Mexico - $187.39
We spent just over $1,200 across six and a half days in and around Mexico City, meaning our per day spending was just below our target of $194. Our highest category of expense in Mexico was Food at $72.26 per day, followed closely by Lodging at $54 per day. We had one flight to reach Mexico, and while we used points to pay for it, we still had almost $100 each in fees, taking up almost $30 per day of our trip spending. While in Mexico, we used cash for about $80 worth of small purchases, but we found that most places accepted cards, even some stalls at markets or street sellers. We had two $0 categories in Mexico, as we didn’t rent a car and Americans don’t need to pay for a visa when entering the country – they barely even check your passport.
As has become very standard for us this year, Food & Groceries were our biggest expenses, eating up almost half of our daily spending. However, in Mexico City this was a bit unique, as we treated ourselves to one very fancy dinner out to celebrate the end of our primary round-the-world trip. This one meal increased our per day spending by $16 across our week in the country, skewing the low cost of good food and drinks here. If we had stuck to street food and tacos, we probably could have gotten away with spending $20 - $30 per day on food, as there are simply so many good, cheap options here.
Our second highest expense, as usual, was Lodging, which ran us about $54 per night. We stayed in two different Airbnbs in Mexico city, for three nights each, with our second one costing far more per-night. This was primarily because of its location in the highly desirable Coyoacan neighborhood, where we found fewer options and higher prices. For someone coming to Mexico City for the first time, we would recommend focusing your stay on downtown and Roma Norte, as it's much easier to reach the city’s top attractions from there. While we really enjoyed our stay in Coyoacan, it did take a lot of time out of our day to reach anywhere else.
To reach the city’s main attractions, we needed to rely primarily on Ubers, alongside some subway and bus journeys, with Other Transportation adding up to nearly $14 per day. Finally, we visited several museums and the Teotihuacán & Templo Mayor archeological sites, costing us about $5 per day in Activities. Thankfully for us, museum and archeological entry tickets are very cheap in Mexico, generally less than $5 per person, even at many of the city’s biggest attractions.