If you’re staying in a hotel or Airbnb in Oaxaca, you probably won’t notice anything wrong. The shower works. The tap runs. Everything seems fine. But step outside the tourist bubble and a very different picture emerges. Across many neighborhoods in Oaxaca City, running water arrives once every 30 to 45 days — sometimes less….
As the hot, dry season approaches in 2026, Oaxaca is once again bracing for bushfires – also known as forest fires—that have become a recurring and increasingly serious threat. Driven by prolonged drought, rising temperatures, and human activity, these fires continue to damage ecosystems, strain emergency resources, and threaten rural livelihoods across Oaxaca. While last year’s…
If you want to understand Oaxaca, spend a morning in its markets. Not a quick walk-through — actually stop, eat something, watch how people move through the stalls, listen to the noise. Markets here aren’t tourist attractions with a side of local color. They’re where the city does its daily business: buying breakfast, picking up…
Short answer: you’ll need both – but cash is still king in Oaxaca 💰 Card payments are becoming more common, especially in Oaxaca City, but cash is still very much part of daily life here. If you arrive expecting to pay with card everywhere, you’ll quickly run into situations where it simply isn’t an option….
There are a handful of places around Oaxaca that stop you in your tracks the moment you see them. Hierve el Agua is one of them. Mineral-rich water spilling over a cliffside for thousands of years has created what looks like a frozen waterfall — columns of white rock cascading down the mountainside, with sweeping…
Congratulations on taking your Spanish to the next level, Mexican Slang!! You’re going to have some fun here. Mexican slang is nothing like any Spanish you’ve learned in school or from a text book. Buena onda, wey, no manches, órale – this is just some normal every day talk here in Mexico. I’ve been living in…
In Oaxaca, it’s called quesillo. Outside Oaxaca, it’s called Oaxaca cheese. Say the wrong one in the wrong place and you’ll get a very specific look from the person behind the market stall. That small naming dispute is the first thing worth knowing about this cheese — because it tells you something important. Quesillo isn’t just…
A really interesting piece of news came out of Oaxaca this week – and if you’re into history, archaeology, or ancient cultures, this one is worth knowing about. Archaeologists have just announced the discovery of a Zapotec tomb that’s around 1,400 years old, dating back to about the year 600 AD. It was found in San Pablo Huitzo,…
The short answer is yes — Oaxaca is safe for tourists, and genuinely one of the safer destinations in Mexico. But you’re here because you want more than a short answer. You want to know whether the Mexico headlines apply to Oaxaca, what the streets feel like at night, and whether it’s safe for you…
Oaxaca is considered Mexico’s culinary capital — and a cooking class here is one of the best ways to actually understand why. It’s not about following a recipe. It’s about standing in a market with a local cook who knows every vendor by name, learning why this chili and not that one, understanding what makes…