16 Best Sights in Mexico

ChocoMuseo is a museum where visitors not only learn all about the history and nature of chocolate but also find out how to work with it and create different cocoa-based products and dishes. You can book workshops on how to prepare the Mexican national dish of mole, make chocolate truffles, or let your children experiment with a mini chocolate workshop. 

Combining art and nature, sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor has created "underwater museums" off the shores of Punta Cancún, Punta Nizuc, and Manchones Reef near Isla Mujeres. Locally known as Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA), his main work features more than 480 lifelike statues that serve as artificial reefs to attract marine life. Within the 12 galleries is The Silent Evolution, a 120-ton work of more than 400 individual statues, as well as Anthropocene, a full-scale VW Beetle made from 8 tons of pH-neutral concrete. The displays have conveniently been placed in shallow areas for viewing by divers, snorkelers, and glass-bottom boats. The unusual artificial habitat also helps restore the natural reefs that have suffered damage over the years. Most local dive shops can organize excursions to the site starting at $95.

Querétaro has a number of smaller museums with idiosyncratic themes, and this one with an impressively extensive collection set among the many rooms, courtyards, and gardens of a historic house in the city center is one of the best. Exhibits touch on the history of calendars and calendar-making in different cultures around the world. You'll also find a vast array of framed calendars from the past century or so, including quite a few kitschy ones depicting pets, families, and suggestively posed women that were often distributed as advertising material. There's a nice view of the city skyline from the rooftop terrace, and a small café in the peaceful back garden serves coffee and light food.

A riotously colorful and curious collection of some 45,000 toys, some dating back to the 19th century, fill this playful museum and ode to pop culture in the Doctores neighborhood. There's little rhyme or reason to the manner in which everything is arranged, other than, perhaps, the whimsical eye and sly sense of humor of the museum's founder, architect Roberto Shimizu Kinoshita. You'll find cases of Barbie dolls, model cars and planes, stuffed animals, dioramas, and tons of Lucha Libre and other elements of Mexican culture. The shop on the ground floor sells some very cool antique toys. The district is just a 15-minute walk east of Roma and although it is becoming safer and even an increasingly popular as a place to live, Doctores can be a bit dicey, especially at night or if you're walking alone. Consider taking an Uber.

Located in a colonial building with lovely patios, this former college started out in the 18th century as a Jesuit school for the sons of wealthy Mexicans. Frida Kahlo also famously studied here as an adolescent. It's now a splendid museum that showcases outstanding regional exhibitions, but the best reason to visit is the interior murals by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Fernando Leal.

Located on a cacao plantation near the Uxmal ruins, this museum highlights the history of cacao and cocoa (the product derived from cacao) and their relationship with Maya culture. Tours take place in traditional homes where you can learn about the cultivation of cacao and the process of making chocolate. At the end, you'll be treated to a traditional Maya drink, prepared with organic cocoa and local spices.

This museum tells the history of chocolate, referencing archaeological evidence of the magical substance from different locations across Mesoamerica. You will see what a fresh cacao pod looks like, and will be able to taste toasted seeds. Learn about the cultural significance that chocolate has played in Mexico over a millennia, as well as the role it plays in the world today. From a room dedicated to sculptures made of chocolate to utensils used to prepare chocolate to the insects that dominate its growing regions and cultivation, there is little you’ll be lacking in chocolate knowledge once you spend an afternoon here.

Operated by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the city's geology museum features multiple mammoth skulls and an entire hadrosaurid dinosaur fossil. Gems and minerals from around the world, but mostly Mexico, adorn impeccably preserved antique glass and wooden showcases. The large and expertly polished pieces of selenite from northern Mexico are particularly impressive, as is the architecture of the building itself, built in 1906. The beautiful colonial building enjoys a privileged location overlooking Santa María la Ribera’s central park.

The Museo de los Abuelos, or Sauza Museum, has memorabilia from the Sauza family, a tequila-making dynasty second only to the Cuervos. The museum is open daily 10–3. Admission costs about 50¢; for this low price they offer tours in English as well as Spanish, depending on the needs of the crowd.

First built as a jewelry store in 1892, the belle epoque--style Esmeralda Building has had various uses over the years, including as a government office, a bank, a disco called La Opulencia, and, since 2006, as the Museo de Estanquillo, housing the eclectic collection of the great 20th-century journalist, Carlos Monsiváis. The museum takes its name from the term used through the 19th and early 20th centuries for small neighborhood convenience shops, which stocked virtually everything a person could need. It's an appropriate name for a museum dedicated to rotating exhibitions drawn from a total collection of 20,000 individual pieces. Shows might range from cartoons, stamps, and etchings to photos, lithographs, drawings, and paintings from some of the greatest names in Mexican art; the collection is as diverse and democratic as Monsiváis was in his writing. The rooftop café and bookstore offer a stunning view over the domes of San Felipe Neri la Profesa and the hubbub of Madero below.

This offbeat gem of a museum located in a handsome 19th-century former home on the west side of historic Tlalpan's Plaza de la Constitución contains an unexpectedly fascinating collection of antique clocks as well as old gramophones, movie cameras, phones, typewriters, jukeboxes, and even relatively modern gadgets from the 2000s, like old flip phones and adding machines. The owner is quite happy to show visitors around, but he does keep fairly irregular hours, so always call ahead.

A huge arbol de la vida (tree of life) sculpture stands in the courtyard of this museum devoted to popular culture and regional arts and crafts and located just a few steps from Plaza Hidalgo. Its exhibits rotate (there's no permanent collection), and the variety of events include children's workshops, traditional music concerts, and dance performances. On certain weekends the courtyard becomes a small crafts-and-sweets market with some worthwhile exhibitors from throughout the country displaying their wares. The museum shop stocks an exceptional selection of books on everything from Mexican art to anthropology as well as high-quality crafts.

Occupying a train station inaugurated by President Juárez in 1869, the National Railway Museum extends a nostalgic treat. Period engines sit on the now-unused platforms, and several vintage cars—including a caboose—can be explored.

This dramatic museum in the heart of the historic center, designed in a collaboration between four leading architecture firms, opened in 2019 and is devoted to the history of Mexican music. Dozens of listening stations enable you to hear everything from classical compositions and traditional rancheras to current pop and rock songs. The museum also hosts concerts, featuring music from a variety of genres.