By Jeremy Albelda, founder of The World or Bust — an international travel blog. Jeremy has been living in Mexico for over a decade and writes extensively on travel across the country.
I’ve watched a lot of people fly into Mexico City, Guadalajara, or Monterrey for a soccer trip and barely leave the stadium district. It’s an understandable mistake — match schedules are tight, logistics can feel overwhelming, and sometimes you just want to find a good bar and decompress. But Mexico rewards the curious traveler in ways few countries can match, and most of the best experiences here are closer than people expect.
Here’s what’s actually worth doing with the time you have.
Mexico City: Get Out of the Capital
The city itself could keep you busy for a week. But the region surrounding it is where things get genuinely surprising. On non-match days, travelers should leave the Zócalo behind, and if you’re still putting together your between-game plan, Mexico day trips during soccer season is a solid starting point — private drivers, curated routes, and zero logistics headaches.
Teotihuacan — About 1 Hour Away
If there’s only time for one day trip from Mexico City, this is the one. The site sits around 50 km northeast of downtown — roughly an hour by car depending on traffic — and what’s waiting there is one of the most impressive ancient cities in the Americas.
The scale catches most people off guard. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world. Visitors can climb it, and the view from the top — across the entire complex, out to the mountains in the distance — is the kind of thing that recalibrates your sense of what “old” actually means.
Go early — ideally right at opening. By 10 a.m. the sun is doing its worst and the crowds have settled in. Budget at least three hours on the ground, more if the museum near Gate 5 is on the list — most visitors walk past it and genuinely shouldn’t.
Practical tip: Book transport in advance. Navigating Mexico City traffic solo on a tight schedule adds unnecessary stress to a day that should feel easy.
Tepoztlán — About 1.5 Hours South
A Pueblo Mágico in the state of Morelos, Tepoztlán sits below dramatic cliffs with a pre-Hispanic pyramid perched at the top. The hike takes around 45 minutes and rewards visitors with valley views that feel entirely out of proportion to the effort involved. The town itself moves at a calm pace — good food, good crafts, no manufactured tourist energy despite sitting firmly on the circuit.
Xochimilco — Under 1 Hour
Closer to the city, the ancient canal network at Xochimilco offers a completely different angle on the capital. Flat-bottomed boats called trajineras drift through waterways lined with floating gardens while vendors pull alongside selling food, flowers, and cold drinks. It sounds like a checklist item. Get there and it becomes clear why it keeps ending up on lists.
Guadalajara: The Best of Jalisco Is Right Next Door
Estadio Akron sits in Zapopan, on the western edge of the city. Guadalajara earns its reputation on its own — the historic center, the mariachi culture, some of Mexico’s finest birria — but the surrounding state of Jalisco is where the day trips become hard to skip.
Tequila — About 1 Hour Northwest
The town of Tequila is 65 km from Guadalajara on a clean toll road, right around an hour’s drive. The destination is exactly what the name implies: a cobblestone Pueblo Mágico ringed by blue agave fields, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and home to distilleries that have been doing this since the 1700s.
The big-name distilleries — Mundo Cuervo (founded 1795) and Casa Sauza — both offer solid tours. But for something less scripted, the smaller artisanal producers like Fortaleza or Cascahuin are worth seeking out. Tours are less polished, the tequila is considerably better, and there’s no rotating through in groups of fifty.
One practical note: if tasting your way through the day is the plan, let someone else handle the drive back.
Lake Chapala and Ajijic — About 1.5 Hours South
Mexico’s largest lake sits around 50 km south of the city. Chapala town has the promenade, the seafood, and a pace that tends to match what most people need mid-trip. The village of Ajijic, just nearby, is quieter and arguably prettier — a place with colorful streets and a lakefront that doesn’t feel overrun.
Guachimontones — About 1 Hour West
Less visited than Tequila, but worth the detour. Guachimontones is a pre-Columbian site built around circular stepped pyramids — a design found almost nowhere else in Mesoamerica. It sits in the Tequila Valley near Teuchitlán and works well as a combined stop on a Tequila day for anyone wanting to balance culture with a cold drink.
Monterrey: Industrial City, Extraordinary Surroundings
Estadio BBVA sits in Guadalupe, just east of the city center. Monterrey is northern Mexico — direct, proud, built on industry and carne asada. But the Sierra Madre Oriental rising to the south and west creates a day-trip scene that’s entirely about terrain.
Chipinque Ecological Park — About 30 Minutes from Downtown
For anyone wanting altitude and open air without leaving the metro area, Chipinque is the straightforward answer. The park climbs into the foothills directly south of the city, with hiking and biking trails and views back across Monterrey that give the skyline better context than any city tour would manage.
It doesn’t demand a full day. A morning in the park and lunch back in the centro works comfortably, even around a match-day schedule if the timing is right.
Huasteca Canyon — About 30 Minutes West
Right at Monterrey’s western edge, the Huasteca cuts through limestone formations with walls rising several hundred meters. It’s a serious climbing destination, but non-climbers can walk the canyon floor and absorb the scale without any gear. Easy to pair with a Chipinque morning, or to use as a standalone afternoon stop.
Parras de la Fuente — About 2.5 Hours Southwest
A longer commitment, better suited to a genuine rest day between matches. Parras is Mexico’s oldest wine-producing town, founded in 1597, and Casa Madero — one of the oldest wineries in the Americas — still operates there. The setting is desert colonial, the town is quiet, and it feels nothing like the Monterrey you came from.
Quick Reference: Day Trips by Host City
| Host City | Destination | Travel Time | Best For |
| Mexico City | Teotihuacan | ~1 hour | Ancient history |
| Mexico City | Tepoztlán | ~1.5 hours | Hiking, colonial culture |
| Mexico City | Xochimilco | ~50 minutes | Canals, local atmosphere |
| Guadalajara | Tequila | ~1 hour | Food, drink, UNESCO heritage |
| Guadalajara | Lake Chapala / Ajijic | ~1.5 hours | Scenery, relaxation |
| Guadalajara | Guachimontones | ~1 hour | Archaeology |
| Monterrey | Chipinque Park | ~30 minutes | Nature, city views |
| Monterrey | Huasteca Canyon | ~30 minutes | Dramatic scenery, hiking |
| Monterrey | Parras de la Fuente | ~2.5 hours | Wine, colonial history |
A few things that apply across all three cities:
- Keep day trips off match days. Stadium traffic in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey is no joke — even a short excursion can turn into a long afternoon if you’re fighting game-day congestion.
- Leave early. Ruins, canyons, and nature sites are better in the first hours — cooler, quieter, and better lit.
- Sort transport before you go. Uber and Didi run reliably across all three cities for shorter trips. For multi-stop days or early starts, a private driver removes the friction. Daytrip books private door-to-door day trips across Mexico’s host cities, with set itineraries, flexible pickup times, and a full refund if plans change up to 24 hours out.
Moving Between Host Cities
If the match schedule sends visitors from one city to the next, transit days need honest budgeting.
Flights between Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey run about an hour in the air. Door-to-door though — airport arrival, security, boarding, ground transport at the other end — each connection realistically takes half a day. Treating those as rest days rather than stacking a day trip on top is the smarter call.
Long-distance buses like ADO and ETN are comfortable and affordable, but Guadalajara to Monterrey by road is around eight hours. That’s not a quick connection — it’s a full transit day.
One Last Thing
After more than a decade living here, I still find people are surprised by how accessible all of this is. Mexico has a reputation for being complicated to navigate, and in certain respects it is — but getting from a host city to a world-class day trip rarely is. Most of these destinations take less time to reach than it takes to get through stadium security.
Plan one day trip per city at minimum. Do more if the schedule allows. You’ll leave with a much fuller picture of the country than the match schedule alone would ever give you — and honestly, that’s the part of the trip you’ll still be talking about years later.
Top Image Credit: The Pyramid of the Moon from the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan — Photo: Jarek Tuszyński / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0
