Day of the Dead in Mexico

The celebration here is a week-long season, not a single day, and it spreads from the city’s churches and plazas out to the Zapotec villages in the surrounding valleys.

• Arrive by Oct. 29 or 30 to see the altars go up and the markets at their busiest
• The main nights are Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, but some villages celebrate into early November
• Schedules change each year, so check the official program from the state government
• Expect crowds in the historic center and quieter, more traditional scenes in the villages
• Homes, shops, and hotels all build altars

After dark, comparsas take over: costumed processions with brass bands, skeletons, and devils wind through the barrios and dance late into the night.

• The biggest comparsas run on the nights of Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 in the historic center
• In the Etla Valley, muerteadas stage street theater with a dead man, a widow, and a devil
• Some dancers wear costumes hung with bells weighing 65 to 110 lbs (30 to 50 kg)
• Watch from the sidelines, and keep out of the dancers’ path as the bands pass
• Bands play until the early hours, so expect late, loud nights

In the days before, the markets overflow with everything an altar needs, and walking through them is one of the best ways to understand the holiday.

• Central de Abasto, the city’s sprawling wholesale market, sells marigolds by the armful
• Look for cockscomb, a velvety red flower, sold alongside the orange cempasúchil
• Bakeries stack pan de yema, Oaxaca’s egg bread, topped with small painted faces
• Sugar skulls, candles, and copal fill stalls at Mercado 20 de Noviembre and Benito Juárez
• Go early in the morning, before the stalls get crowded

Most of Mexico’s mezcal comes from Oaxaca, and a glass of it sits on many local altars. The distilleries are an easy drive from the city.

• Santiago Matatlán, about an hour away, calls itself the world capital of mezcal
• The road there passes the giant Tule tree and rows of agave on the hillsides
• At a palenque (mezcal distillery), agave hearts roast in earth pits before a stone wheel crushes them
• Sip it slowly, often with orange slices and sal de gusano, a salt made from agave worms
• Many palenques are family-run, so a tasting often comes with the family’s story

The holiday is felt most in the cemeteries, where families decorate graves with flowers, candles, and sand art, then keep watch through the night.

• Xoxocotlán, 20 minutes from the center, hosts the largest vigil on the night of Oct. 31
• Atzompa’s cemetery is quieter, lit by thousands of candles as families sit with their dead
• The Panteón General in the city is the easiest to reach on foot from the historic center
• San Felipe del Agua keeps a smaller, more intimate vigil on the night of Nov. 2
• Go after dark, once the candles are lit

Oaxaca fills up for Día de Muertos, so plan early and leave time to move between the city and the valley villages, especially after dark.

• Book hotels by early summer, as the best rooms sell out months ahead
• Stay in the historic center or Jalatlaco, within walking distance of the main comparsas
• Fly into Oaxaca’s airport, 20 minutes from town, or drive about six hours from Mexico City
• Arrange late-night rides to the village cemeteries in advance, as taxis are scarce
• Pack layers, as nights in the valley turn cold after sundown

The Maya call it Hanal Pixán, food for the souls, and Mérida marks it with a citywide festival of altars, music, and processions.

• Altars sit on white cloths, often hand-embroidered
• Mucbipollo, a tamale baked in an earth pit, gets its own fair
• On Oct. 30, the candlelit Paseo de las Ánimas ends in San Juan Park
• A monumental altar stands on the Plaza Grande, standing up to 45 feet tall (14 meters)
• Families light rows of candles at their doors to guide souls home
• Mérida is about four hours by road from Cancún

Around San Cristóbal, Tzotzil Maya communities keep K’in Ch’ulelal, the feast of the souls, welcoming their dead at hillside graves.

• On Nov. 1, families fill nearby Romerillo’s hilltop traditional Maya cemetery
• 22 giant turquoise crosses, one per community, crown the hill
• Mayordomos pray grave to grave to welcome souls, then send them back
• Kolemal max dancers play wind music to cheer the arriving souls
• Photography is strictly forbidden inside San Juan Chamula’s church
• San Cristóbal is 90 minutes by road from Tuxtla Gutiérrez airport

Huaquechula builds monumental altars only for those who died in the past year: three or more tiers of white satin. The town puts a family’s cost at 10,000 to 50,000 pesos ($550 to $2,700).

• Altar makers, the altareros, spend months on each one
• The dead’s photo is seen only in a mirror, never directly
• Days before, a barter market swaps food for altar flowers
• Families open their homes, and visitors bring a candle to leave
• The altars have been Puebla state cultural heritage since 1997
• The town is about an hour by road from the city of Puebla

José Guadalupe Posada, who drew the skeleton later named La Catrina, was born here, and his hometown has held the Festival de Calaveras every fall since 1994.

• A parade of catrinas, floats, and giant skulls fills Avenida Madero
• The José Guadalupe Posada Museum shows his original prints
• Visitors can paint skulls and write calaveras, comic verses about the living
• The National Museum of Death holds over 2,500 pieces on the theme
• Concerts, food stalls, and altars fill the city center
• Posada’s prints still shape how Mexico pictures death today

Toluca, an hour from Mexico City, opens the season in early October with the Feria del Alfeñique, a fair built around the sugar figures made for the altars.

• The fair runs from early October into the first days of November
• Around 80 local families still shape the sugar skulls by hand
• Stalls sell sugar skulls, coffins, and calacas for home altars
• The Museo del Alfeñique tells the craft's story
• Free concerts fill the evenings outside the Mercado Juárez
• Night tours of the city cemetery run on October weekends