MexicoThe fare is settled before the door closes
In Mexico City and most large cities, getting a car is a choice between several good options and one to think twice about. Ride-hailing apps are widely used: the price is shown before you accept, the driver and the route are on record, and nobody has to negotiate in a language you may not share. Taxis from a sitio — a registered stand outside a hotel, market or bus terminal — are the traditional alternative, and at the major airports an authorised taxi is paid for at a booth inside the terminal, priced by zone. Hailing a car at the kerb is the option travel advisories generally steer visitors away from, particularly after dark. Whichever you pick, sharing the trip with a friend from inside the app takes one tap, provided the phone is online.
An address is incomplete without its colonia
Mexican cities are divided into colonias, neighbourhoods with names of their own, and the same street names repeat across dozens of them. Juárez, Hidalgo, Morelos: the handful of national heroes honoured on corner signs turns up in more districts than anyone could list, so a street and a number typed alone can drop a pin on the wrong side of town, sometimes convincingly close to somewhere plausible. Copy the colonia along with everything else, or better, ask the place to send a location and open that. On foot a historic centre's grid is forgiving; the ring roads, overpasses and one-way avenues around it are where a live map saves a very long detour.
The business answers on WhatsApp
Ask a restaurant for a table, a tour company for a pickup time or a guesthouse for the door code, and the reply will very likely come on WhatsApp. It is the default channel for a great deal of everyday commerce here: the number painted on the sign, the menu sent as a photo, the voice note explaining where to park, the driver sharing live location as they pull up. Plans shift through the same thread — the boat leaves an hour later, the cenote is closed today. Without a working connection you are simply out of the conversation until the next café.
On the highway, take the cuota and save the route
Long-distance roads come in two kinds: the cuota, a toll highway that is generally quicker and better maintained, and the libre, the free road that winds through every town on the way. Most visitors driving between cities choose the cuota and plan to arrive in daylight. Either way, the land between cities includes sierra, desert and long rural stretches where signal can fade for a good while. Before leaving, save the route and the address of tonight's stop, and carry pesos in cash, since not every toll booth takes a card.
