5 Best Oaxaca Tours and Day Trips
The list of things to do in Oaxaca can be overwhelming, so we thought we’d pull together a curated list of the best Oaxaca tours and day trips we’d recommend to any Oaxaca first-time visitor.
This list pulls from a few of our tours and day trips as well as a few from our friends, all of which pass our personal test for fun and adventure alongside cultural exploration and discovery. After all, it’s the culture, cuisine, and outdoors that truly shine when it comes to visiting and coming to know Oaxaca’s many layers.
Here are five Oaxaca tours and day trips that have all three of those categories covered.
5 Unmissable Oaxaca Tours and Day Trips
Street Art Bike Tour with Coyote Aventuras
If a two-wheeled adventure in pursuit of Oaxaca’s most storied street art sounds intriguing, then our Street Art Bike Tour should be on your radar.
We’ve taken the time to meet the masters behind many of the stenciled or painted art and rice paper graphic prints decorating Oaxaca’s walls and have their stories of resistance, political dissent, and, sometimes even psilocybin-induced metaphor to share with you.
We’ll cycle down sidewalks and cobble-stoned streets in three different Oaxaca neighborhoods, giving you a proper feel for the breadth and scope of Oaxaca’s street art scene and its community-supported presence in Oaxacan culture and resistance.
Sunset Hike with Vamos o Que Tours
Birdwatching, sunset gazing, and nature combine on this sunset hike with Vamos o Que Tours up in the nearby hills of San Felipe del Agua.
Margaux, a Bretagne-turned-permanent Oaxaca transplant, brings together all of her passions and expertise (flora, fauna, and homemade crepes to snack on using a recipe from her native France) for a quick-and-easy 1.5-hour guided sunset hike.
The views from Cerro del San Felipe del Agua while the sun dips behind the Oaxacan peaks are simply picture perfect while the route to the lookout point is dotted with views all its own – fields of agave, maize, and dry forest.
This is a spectacular Oaxaca tour to squeeze into your itinerary if you have an evening to spare and a hankering for an off-the-beaten-track perspective of this incredible place.
Sunset Local Food & Mezcal Tour with Oaxaca Eats Food Tours
Dean and Kay of Oaxaca Eats Food Tours have Oaxaca’s vibrant food scene figured out.
On this Oaxaca food tour, they package some of their favorite spots for a sunset meal and swig of mezcal into a perfect rooftop-focused food tour of Oaxaca’s Centro.
Come hungry as the food tour includes 15+ different foods and beverages plus a relaxing walk around town to four locally-owned restaurants.
Sample everything from mezcal, mezcal cocktails, beer, small plates, and delectable desserts, all with a foodie expert nearby to answer your every question about Oaxacan cuisine and culture.
Red Clay-making Community of San Marcos Tlapazola with Terra Ancestral
Oaxaca is known for its generation-spanning handicraft traditions.
On this highly recommended Oaxaca tour, join potters Corinne and Diego of the non-profit Terra Ancestral for a day in the home workshop of a red clay Maestra.
This full-day tour from Oaxaca takes place in the Barro Rojo-famous community of San Marcos Tlapazola, located about an hour’s drive from Oaxaca City.
The ceramics produced in this dusty town are known and respected the world over. Under the expert guidance of one of these Maestras, try your hand at crafting a red clay ceramic of your own and witness her well-honed process for harvesting and preparing the clay. Then watch as she works it into form and fires it under a sunset sky.
If direct and interactive exposure to centuries-old tradition is what you’re looking for then this is certainly the Oaxaca tour for you.
Bike, Arts, Sunset Tour in Teotitlan del Valle with Coyote Aventuras
We’ll wrap up this “best of” list with another one of our own, mostly because it’s the only tour in Oaxaca that combines mountain biking, hiking, ancestral tradition, and local food and beverage all in one action-packed day.
Our Bike, Arts, Sunset Tour is a full-day adventure in the nearby rug-weaving community of Teotitlan del Valle. From the bike saddle by morning to a glimpse behind the loom and around the family dining table come lunchtime and finished by a hike up El Picacho for sunset we go on this day trip.
We love art and culture as much as the next guy, but we also love inserting a bit of movement and time in the outdoors between bites of culture, cuisine, and crafts. That’s why we put together this unprecedented Oaxaca day trip. Meet the weavers and the landscape of what’s considered to be the first city the Zapotec people ever founded.
Questions about any of these tours or curious if we have any other recommendations? Just reach out to our team via email or on Instagram. We’d be happy to guide you in the right tour or day trip direction!
