Cost of our nomad living in Oaxaca City

After a wonderful 6 weeks in Mexico City where we explored both the city and the Pueblo Magicos surrounding it, we spent 4 weeks in Oaxaca City during Christmas and New Years. Oaxaca city is THE place to experiences authentic Mexican food. It is also extremely affordable as we only spent $26 per person and per day making it the cheapest place we’ve visited since we started to travel the world!

Overall, we gave Oaxaca City a 4.5 out of 5 stars rating. We removed half a star for a spotty wifi connectivity and for the difficulty to get access to some basic produce (we are picky home cooks so you might be able to get away with the latter).

With that being said, let’s look into what we liked the most, what we recommend, as well as the details about our budget and how the two of us spent $26 per person per day. Let’s go explore Oaxaca City!

Where We Traveled Oaxaca City, México

Number of Days 4 weeks (from December 15, 2018 to January 12, 2019)

Type of Travel Married Couple, Slow Travel/Nomadic, Price Conscious

Total living cost $1518 USD (for 2 people) or $26 per person and per dayor $785 for person per month

Note: Unless specified otherwise, prices are in USD and were converted from MXN to USD using a 1:21 ratio. (so 1 MXN = 0.047 USD).

Before getting into the nitty gritty details of our budget, we will take a moment to go over what we did during our trip with this budget. If you came here just for the numbers, scroll down to out our budget section below or fill-out out the form below to download our itemized budget spreadsheet if you want to know every single expense we had.  

What did we do / see and eat?

Here are our favorites places to eat, shop and get entertained:

Our Favorite Restaurants:

• El Embrujo – Mrs. Nomad Numbers discovered this hole in the wall while we were looking for tacos and soup. The place rotates their menu daily and you won’t know what to get until you arrive, which is a great sign if you are looking to find a local place. We ordered tacos and were served larger tortillas (“tortilla mano”) that were filled with “cabeza de res” (meat from the head). This dish came with a side of parsley, onions and of course “salsas” (sauces) that included our favorite one: the green guacamole. This was so tasty that we came back 4-5 times to this place during our stay. And of course being true to Oaxaca City the cost of the food was really inexpensive (20 MXN for a taco mano, 10MXN for a regular taco, 30 MXN for a regular plate and 50 MXN for the menu del dia that comes with a small appetizer, aqua fresca of the day, main dish and a small dessert).  

• Calabacitas Tiernas – This is a vegetarian restaurant that also has an organic grocery store attached to it. This is the first place we stopped by when we arrived in Oaxaca City as it was located just a block away from our apartment. Their menu features a wide range of options (including a paleo menu that unfortunately wasn’t 100% paleo since some dishes include corn in them). The decor was great and they make their own kombucha which we ended up coming back to refill our own pitcher.

• Hierba Dulce – This is a plant based Mexican restaurant that uses exclusively local and organic ingredients. They cook without any processed products, added sugar or vegetable oils. They offer both vegan and healing foods in an incredible setting that makes the entire experience really relaxing. They have both indoor and outdoor/patio type of seating.
  • Nomad Numbers Pro Tip: We recommend trying their ice cream and making sure you arrive early enough (they close at 5pm) so you can fully embrace this place.

• Casa Oaxaca – This is your fine dining option if you want to splurge on food. This place provides authentic Oaxacan cuisine with a nice rooftop that made for some great sunset views. The salsa is made tableside and is on the house. The service was perfect. We highly recommend it. Make sure to make a reservation. At the time of writing, this place was in the top 10 restaurants of the city (in a list of 500+ entries according to TripAdvisor).
• Comedor Lupita – This place is another hole in the wall that is extremely hard to find as it is located inside the gigantic Mercado De Abastos. We heard about it after watching a great food blog video from Mark Wiens.
  • Nomad Numbers Pro Tip: Check out the video at the 3:30 minutes mark as this is where Mark show this place. We found it and couldn’t be happier to try their fish soup that comes with a full fish for only 30 MXN (or $1.5 USD). Mrs Nomad Numbers was blown away by the deliciousness and freshness of what she got. We still can’t believe how people can make a profit at such a low cost.

Our Favorite Local Shops:

• Boulenc – As a French, I’m always on the lookout for some good bakeries to get my fix of bread and I’m happy to report that this is the place you want to go to for some amazing French goods! They have various breads, croissants, pain au chocolat as well as their own pastries, sandwiches and jams.

Our Favorite Grocery Stores:

Oaxaca City has A LOT of markets. We are listing our favorite by order of preference. They are all worth checking out at least once.

• Mercado Organico El Pochote – Note: They have two locations. The one that we are mentioning here is NOT this one. Here is the address: Marcos Pérez 217, Ruta Independencia, Luis Jimenez Figueroa.

• La Cosecha – This is an outdoor organic market with a few vendors. It’s a great place for a small bite or a drink. The place is very lively on weekends and it was our favorite local market to hang out at.

• Mercado Benito Juarez – This market was close to our place and we like it because of that and the fact that we got used to going to the same vendors that have really affordable produce.
• Mercado De Abastos – If you are wondering where the locals go to get their produce, this is it! This place is gigantic (especially during the holiday) and it’s so big that it can be overwhelming to find your way through.

• Mercado 20 de Noviembre – This is the most touristy mercado of all in Oaxaca city. It is usually really busy and this is where you can get some amazing cooked meat (literally cooked in front of you) as well as tlayudas (which most people refers as a mexican pizza made from a giant tortilla which is topped with several toppings)

Our Favorite Sights/Activities:

Oaxaca City is easily walkable and really easy to explore. Beside the downtown area (El Centro) the other area worth exploring is Reforma. As you get to Oaxaca City, we recommend that you take the only free city tour that is available. It is a great overview of the various place in the city (including the museums and art galleries). The company is called Free Tour Oaxaca and offers free tours daily.

Outside of Oaxaca City we recommend the following destinations:

• El Tule / Mitla / Hierve El Agua tour [trip length recommendation: 1 day] – You can book a tour from the city to hit these three places for about 150 MXN per person. Here is what you will see.
  • Hierve El Agua (Mexico’s Petrified Waterfall) is a gorgeous site where you can see formations created by fresh water springs that look like waterfall. The site has two artificial pools which make for a good swim and some great pictures.
  • Teotitlán Del Valle is a weaving village where you can see how people are making rugs
  • Metzcal Factory is a must stop if you like to drink!
  • El Tule (in Santa Maria Del Tule) is the widest tree in the world (2000+ years old) but it’s unfortunately dying due to the surrounding pollution.
  • Mitla (the place of the dead) is the most important archeological site of the state. It’s in a pretty good shape and we went inside a tomb where we saw what was supposed to be a fertility column. Women that touch it are supposed to get pregnant soon after!

• Hierve El Agua only [trip length recommendation: 1 day] – While we took the tour to get to this place the first time, we decided to get back so we could fully enjoy it as we only had one hour as part of the tour. To get there you can either take a collectivo taxi (30 MXN) or a bus (20 MXN) from Oaxaca City to Mitla and then take a truck (60 MXN) to get to the petrified waterfall. We took a collectivo taxi from Oaxaca and then decided to keep going directly to Hierve el Agua. The cost for the taxi was 400 MXN for 4 people (or 100 MXN per person) which was a time saver and was still reasonable as we did not have to wait for the pick up truck at Mitla. Be aware that they usually won’t leave until they are full.
  • Nomad Numbers Pro-Tip: Get there as early as you can. 9am ideally and no later than 10am as it then gets really crowded, especially during the weekends. We’ve heard that weekdays are a bit quieter. Then take the 2+ hours hike to enjoy these beautiful natural structures from very close and wrap up your day by taking a dip in the pools.
• Monte Alban archeological site [trip length recommendation: 1/2 day] – You can get a tour to visit this place along with other surrounded place for about 150 MXN per person. We recommend that you only go to Monte Alba and do so by taking a local bus from the city to reach this gorgeous site. Cost: 2×60 MXN per person for round trip transportation.

• Join the Hoofing It In Oaxaca hiking group – This group organizes hikes twice a week in the surroundings of Oaxaca City. Most people are either American or Canadian that are traveling to Oaxaca City and a few are locals who live there. This was a nice way to connect with fellow travelers. They also organize weekend trips and mostly operate during the winter (Oct-Mar).

How much did we spend in Oaxaca City?

TL;DR; $26 per person and per day as a couple, or $785 per month per person!

With our previous trips to Montreal, Quebec City, Puerto Vallarta or Mexico city our average monthly spend per person was around $1,000. For the first time we were able to significantly reduce our spending while still enjoying everything we wanted. We believe that this is mostly related to a combination of cost of accommodation and food. As a consequence our budget for a month in Oaxaca City was under $800 per person and you can probably spent less (as a couple traveling together) as we consider our accommodation budget being on the higher end.

For this budget, we explored the city and its surrounding. We were able to try a few restaurants and enjoyed the variety of local/authentic Oaxacan food. We also went on a city tour, visited a couple of museums, enjoyed the beautiful Hierve El Agua, visited Mitla, Monte Alban, hiked San Augustin Etla & El Carrizal. And we did all of this while staying in an apartment located in the heart of the city. How did we manage to spend within this budget? Well let’s look into each main budget category in more detail.

Accommodation: $20 / person / day

(Or $457 / person / month).

Accommodation is one of the most expensive parts of our budget even as slow travelers. In Oaxaca City, we decided to book a 1 bedroom / 1 bath Airbnb apartment in the downtown area and that was a great move.

👉 You can check out our Airbnb rental listing here.

Keep in mind that this budget was on the higher end of the spectrum as you can find accommodation for less money.

The place was part of a larger complex with another studio and a lovely lady that was maintaining the building and was providing us with a free cleaning twice a week which was a real treat. Because our place was at the border of the downtown area, things were pretty quiet (and to top things off, the apartment was located at the end of the one-way narrow street which helped reduce the noise further). One of the highlights of our apartment was the size of the kitchen which was the largest we had since we started to travel to Mexico. We had six fire burners, a big fridge + freezer, an oven, and even a mini toaster. We were walking distance from everything (restaurants, sights, grocery stores, and markets).

⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $883 on this apartment for a total of 28 nights.

Transportation: $1.26 / person / day

(Or $22 / person / month)

Since our AirBnB was walking distances from shops, restaurants and grocery stores, we mainly used transportation to go outside of Oaxaca City. The city offers public buses within the city center and from the city center to adjacent neighborhoods. Beyond that you can take taxis or second class public buses. If you want to travel within or outside the state of Oaxaca you have the option of taking first class buses that are very luxurious and affordable. Cost for the bus within the city limits is 8 MXN (or 0.40 USD) and buses to the surrounding towns will cost you anywhere from 10 to 50 MXN. Uber doesn’t service the city of Oaxaca or its state as the time of writing.
⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $42 on transportation.

Groceries: $3.83 / person / day

(Or $129 / person / month)

We mostly went grocery shopping at local markets (Mercado Organico El Pochote + Mercado Benito Juarez) where we were able to find a wide selection of fruits and vegetables. Specific produce (like green plantains) and organic items (salts, olive and coconut oils…) could only be found at the grocery store of the Calabacitas Tiernas restaurant. Most “tiendas” (small grocery stores) as well as big grocery stores carry of lot of extremely processed foods with limited to non existent organic items.
⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $249 on groceries. This covered 64/84 meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) which is about $1.94 / meal.

Eating Out: $6.16 / person / day

(Or $117 / person / month)

Oaxaca City is THE place you want to go for some of the best food in Mexico. Here are some of the dishes you can find here: “tlayudas” (Oaxacan pizzas), barbacoa (slowly cooked meat), “memelas” (toasted cakes made of corn dough called masa), moles, “quesillo” (string cheese), “chapulines” (fried grasshoppers), “tejate” (drink made of chocolate and corn) and the list goes on and on. If you are overwhelmed by Mexican food, the city also offer some international cuisine. We didn’t try any because the local cuisine is so good and diverse that we did not have too much of it.
⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $199 on restaurants + $28 on snacks. Our restaurant budget covered 20/84 meals (mostly lunch or dinner). The average cost of our meals was $5.71 (including tax + tip) which is 2.4 times more expensive than eating at home (by doing the ratio between what a full day of eating out would cost vs a full day of eating at home as per our budget).

Activities: $2.40 / person / day

(Or $56 / person / month)

Our activities while in Oaxaca City included various tours and hikes. We recommend to join the Hoofing It In Oaxaca hiking group for some great and affordable day or weekend hikes.
⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $107 on activities.

Miscellaneous: $0.16 / person / day

(Or $5 / person / month)

This section captures expenses that doesn’t fit in other categories. In Oaxaca City this includes one haircut (60 MXN), a monthly subscription to Netflix (120 MXN) and a one time fee (2 USD) to our Traveling mailbox service.
⇒ In total, for the length of our say, the 2 of us spent $11 on miscellaneous expenses.

Our Slow Travelers Tips

Slow travel is part of our philosophy. It gives us the opportunity to really connect with a place by not having to experience FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and getting unnecessarily stressed for being on a schedule. With slow travel, we can see all the iconic sights and have time to spare to find the more offbeat spots that most tourists miss. Most of the time, those are the absolute gems. And as this blog post explains, we spend much less by leveraging “local” pricing and being able to leverage long stay discounts.

Here are some tips for anyone that plans to stay in Oaxaca City:

• Try some of the tours – Oaxaca City has some really affordable tours (the two I’m thinking of at the El Tule / Mitla / Hierve El Agua or the Monte Alban one that are both at 150 MXN. This is a great way to get a peak at these wonderful sites and you can then decide which ones you might want to spend more time exploring.
• Explore outside of the city – There are plenty of one-day visits or hikes (like the wonderful ones that Hoofing It In Oaxaca provides) that will show you much more than the city itself. If you have more time you can also take buses to explore further away (like the beach towns for instances). Something we will probably do when we come back to Oaxaca.
• Use AirBnB – AirBnB is a website that allows homeowners, in destinations all over the world, the ability to rent private spaces (or entire apartments) for a fee. As nomadic long term travelers, we like to call AirBnB our home as it has helped us save a lot of money and provided us with really great places managed by wonderful hosts! Pro tip: If you sign up for AirBnB using our referral link, you will get a 55 USD credit (or the equivalent in your local currency), which should give you a pretty nice discount on your first night.
• Rent a place in the downtown area, but avoid being too close to the center. We stayed in the north side of the city and we will very likely pick this area if we return. This area has great restaurants and the best organic markets and doesn’t have as much traffic as the south.

How did we save money for this trip?

• We used travel credit cards with sign-on bonuses to maximize free miles that we then apply towards our trip to travel for (almost) free.
• We walked when we felt like it 🙂 This helped us reduce our public transportation footprint while increasing our exercise activity. Double win!

So that’s it folks! Would you be interested in going to Oaxaca City? Is it as affordable as you thought it was? Feel free to share your experience and ask questions by leaving a comment below.