Imagine punting in the UK, but on bigger and more colourful boats, with floating markets selling tacos and tequila shots, the sound of mariachi bands playing, and space at the front of the boat to sing and dance. This is what it is like to paddle down the canals of Xochimilco!
The Xochimilco canals are located about an hour from Mexico City by public transport. The 170km of ancient canals are remnants of a huge lake that once existed here, and they were used by the Azteks’ to transport goods. The canals also used to be an important and unique habitat for the axolotyl, the cute reptile that is endemic to Mexico, but sadly there are only between 50-1000 remaining and scientists are racing to save this endangered species from extinction.
Nowadays, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is a popular tourist attraction, with bright boats called trajineras drifting up and down. I had such a fun and boozy afternoon at Xochimilco with 12 other people from my hostel and it was one of my highlights of Mexico City. It is definitely doable on a budget and this guide contains all the information you need to plan your own day trip there.
How to get to Xochimilco
The metro system is Mexico City is amazing! It is cheap, easy, safe and even has women’s only carriages. The journey from the historic centre to Xochimilco took us about one hour on the metro.
First, you will need to get the metro to Tesquena Station, from here there is a dedicated metro line that will take you directly to Xochimilco station. When you get off the metro you will need to walk for about 10 minutes following the blue signs with images of a boat. The last sign is yellow, they will say “embarcaderos”.
You will arrive at a dock with many colourful boats, choose one and a member of staff should join you to ask about the journey you want to take.
Decide on a route
Something I love about Xochimilco is that you decide the details of the route, you decide how many hours you will spend on the boat and which canals you want to take.
You have two options when deciding the type of route…
Touristic route: Choosing this option means you will mostly stay within the main busy part of the canal, where you are surrounded by floating markets, other tourist boats and mariachi bands. If you have a small group and are looking for a party I would choose this route.
Nature route: This route is much quieter, after about 20 minutes you will leave the busy part of the canal behind, including the opportunity to buy food and drink from the floating markets. Instead, you will take a more peaceful route with some beautiful scenery and the potential to see how the locals use the canals nowadays.
We chose the nature route, there were enough of us to make a party even if we weren’t surrounded by other tourists! We chose to spend 5 hours doing so as we were told this was how long was needed to get to the prettiest parts of the canals and back. It also meant we could see the Island of the Dolls, a famous island full of thousands of dolls hanging from trees and fences.
Take a look at some photos from the nature route below.
Price
An important thing to know before heading to Xochimilco is that you pay per boat, not per person. This means you want to find as many people as possible to keep costs down, and the more people, the more fun! The boats can fit up to 18 people on them so if you really can’t find more people to go with, try joining up with another group at the dock before choosing a boat.
The going rate is $600 per hour, per boat, which is about £28, and apparently, the price is set so you can’t barter for any less. I went with a group of 13 people so paid about £12 in total for the five hours. As you can see it would be a lot more expensive in a smaller group. To reduce the cost, you could opt to just do one or two hours.
You can also rent a speaker on the boat for about £10 per boat. I would recommend doing this if you didn’t bring your own as music definitely made the day more fun!
One more thing to note is that paying for the mariachi bands to come onto the boat to play a song is expensive. Again, this is about £10 per song!
5 main tips
- Make sure you have enough cash on you. You have to pay for the boat, mariachi bands and any food or drink you buy from the floating market with cash.
- There aren’t many toilets on route, especially on the nature route, so bear this in mind when you are deciding your journey. The drivers really don’t like people jumping off to go for a wild wee!
- Remember that you will only be around the floating market for the first and last 20 minutes if you choose the nature route.
- Taxi’s to Xochimilco are expensive so it is worth the extra time to just take the metro, my return journey cost 90p!
- To reduce costs even further you can buy beers and snacks to bring onto the boat, the locals don’t mind this at all. I brought a pack of beers onto the boat and just bought a tequila shot from the floating market at the end.
I had the best afternoon at Xochimilco! About halfway through the journey, the alcohol was hitting and all of us were up dancing to the music at the front of the boat. I don’t know how our driver could see where he was going! If you are looking for a fun, unique thing to do in Mexico, I would recommend taking this day trip!
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