An Honest Review of Xochimilco

Xochimilco is worth visiting, with two conditions

Go. Two decisions do most of the work: the day of the week you are on the water, and the route you take. Get both right and this is one of the better days anyone has in Mexico City. Get them wrong and you spend an afternoon in a queue of painted boats with somebody else's sound system two metres away.

The thing itself is a cultural landscape that still functions. Roughly 184 km of navigable channels run between chinampas, the hand-raised plots the borough dates to roughly the 14th to 16th centuries, and what grows on them still reaches kitchens in the borough. Around the plots lies a protected wetland of 2,657 hectares, where the conservation work is organised around the axolotl.

The complaints hold up as well. On a weekend afternoon the busiest landings are loud and commercial, the water is opaque, and boats selling food, music and photographs pull alongside the whole way. Turn up expecting a clear lagoon and quiet, and you will leave unhappy.

What the canals actually give you

The case for going rests on things you can check.

• The listing is documented and dated: UNESCO inscribed the canals on 11 December 1987 under criterion (v), as a cultural site held in the same entry as Mexico City's historic centre, property ID 412.
• Scale: about 184 km of waterways lined with chinampas, so no single route covers much of the system.
• The plots are still planted, and the borough's cuisine uses what they produce.
• A protected wetland of 26.57 km2 across the Xochimilco and San Gregorio Atlapulco lake system, with the axolotl as the species the conservation work is built around.
• Birds: the launches at Fernando Celada, Cuemanco and Puente de Urrutia send their routes through the protected natural zone, where migratory and endemic species can be spotted.
• Food and music that arrive by water on the traditional routes, with the operators' own systems the only sound equipment allowed aboard.
• A town as well as a dock: 17 original barrios around the central plaza, plus fourteen original villages inside the UNESCO-protected area.
• The church and former monastery of San Bernardino de Siena, begun in 1535 with building phases running until 1600, holding a 16th-century Plateresque retablo whose only comparable survivor is at Huejotzingo in Puebla; the Jardín Juárez occupies the old atrium, 0.07 km from the Plaza Central.

Is Xochimilco a tourist trap?

Not in the way people mean it. Trajinera hire is priced per boat per hour, the Alcaldía Xochimilco sets that rate and publishes it on its official site, and the city's tourism portal states that the fare is fixed. The same rate applies to the standard tourist route and to the ecological route through the protected canals, and the smaller six to eight passenger boats are charged what the large trajineras are. That part of a visit here is decided before anyone arrives.

What does feel like a trap is everything the rate leaves out. Ten authorised landings work every day of the year, each with its own fleet and its own routes, and not all of them publish hours. Mariachi boats, food boats and photographers pull alongside mid-ride, and no official tariff covers any of them. The bad stories come from standing at the water's edge working out which route, how long, and what costs extra.

Booking settles all of that in advance. The route, the length and the boat are fixed before you arrive, and each tour on this site sets out what is included and what is not.

Why some visitors leave disappointed

Crowding is a question of which dock you use. About 220 boats are based at Nuevo Nativitas and about 215 at Caltongo, both running traditional routes, and on a Sunday afternoon you will share the same channels with a good number of them. Salitre sits at the other end of the scale, open since 1921 with about 51 boats.

The water is shallow, opaque and green-brown, because this is farmed wetland. Nobody swims. The canal rules keep passengers seated with hands and feet inside the boat, and stepping or jumping across to another boat is forbidden.

Quiet is not part of the traditional route. The published limits shape the mood as much as the crowd does: spirits are allowed at one bottle per boat, beer at three per adult, the only sound system aboard is the operator's, so your own speaker stays at the hotel, toilet breaks happen at authorised stops rather than when you want one, and whatever you open travels with you until the operator points you to disposal. On the Nativitas side a boat carrying up to 18 passengers with music is ordinary, and that ceiling is enforced, with children under four counted in it.

Daylight runs out long before the landings close. Nothing lights the channels, so the usable hours on the water end around 17:00 whatever time a dock shuts, and the sensible order is to be aboard before mid-afternoon.

How to get the version you actually want

Three changes fix most of the problem: go midweek, start early, and pick a route built around the protected zone or the food rather than the party.

• Midweek and early. Nuevo Nativitas is listed open daily from 6:00, and Fernando Celada from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. Only three landings publish official hours, so check on the day.
• Sunrise. The channels are quietest and the birds busiest before the fleets move. Sunrise Kayak Tour in Xochimilco runs 5 hours, from 480 pesos, 4.6 ★ (95 reviews); the kayak, vest, individual paddle and traveller insurance come with it, while breakfast and round-trip transport in an air-conditioned vehicle are options you select. You meet in front of the yellow church, where the staff wear blue and pink vests.
• Protected-zone water. The routes leaving Fernando Celada, Cuemanco and Puente de Urrutia cross the natural zone, and for the longest version of that, the ecological run from Belem takes four to five hours and covers the Xaltocán and Caltongo lagoons.
• Food and farming. Guacamole a Tasty Adventure Through Xochimilco Markets and Canals lasts 3.5 hours, from 1,900 pesos, 5.0 ★ (12 reviews). It starts with coffee or tea and either sweet bread or a tamal, a bicitaxi carries you from the markets down to the pier, there is a stop at a traditional chinampa with an axolotl sanctuary, and the ingredients for a taco placero plus hibiscus flower water travel with you on the boat.
• A guide and no logistics to handle. PREMIUM Frida Kahlo Museum and Xochimilco (Small Groups) fills 6-7 hours, from $56, 4.9 ★ (1352 reviews). A certified tour guide stays with the group, private transportation collects you at your hotel and returns you there, Coyoacán is covered on foot, the trajinera ride comes with a music speaker on the trajinera and a mariachi song, a Mexican churro is handed out along the way, and the Frida Kahlo Museum entrance applies when that option is selected. Gratuities are not included.

Choosing between the three styles

Match the trip to whatever was putting you off. Noise and crowds point to dawn. Curiosity about the farming points to the markets route. One day covering the canals and Coyoacán points to the small group.

From June onward the afternoons are the weak spot: the alcaldía's bulletin on reinforcing measures for the rains carries the date 3 June, and storms in those months tend to arrive late in the day. A morning start keeps you clear of that and of the weekend fleets.

Questions people ask

Read also