This stylish, gorgeously photographed guide to Mexico City will help you get the most out of this vibrant, culturally rich destination—or make you want to plan a trip! Vast and exciting, Mexico City has so much to offer, from museums to markets, architectural wonders to Aztec monuments. This thorough and practical travel guide includes everything you need to know to enjoy the lifestyle of Mexico City—its sights, sounds, and tastes. This Is Mexico City showcases the best museums (both traditional and off-the-beaten-path), old-school mercados, public art, food trucks, and much more. Organized by neighborhood, each section offers insider recommendations for every interest: For shoppers there are boutiques, galleries, and local artisan studios; for foodies, trendy bars, tiny taco restaurants, ice cream parlors abound. An incredible experience awaits! This Is Mexico City includes: Archaeological Sites • Architecture • Artists • Designers • For Kids • Galleries • Libraries • Monuments • Museums • Parks • Plazas • Public Art • Shopping • To Eat, Drink • To Stay

John Ross has been living in the old colonial quarter of Mexico City for the last three decades, a rebel journalist covering Mexico and the region from the bottom up. He is filled with a gnawing sense that his beloved Mexico City's days as the most gargantuan, chaotic, crime-ridden, toxically contaminated urban stain in the western world are doomed, and the monster he has grown to know and love through a quarter century of reporting on its foibles and tragedies and blight will be globalized into one more McCity. El Monstruo is a defense of place and the history of that place. No one has told the gritty, vibrant histories of this city of 23 million faceless souls from the ground up, listened to the stories of those who have not been crushed, deconstructed the Monstruo's very monstrousness, and lived to tell its secrets. In El Monstruo, Ross now does.

One of the renowned Beat writer’s most formally inventive books, Mexico City Blues is Jack Kerouac’s essential work of lyric verse, now reissued following his centenary celebration Written between 1954 and 1957, and published originally by Grove Press in 1959, Mexico City Blues is Kerouac’s most important verse work. It incorporates all the elements of his theory of spontaneous composition and his interest in Buddhism. Memories, fantasies, dreams, and surrealistic free association are lyrically combined in the loose format inspired by jazz and the blues. Written while Kerouac was living in Mexico City, and with references to William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Bill Garver, this exciting book in Kerouac’s oeuvre is an original and moving epic of sound, rhythm, and religion.

In the '80s, when author/photographer Kurt Hollander lived in New York and published The Portable Lower East, life there was particularly rough, and cops often drove yellow cabs as a method to surprise and roust its residents. Before the decade ended, Hollander moved to the equally rough climes of Mexico City, making his living writing and photographing for The Guardian, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. Hollander's visual and textual extravaganza, Several Ways to Die in Mexico City, provides a perspective of this extraordinary city that could only have been caught by an observant outsider who lived in all its nooks and crannies for over two decades. Crammed with caustic but fair observations of the city's history, food, cults, drugs, and buildings, Hollander proves that he can love a city and culture that also kills its inhabitants softly. While living high in Mexico City, Kurt Hollander edited poliester, the renowned bilingual art magazine about the Americas. He also directed the feature film Carambola, and wrote a successful series of children's books. Grove Press published the Portable Lower East Side anthology in 1994.

The definitive book on Mexico City: a vibrant, seductive, and paradoxical metropolis-the second-biggest city in the world, and a vision of our urban future. First Stop in the New World is a street-level panorama of Mexico City, the largest metropolis in the western hemisphere and the cultural capital of the Spanish-speaking world. Journalist David Lida expertly captures the kaleidoscopic nature of life in a city defined by pleasure and danger, ecstatic joy and appalling tragedy-hanging in limbo between the developed and underdeveloped worlds. With this literary-journalist account, he establishes himself as the ultimate chronicler of this bustling megalopolis at a key moment in its-and our-history.

In this dazzling multidisciplinary tour of Mexico City, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo focuses on the period 1880 to 1940, the decisive decades that shaped the city into what it is today. Through a kaleidoscope of expository forms, I Speak of the City connects the realms of literature, architecture, music, popular language, art, and public health to investigate the city in a variety of contexts: as a living history textbook, as an expression of the state, as a modernist capital, as a laboratory, and as language. Tenorio’s formal imagination allows the reader to revel in the free-flowing richness of his narratives, opening startling new vistas onto the urban experience. From art to city planning, from epidemiology to poetry, this book challenges the conventional wisdom about both Mexico City and the turn-of-the-century world to which it belonged. And by engaging directly with the rise of modernism and the cultural experiences of such personalities as Hart Crane, Mina Loy, and Diego Rivera, I Speak of the City will find an enthusiastic audience across the disciplines.

The forgotten café where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara used to meet, a tribute to the city's ghosts, a mammoth in the metro, a cave transformed into a shrine, an underground parking lot with mosaics dating from 1930, a Baroque altarpiece made from papier mâché, a village based on the principles of Thomas More's Utopia, secret masterpieces of colonial art in rooms only open around two hours a week, the largest roof garden in Latin America, the photo on which the Oscar statuette is modelled, the first building in the world faced with a material that can trap urban smog, a road surface designed for praying as you walk ... Far from the crowds and the usual clichés, Mexico City is filled with hidden treasures revealed only to the residents and visitors who leave the beaten path. An indispensable guide for those who thought they knew the city well or who would like to discover its many other facets.

MEXICO CITY, with some 20 million inhabitants, is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. Enormous growth, raging crime, and tumultuous politics have also made it one of the most feared and misunderstood. Yet in the past decade, the city has become a hot spot for international business, fashion, and art, and a magnet for thrill-seeking expats from around the world. In 2002, Daniel Hernandez traveled to Mexico City, searching for his cultural roots. He encountered a city both chaotic and intoxicating, both underdeveloped and hypermodern. In 2007, after quitting a job, he moved back. With vivid, intimate storytelling, Hernandez visits slums populated by ex-punks; glittering, drug-fueled fashion parties; and pseudo-native rituals catering to new-age Mexicans. He takes readers into the world of youth subcultures, in a city where punk and emo stand for a whole way of life—and sometimes lead to rumbles on the streets. Surrounded by volcanoes, earthquake-prone, and shrouded in smog, the city that Hernandez lovingly chronicles is a place of astounding manifestations of danger, desire, humor, and beauty, a surreal landscape of “cosmic violence.” For those who care about one of the most electrifying cities on the planet, “Down & Delirious in Mexico City is essential reading” (David Lida, author of First Stop in the New World).

With its fascinating history, incomparable culinary landscape, and blossoming art scene, Mexico City has become one of the most sought-after destinations for the hip, curious traveler. Fodor's brand-new guidebook, Inside Mexico City, touches on the top tourist sights, from the Zócalo to the Frida Kahlo Museum, but also delves into the under-the-radar places that only insiders from Mexico City know about. The Fodor's Inside series is designed for travelers looking for authentic, hyperlocal experiences. Perfectly sized to fit in your bag or pocket, these guides are designed with an artistic bent and are easy to use, look good, and don't make you feel like a tourist. Written by Mexico City residents--with customized neighborhood maps and one-of-a-kind, hand-drawn illustrations by Kathryn Holeman--Inside Mexico City covers the restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and boutiques in the neighborhoods that locals love best. Fodor's Inside Mexico City includes: OFF-THE-BEATEN-PATH COVERAGE to help you explore locally loved, up-and-coming neighborhoods that other guidebooks don't cover well or at all. ITINERARIES that will help you plan your trip. MAPS that are easy to read, plus a FREE PULL-OUT MAP. BEST BET LISTS with our favorites in a variety of categories including: best local foods, best kid-friendly attractions, and most romantic restaurants. INSTAGRAM-WORTHY PHOTO SPOTS that tell you how and where to get remarkable shots that you'll definitely want to share. AT A GLANCE FEATURES on local events, history, locally-made goods, books and movies set in Mexico City, and more. COOL PLACES TO STAY highlighting the most unique lodgings in the city. BEST CITY TOURS from the coolest companies, including gallery walks, culinary tours, and mezcal tastings. QUICK SIDE TRIPS to the best places in Teotihuacán, Cuernavaca, and Valle de Bravo. GETTING AROUND features in every neighborhood to make navigation via public transit or walking easy. HAND-DRAWN ILLUSTRATIONS INTERESTING STREET AND PUBLIC ART that is worth discovering. BACK IN THE DAY SPOTLIGHTS of famous spots to give the city historical context. COVERS the best neighborhoods in Mexico City, including Centro Histórico, La Condesa, La Roma, Polanco, Juarez, La Zona Rosa, Coyocán, San Angel, and more. ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor's has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us @FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us! Planning on visiting more of Mexico? Check out Fodor's Los Cabos, Fodor's Cancun & the Riviera Maya, and Fodor's Puerto Vallarta. *Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition.

The updated, 2018 edition of Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide is now available! Mexico City, as one of the largest metropoli on the planet, can overwhelm even the most adventurous visitor. Thankfully, Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler lends a thorough, guiding hand to help make the visitor's stay outstanding. Written by a longtime resident who knows the city inside and out, this travel guide delivers detailed walking tours of the city that include the most popular tourist sights as well as lesser-known spots. Johnston knows where to stay, what to do, and where to eat: everything from authentic market food to sophisticated Mexican cuisine.What began as a collection of notes to share with good friends is now available to every newcomer looking for a joyful, memorable stay in Mexico City. "This is the guidebook that I want. Wonderfully written, airtight information, organized in the smartest possibly way. I can't imagine a better Mexico City guide for these times."-Tony Cohan, author of Mexican Days and On Mexican Time" Johnston is the friend you wish you had in every great city, toting you from palace to museum to park but never missing the exquisite pastelería, the grand hotel lobby or the clean public bathroom."-San Francisco Chronicle