What Día de Muertos in Mexico City Is Really Like, Two Trips Apart

Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, turns Mexico City into a sea of marigolds, towering altars, sugar skulls, and parades at the end of October and into early November. I went twice while researching Monarch of the Heart , seven years apart, and while parts of the two trips felt the same, others were incredibly different. Here is what I saw, and what made it into the book.

What was my first Día de Muertos in Mexico City like?

The first time I went, I had never been to Mexico City before, and the size of it overwhelmed me a little. It is one of the biggest cities in the world, and during Día de Muertos it feels like every one of those people is out in the streets at the same time.

On Halloween night, in one of the biggest crowds I have ever stood in, I was pickpocketed. My phone was zipped in, and the only moment I took my hand off it was to hold onto my travel companion so we would not get separated in the crush. That was all it took. I spent the second half of that trip without a phone and with fewer photos than I had hoped for, but I also had my Nikon camera, so I still came home with plenty of amazing photos.

What is the Mega Ofrenda in the Zócalo?

Every year the Zócalo, the enormous main square at the heart of Mexico City, fills with a monumental public altar, free and open to anyone who walks in. The theme changes every year, and so does the design.

On my first trip it was built around giant Catrinas, the elegant skeleton ladies of Día de Muertos, beautiful and impossibly tall. I remember being in a crowd so thick you could barely move, eating elote, corn on the cob rubbed with lime and chile, and looking up at all of it lit up after dark, in awe of the size and scale of everything. It was a small moment, but it stayed with me.

When I went back, the Zócalo held something entirely different. The Catrinas were gone, and in their place stood enormous, ancient looking figures of Mesoamerican goddesses and warriors, marking seven hundred years since the founding of Tenochtitlán, the city that became Mexico City. Thousands of potted marigolds blanketed the ground around them. Same square, same holiday, a whole different world standing in it.

Is the Día de Muertos parade worth the wait?

I caught the parade on my first trip, and yes, it was worth every minute. The Desfile de Día de Muertos is newer than most people assume. It began in 2016, inspired by the opening scene of a James Bond film, and it has grown into one of the biggest events of the year, winding down Paseo de la Reforma toward the Zócalo with floats, giant puppets, and skeletons moving past for what feels like forever.

My travel companion and I staked out our spot right on Reforma four hours before it started, because the sidewalks fill early and do not thin out. Bring water, a snack, and patience.

One honest caution. The parade date moves from year to year, and details are often not announced until close to the date. On my second trip, the parade fell on Día de Muertos itself, which is not always the case. That same day I had chosen to go to Mixquic for the cemetery and the alumbrada, the candlelight vigil, and there was simply no way to fit both in, so I missed the parade. If you are planning a trip around it, check closer to your travel dates than you think you need to. When the parade and Mixquic land on the same day, doing both is difficult, though not impossible.

How was my second trip different?

The second time, I knew the city. It was actually my third visit, since I had been back once in between, just not during Día de Muertos, and this time I traveled smarter. I bought a crossbody bag and wore it in front of me the whole time, close to my body, with everything I needed inside it. Nothing went missing this time. If you take one practical tip from this whole article, take that one.

Knowing my way around also meant I could slow down. Instead of trying to see everything, I let myself go back to the places that had stayed with me, and I noticed so much more the second time through.

What do the panaderías sell for Día de Muertos?

Both times, I stayed across the street from Pastelería Madrid, a panadería, or bakery, in the historic center, and both times I was in there constantly. On my first trip the cases were full of chocolate sugar skulls and candies. On my second, it was pan de muerto in every shape and size they could bake, along with what felt like a million other delicious treats.

Pan de muerto, the bread of the dead, is a soft, sweet bread scented with orange, topped with strips of dough shaped to look like bones and a small round knot in the center that stands in for the skull. Its roots are often traced to offerings made for the dead long before wheat ever arrived in Mexico. It is everywhere in October, and I have never once been able to stop at one piece.

What made it into Monarch of the Heart?

More of these two trips ended up in the book than I expected. Rylee has her own close call with a pickpocket. She stands in the Zócalo the way I did, eating elote, looking up at an ofrenda she does not fully understand yet. The parade she watches is the one I waited four hours on Reforma to see. None of it is copied exactly, Rylee’s Mexico City is not my Mexico City, but the bones of it are mine.

That is usually how research works for me. I do not take many notes. I try to be there fully, and I trust that what matters will still be with me when I sit down to write. If you want to know why Mexico pulled me in the first place, I wrote about it in where the story began, and if you want to bring a little of the holiday home, here is how to build an ofrenda of your own.

To see where all of it started, you can learn more about Monarch of the Heart or read the first chapter free . And if a trip to Mexico City for Día de Muertos is starting to sound like something you want for yourself, my free reader’s travel guide walks through what I wish I had known before that very first trip. 

With much love for the journey,

 Carrie