) – Worldpackers – species in Mexico
Travel by shared car
The concept of the collaborative economy in travel is becoming more and more popular, and it is not only excellent for cheap travel; It’s also a great opportunity to meet people. BlaBlaCar is Europe’s most popular carpooling site, and it’s also reached

or to Mexico to unite drivers with travelers who want to share the expenses of the trip.

In this way, everyone wins: the driver has company for the journey he has to make and people with whom to share the expenses of the trip, and travelers have a vehicle with a driver to reach their destination, paying less than what they would pay for the bus and meeting people and stories along the way.

If your concern is safety in this type of shared trips, keep in mind that you can see the driver’s Facebook profile and the references left by other travelers. Never forget that trust is mutual: the person who opens the doors of your car is also trusting the people who get in.

Sign up for a volunteer
If you are thinking of staying in Mexico for a while, an excellent option to travel with little money and also get to know the local culture in depth is to volunteer in exchange for accommodation (and often, food as well). At Worldpackers you can find varied options that suit your interests and skills, such as:

help in a hostel
do a language exchange
manage social networks or even collect cocoa.
You can see all the volunteer options in Mexico at this link.

Use Couchsurfing
Continuing with the theme of collaborative travel, Couchsurfing is one of the first pages that came to revolutionize hospitality. If you have never heard of it, it is a page that connects people who want to host travelers in their home, without any monetary exchange involved. They do it simply to have a cultural exchange, to get to know different countries from their living room and to show that the world is more hospitable than they want us to believe.

In Mexico there is a huge community in Couchsurfing, and it is also a good starting point to find events in the city where you are in order to meet both local people and other travelers.

Now, if you are planning a trip to Mexico, you will notice that depending on what you want to travel, the budget changes. A beach trip is not the same as another visiting all the Mayan archaeological sites. Therefore, we are going to give you tips to travel cheap (or free) according to what interests you.

You may also be interested: What to do in Veracruz: the 6 best tourist destinations in the state and What to do in Oaxaca? The magical towns of the region and their culture

Tips for visiting Mayan archaeological sites for free or with little money

Tips for cheap travel in Mexico (and things to do for free!) – Worldpackers – Mayan archaeological ruins at night and with stars
If you started looking for information about traveling to Mexico, surely you have already noted several archaeological sites to visit. The reality is that when you start adding up the prices of all the tickets, the number can be quite large, but there is a solution: choose your sites strategically.

There is not a single entrance fee for all the Mayan archaeological sites, but they change depending on the state and the demand they have. There are some that are quite expensive (like the ones in Yucatan, because that is where the vast majority of tourists go), but there are others that are much cheaper (or even totally free) in other states. You can find complete information about all the free archaeological sites at this link.

Tips for visiting cenotes with little money
Visiting a cenote is another must-see on your trip through Mexico. They are caverns with lakes where you can snorkel, swim or simply enjoy the unique landscape and the mystical energy that is generated (they were not considered sacred sites for the Mayans for nothing). Of course: the water is usually quite cold.

You may come across people who tell you that you cannot reach the cenotes on your own and that you need to hire a tour. This is not true: although with your own vehicle you will have much more freedom, there is public transport to reach several cenotes.

Due to geography, most of the cenotes are in Yucatan. Since there are so many, it is not difficult to leave the most touristy ones and find some that are very cheap and with few people. We recommend our favorites (and with an entrance fee of less than $5!).

Cenote Oxman: It is semi-open, so you can also swim outside. There are usually few people and the environment is truly spectacular.

Cenote Chaak Tun: It is beautiful because the cave receives the sun’s rays through an opening, being an excellent setting for typical cenote photographs. You can swim as well as snorkel.

Cenote Xcacelito: it is small compared to the others, but that gives it a particular charm. It is inside the Xcacel-Xcacelito turtle sanctuary.

Also, if you visit Playa del Carmen, do not miss seeing the meeting of the waters of a cenote with the sea. To get there, you just have to walk along Fifth Avenue (the main one) until

to the north end. And the best: it’s free!

Do not miss this guide on cheap places to visit in Puerto Escondido, Mexico

What to do for free in Mexico City
Do not miss our guide to travel to Mexico City.

While cities seem to be where you spend the most on your trip, you can also take advantage of the plethora of free things to do if you plan ahead. In Mexico City there are several things that can be done completely free. For example:

Do a Free Walking Tour: it is a walking tour that runs through the historic part of Mexico City, passing through the Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace, the Alameda Central, the Colegio de San Ildefonso and Bellas Artes, among other key attractions. Although they are “free”, it is necessary to leave a tip to the guide since it will be his pay.

All the museums are free on Sundays: super important information when planning your itinerary through Mexico, so you can schedule a weekend in the city. A curiosity is that Mexico City is the city with the most museums in the world, so you will have to take advantage of Sunday to visit the ones that are of interest to you.

Visit the churches: even if you don’t plan it, on your visit to Mexico City you will come across several churches. We recommend that you do not miss the opportunity to enter; they are free and you can get several positive surprises, especially if you like architecture. The Metropolitan Cathedral is a must.

Walk through the Chapultepec Botanical Garden: With more than four hundred species of flora in the orchid garden, 18 gardens and a greenhouse, it becomes a favorite of many travelers (and not just because it’s free).

Keep traveling: Valladolid, Yucatán: the magical town of Mexico and its best destinations

Tips for visiting the beaches of Mexico with little money

Tips for cheap travel in Mexico (and things to do for free!) – Worldpackers – sea turtle in turquoise blue water
Do not miss our Guide to travel to Cancun.

The most beautiful beaches in Mexico are world famous; being the main magnet that attracts visitors to this part of the world, and we already know what happens to prices when demand goes up. But don’t despair, almost any destination can be traveled with little money if we organize the trip so that it is.

We give you some tips that helped us when touring the beaches of Mexico with little money:
Choose when to travel: the cheapest months to travel to the beaches of Mexico are October and November, but there is a key detail to keep in mind, and that is that it is also the season for hurricanes and rains. March and April are relatively cheap months with good weather, but it is also a time when the beaches receive a lot of national tourism. The main thing is to avoid the months of July, August and December, which is when everything is most expensive and the beaches are filled with people from all over the world.
Explore the less popular beaches: leaving from Playa del Carmen, Cancun and Tulum, prices drop considerably. A good option is to go to the beaches of Veracruz, such as Colima or Boca del Río.
Look for accommodation without a beach: although in Mexico the most common is for resorts to have their own private beach, if you decide to stay in an area a little further away you can save a lot. Always ask how far from the public beach your accommodation is to find out if you can walk. In Cancun, for example, the public beach is Playa Delfines (and there are regular buses to get there).
summarizing

Traveling to Mexico can be very cheap if you take the time to organize it, to look for the most viable options, if you travel slowly and, above all, if you are flexible.

Starting from this base, we will understand that it is possible to travel to Mexico on a budget without losing comfort, and above all, without stopping doing the activities that you like so much or visiting the places that inspired you to make the trip.

Mexico is an incredible country, and money will not be your limitation to discover it.

Have a good trip!