Oaxaca de Juárez travel guide

Mexico · Top sights · trending spots

Oaxaca is where Mexican cooking is at its most complicated — seven moles, each taking a day, and mezcal distilled from agave in villages up the valley.

Monte Albán, the Zapotec city levelled onto a hilltop from 500 BC, is World Heritage and twenty minutes away. Hierve el Agua looks like a frozen waterfall and is mineral deposit. The Day of the Dead here, in early November, is the most beautiful version of it.

Search flights for these datesChecking fares…

Next long-break window · based on public holidays in United States11.26 – 11.291 leave → 4 daysPlan this trip

Top 10 sights in Oaxaca de Juárez

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

Monte Albán
A Zapotec capital on an artificially levelled ridge four hundred metres above the Oaxaca valley, founded about 500 BC and holding perhaps 25,000 people at its height. Its Danzantes reliefs show mutilated captives, and Tomb 7 produced the richest cache of gold and jade found in Mesoamerica.
Tiqets Klook
© Thelmadatter · CC BY-SA 3.0
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Oaxaca
The cathedral of Oaxaca, begun about 1535 and consecrated on 12 July 1733 after earthquakes repeatedly interrupted it, which is why the towers are low and squat. Its green cantera stone front carries a relief of the Assumption.
Tiqets Klook
© Prsjl · CC BY-SA 4.0
Benito Juárez National Park
A national park five kilometres north of Oaxaca city, on the hills of San Felipe Tejalapam and San Andrés Huayapan, declared in 1937 under President Cárdenas. It is named after Benito Juárez, the Zapotec shepherd boy from this state who became president of Mexico.
Tiqets Klook
© nan palmero · CC BY 2.0
Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán
A Dominican church and convent of New Spanish baroque begun in 1570 and opened, unfinished, in 1608, with walls two metres thick against earthquakes. Its interior is covered in gilded relief, including a genealogical tree of the Guzmán family across the choir vault; the convent is now the state museum.
Tiqets Klook
© Maunus · CC BY-SA 3.0
San José Mogote
A Zapotec settlement in the Etla arm of the Oaxaca valley, the largest and most important in the region between about 1500 and 500 BC, before Monte Albán. A carved slab from it bears what may be the earliest writing in Mesoamerica.
Tiqets Klook
© AlejandroLinaresGarcia · CC BY-SA 3.0
Basilica of Our Lady of Solitude
A basilica built between 1682 and 1690 for Our Lady of Solitude, patron of Oaxaca, whose baroque stone front is deliberately low and heavy against earthquakes. The image's jewelled crown was stolen in 1991 and never recovered.
Tiqets Klook
© El Ágora · CC BY-SA 3.0
Zaachila
A Zapotec city six kilometres from Oaxaca, the seat of the last Zapotec rulers, named after the fourteenth-century lord Zaachila Yoo. Two Mixtec-style tombs with stucco reliefs of owls and skeletal figures were excavated under its mound.
Tiqets Klook
© GallodeOroFoto · CC BY-SA 3.0
Dainzú
A Zapotec site in the eastern Oaxaca valley, occupied from about 700 BC and at its height between 200 BC and AD 350, excavated by Ignacio Bernal in 1965. Its carved boulders show ballplayers in helmets and gloves, the earliest such images in Mesoamerica.
Tiqets Klook
Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca
An ethnobotanical garden beside the church of Santo Domingo, on the convent's old vegetable plots, holding only plants native to Oaxaca — the state with the greatest plant diversity in Mexico. Visits are guided only, and the plants are grouped by human use.
Tiqets Klook
Graphic Arts Institute of Oaxaca
An art institute in Oaxaca founded by the painter Francisco Toledo, holding a wide collection of Latin American prints and a library. Toledo returned much of his earnings to the city in institutions of this kind.
Tiqets Klook

Popular tickets & tours in Oaxaca de Juárez

Live products and prices are provided directly by Klook.

KlookOpen Oaxaca de Juárez activitiesBrowse tickets & tours

KKdayOpen Oaxaca de Juárez activitiesBrowse tickets & tours

Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

© Miandigra · CC BY-SA 3.0
Museo Rufino Tamayo
A museum the painter Rufino Tamayo gave to his native state, opened on 29 January 1974 in a colonial house. He bought its pre-Hispanic pieces from dealers to keep them in Mexico, and they are shown as art rather than as archaeology.
Tiqets Klook
© Henok Montoya · CC BY-SA 3.0
Oaxaca México Temple
A Latter-day Saints temple in Oaxaca, announced on 23 February 1999 and the fifth in Mexico, the seventy-fourth in the church. Only members in good standing enter beyond the lobby.
Tiqets Klook
© AlejandroLinaresGarcia · CC BY-SA 4.0
Museo Estatal de Arte Popular de Oaxaca
A small state museum at San Bartolo Coyotepec south of Oaxaca, devoted to the crafts of the region and the people who make them — the village produces the black burnished pottery, barro negro, that Doña Rosa developed here in the 1950s.
Tiqets Klook

Find dates you can go →

Top 10 sights in Oaxaca de Juárez

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

Monte Albán

A Zapotec capital on an artificially levelled ridge four hundred metres above the Oaxaca valley, founded about 500 BC and holding perhaps 25,000 people at its height. Its Danzantes reliefs show mutilated captives, and Tomb 7 produced the richest cache of gold and jade found in Mesoamerica.

Tiqets

Klook

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Oaxaca

The cathedral of Oaxaca, begun about 1535 and consecrated on 12 July 1733 after earthquakes repeatedly interrupted it, which is why the towers are low and squat. Its green cantera stone front carries a relief of the Assumption.

Tiqets

Klook

Benito Juárez National Park

A national park five kilometres north of Oaxaca city, on the hills of San Felipe Tejalapam and San Andrés Huayapan, declared in 1937 under President Cárdenas. It is named after Benito Juárez, the Zapotec shepherd boy from this state who became president of Mexico.

Tiqets

Klook

Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán

A Dominican church and convent of New Spanish baroque begun in 1570 and opened, unfinished, in 1608, with walls two metres thick against earthquakes. Its interior is covered in gilded relief, including a genealogical tree of the Guzmán family across the choir vault; the convent is now the state museum.

Tiqets

Klook

San José Mogote

A Zapotec settlement in the Etla arm of the Oaxaca valley, the largest and most important in the region between about 1500 and 500 BC, before Monte Albán. A carved slab from it bears what may be the earliest writing in Mesoamerica.

Tiqets

Klook

Basilica of Our Lady of Solitude

A basilica built between 1682 and 1690 for Our Lady of Solitude, patron of Oaxaca, whose baroque stone front is deliberately low and heavy against earthquakes. The image's jewelled crown was stolen in 1991 and never recovered.

Tiqets

Klook

Zaachila

A Zapotec city six kilometres from Oaxaca, the seat of the last Zapotec rulers, named after the fourteenth-century lord Zaachila Yoo. Two Mixtec-style tombs with stucco reliefs of owls and skeletal figures were excavated under its mound.

Tiqets

Klook

Dainzú

A Zapotec site in the eastern Oaxaca valley, occupied from about 700 BC and at its height between 200 BC and AD 350, excavated by Ignacio Bernal in 1965. Its carved boulders show ballplayers in helmets and gloves, the earliest such images in Mesoamerica.

Tiqets

Klook

Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca

An ethnobotanical garden beside the church of Santo Domingo, on the convent's old vegetable plots, holding only plants native to Oaxaca — the state with the greatest plant diversity in Mexico. Visits are guided only, and the plants are grouped by human use.

Tiqets

Klook

Graphic Arts Institute of Oaxaca

An art institute in Oaxaca founded by the painter Francisco Toledo, holding a wide collection of Latin American prints and a library. Toledo returned much of his earnings to the city in institutions of this kind.

Tiqets

Klook

Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

Museo Rufino Tamayo

A museum the painter Rufino Tamayo gave to his native state, opened on 29 January 1974 in a colonial house. He bought its pre-Hispanic pieces from dealers to keep them in Mexico, and they are shown as art rather than as archaeology.

Tiqets

Klook

Oaxaca México Temple

A Latter-day Saints temple in Oaxaca, announced on 23 February 1999 and the fifth in Mexico, the seventy-fourth in the church. Only members in good standing enter beyond the lobby.

Tiqets

Klook

Museo Estatal de Arte Popular de Oaxaca

A small state museum at San Bartolo Coyotepec south of Oaxaca, devoted to the crafts of the region and the people who make them — the village produces the black burnished pottery, barro negro, that Doña Rosa developed here in the 1950s.

Tiqets

Klook