3 Days in Oaxaca, Mexico: A Local Food Tour, Cafe Culture & Colourful Streets
🎙️ Episode Title: 3 Days in Oaxaca, Mexico: A Local Food Tour, Cafe Culture & Colourful Streets
In this solo travel episode, I (James) take you through my chilled, food-filled, coffee-fueled 3-day escape to Oaxaca, Mexico — a destination famous for its rich culture, incredible street food, artisan markets, and laid-back digital nomad vibes.
After weeks of travelling through Central America, Oaxaca was the perfect place to unwind before my trip home to Vancouver via Mexico City. Tune in to hear about my stay at a local hostel, my favourite cafes, a mouthwatering food tour, and why Oaxaca should be on every traveller’s bucket list— especially if you love mole, mezcal, and Mexican culture.
Whether you’re a foodie, a coffee addict, a digital nomad, or a curious backpacker, this Oaxaca travel guide will inspire your next adventure!
Three days was nowhere near enough for this place which just means I will have to return one day to stay longer!
Lupita’s food tour – https://www.guruwalk.com/walks/41086-free-gastronomic-tour-oaxacan-food-intangible-cultural-heritage-of-humanity
📌 Travel Tips & Highlights:
✅ Best cafes in Oaxaca for digital nomads & breakfast lovers
✅ Top hostels in Oaxaca City for solo travelers
✅ What to eat in Oaxaca: mole, tlayudas, chapulines (yes, bugs!)
✅ Local tours worth booking (food, chocolate, mezcal)
✅ When to visit: December sunshine, festive vibe, fewer tourists
✅ Easy transport options from Mexico City & Guatemala
📢 Mentioned In This Episode:
- Hostal Luz de Luna Nuyoo
- Casa Angel Hostel
- Iguana Hostel
- Boulenc Cafe
- Muss Cafe
- Lupita’s Oaxaca Food Tour
- Las Quince Letras Restaurant
- Hierve el Agua Natural Springs
- Monte Albán Ruins
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Winging It Travel Podcast Credits
Host/Producer/Creator/Composer/Editor – James Hammond
Contact me – jameshammondtravel@gmail.com
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Transcript
Do you love spontaneous adventures, travel tips and stories that will inspire you to pack up and go? Well, welcome to the Wigging It Travel Podcast. I'm James, your host, and each week I bring you travel tales, practical advice and interviews with travelers from around the globe. Whether you're planning a big trip or just dreaming about one, you'll find everything from hidden gems to epic fails because travel is not perfect and that is what makes it beautiful. So grab your backpack and let's wing it.
New episodes every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts, and on YouTube too. You can find Winging It and more fantastic travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world. Hello and welcome to this week's episode. You may remember back in November, I was on a trip in Central America and one of my big aims of that trip was to go to Oaxaca in Mexico.
And my aim there really was just to go and eat great food and drink great coffee. At this point in the trip, I was pretty tired. I've done a lot of hikes, a lot of walking, a lot of activities, and this was the penultimate place before Mexico City before flying home. So for me, it's just gonna be a chilled one. It's great weather, cafes, coffee, food tour, and checking out as much of city as possible. Oaxaca in Mexico is kind of known for its food, especially its mole.
So that's one of the reasons people go there. Really it's a place to go to for food mainly, but also it's popular with digital nomads. It's a very comfortable place. It's a bit like Antigua in Guatemala, but a little bit quieter in my opinion and probably better facilities as well, but not as cheap, I don't think either. For me, I had to get there by flight, unfortunately. So I flew to Mexico City and then I flew to Oaxaca, which takes about an hour. Very cheap flight, about a hundred Canadian dollars. You can take a bus.
It's about seven hours and it's between 40 to $70 depending how comfortable the bus is. I did look into getting their Overland from Guatemala, but it's a bit of a mission. If you go from Quetzal Tanango, you may be able to get a bus to the border, do the border and get another bus to the other side, but it could be potential transfers of buses, not as easy as you think it might be. If you have time, it's worth doing. I'd like to go back and try it, but if you're short of time.
James Hammond (:maybe it's best to go up the country in Guatemala that way around to the Yakutin Peninsula and down or you fly. So a combination, I've got some recommendations. I stayed in one for the whole duration. It's called Hostel de Luna, New You. For three nights, it's 150 Canadian, for a private room, private bathroom, no breakfast, and there's a kitchen there, a rooftop place to sit and have a drink, which is really nice, and a really nice courtyard as well. And the staff are great. But I've got some other recommendations for hostels.
in the area. So Casa Angel is probably known as the best one for solo backpackers. Even though my one is great for solo backpackers, I met some people there who are not partying, just there to chill out and check out the town. That's pretty cool. So these two are pretty good for that. Iguana Hostel is known and self-proclaimed as a party hostel. Takuchi Hostel, I think it's one of the most stunning hostels in Oaxaca. It offers a swimming pool, nice kitchen, social bar and a great space. And Hostel Central is known for being good for digital nomads.
As I said before, I'm here for food and coffee and chilling out really. So I was walking around town and I had four cafes on my list and here they are. Muzz Cafe was a recommendation by someone else. Great breakfast, great coffee, a great little courtyard to sit in, do some work, good wifi as well. The breakfast is going to be your classic scrambled egg, avocado on toast, western prices. And the coffee is great too. A place which is known for brunch and breakfast and amazing pastries is Boulenc.
It's a definite western slash backpacker cafe. Lots of locals who are there just to eat really good breakfast like eggs, shakshuka, Mexican breakfast as well. So on busy times like 10 to 12, especially on the weekend, it's gonna get busy. But if you go just during the week outside of those times, very nice to go and sit in the courtyard there and have a pastry and a coffee. Love the food there, love the vibe, one of my favorites. I also went to Cafetto & Baristas.
There's so much choice here but I wanted one with a barista in the name. So I went to this place, no one in there but it's so good. I bought some coffee beans there. I think I bought three bags and those guys will grind it for you as well. Great cup of coffee, a bit out of the central part of town, really cool. And on my last day I found a cafe called Jazz Cafe who done a really good Mexican breakfast. I recommend that as well. Activities, not too much to go through here but I did book a food tour with Lupita.
James Hammond (:on Get Your Guide, I'll put a link in the show notes. And she aims to take the group around trying different cuisines of Oaxaca. So it's gonna be a local tour through the markets, local restaurants, stalls, and you're gonna try stuff like ceviche, piadros, which is like pickled veg. We tried bugs, which are snacks for locals. We went to a chocolate factory and tried raw chocolate, that tastes disgusting, but then actual normal chocolate with different flavors, spices as well, and fruit.
We went to try some mezcal at local market, that's pretty cool. Rosa de Jamaica, which is my new favourite drink, that was amazing. And to finish the tour was a meal at Las Quince Lecheras, which is a mole restaurant, upscale, quite pricey, but the mole is out of this world and there's different types. I think they have 12 you can try with different meats. And it so good, I went back for a second time on my last night to treat myself.
And this place really, if you've got a group of friends and you want to treat yourself for like a nice end of the tour, dinner, or even a nice classy evening meal, this is the place to be. Great service. It's not like hugely pricey, but it's going to be $20 Canadian dollars for like trying their three best mole, for example, which I did. Great vibe in there and lots of people try and mole for the first time. Really good vibe. And Lupita was great on the tour. She is very informative, funny.
Casual, outgoing and also wary of what the group needs and wants. So we could have gone to more but we kind of went around for about two, two and a half hours before finishing in that restaurant. So other activities I did was Cicarlo, which is the central square. Nice to sit in. The cathedral. I went to Santa Domingo Church, very famous and historic church. Went to some of the markets. You can do a cooking class there. I didn't do this, but that's a possible option. And coffee tour as well.
and I just love walking around seeing the colourful buildings. At the time it was near the end of November, start of December, so Christmas trees were up, festive vibe in the air, but 30 degrees, so nice to walk around. It's literally one cafe, coffee, walk around, see some stuff. To the next one, it was dreamy, quite a freedom that we all crave. Beyond Oaxaca there's a few things to go and see. Here, El Agua, which is a natural mineral springs with unique formations and pools.
James Hammond (:Very popular attraction for swimming and relaxation. And if you want to see some Mayan-like ruins, you can go to Mont Alban, which is ancient Zapotec city. So that's pretty cool. We're going to learn some of that history. I mentioned restaurants before. I didn't go to too many actually because I was so knackered from walking around all day. But another one I went to is Cabuche, a vegetarian prozole, which is like a soup, not from the local area, but from Mexico. Teotas and tacos. They're pretty cool as well. And as I mentioned,
Las Quincey Lettres is a mole place you have to try. Just a further note on mole, you can actually probably go to one of the night markets and have that as a local dish, much cheaper. I'd probably taste the same, but obviously it's a different type of vibe. But that's the place I'd like to go back to, Oaxaca, in the future because it's so nice just to live there for a bit. it's absolutely dreamy, very chilled. The locals are great. It's not too touristy, but maybe it gets busier in...
maybe other parts of the year. But for me, early December was perfect. I've done a lot of busy hiking and stuff, so was pretty tired. Much needed for me to chill out in the hostel, do some work, watch some football, podcast, YouTube, walk around in coffees, have some cakes, pastries, markets, and do a tour. It was a bit of a dreamy existence for three or four days. And to reflect, I'd love to go back, but I probably would stay for two or three weeks. In these cafes, you do sort of hear the English spoken.
travelers who have maybe moved there from the USA or other parts of the world that are there to work for part of the year. And they go to these cafes and just chill out and use the wifi because it's pretty good. So Oaxaca is a dreamy place. If you like food, great weather, mezcal, markets, and great coffee, this is a place for you. If I was to go back as well, I'd probably go and explore more of the state. If you go a bit further west, you're going to see the coast. That'd be pretty cool. I think you can get buses in and out of the town pretty easily.
I actually got a bus and a shuttle from the airport, if you look for transport from there. Pretty cheap and they're quite regular. And I arrived really late at night, so there was still a shuttle for like maybe two or three dollars to drop me off. That's pretty cool as well. So a quick one today for Wauhaka. I debated whether doing an immersive episode, but I don't really have much sounds to go off really. It'd be like quite a quiet one. know, lots of birds singing and me walking around and people chatting in the cafes. So I'll save that for another place in a couple of weeks, which I'm still deciding.
James Hammond (:Thanks for in. The last episode will be Mexico City. That'll be next week and that'll wrap up my trip. I think I've done everything. I've done YouTube, podcasting, everything in that trip. It'd be nice to wrap that up going into the second half of this year and do more travels and tell you about them as well. I'll catch you next time on the Wigginit Travel Podcast. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel,
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