Oaxaca · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
Cheap, walkable and food-obsessed — Oaxaca is where budget travellers stop for a week and stay three.
Centro and Jalatlaco
Hostels sit within a few blocks of Santo Domingo, with quieter, prettier rooms in Jalatlaco across the ring road. Everything central is walkable.
What a day costs
Roughly 500–900 pesos, about $30–52: dorms 250–400, market comedor lunches 70–120, and colectivos to the valley towns 25–50 each way.
Colectivos to the valleys
Shared taxis and second-class buses to Mitla, Teotitlán and Hierve el Agua leave from the lanes around the Central de Abastos for a few dozen pesos.
Free by day
The Santo Domingo atrium, the Andador Macedonio Alcalá at night, and grazing the smoke of the Mercado 20 de Noviembre cost nothing.
Zócalo and the mezcalerías
The plaza has marimba and balloon sellers most evenings; the small mezcalerías on Calle Murguía and Reforma are where travellers actually get talking.