nwflyboy

I think this is a question for JDiver and others who know Mexico City well; thanks in advance for your advice...

Some context: Me and my spouse will be traveling to Mexico City in early February, flying in from the US and arriving late night. After spending the next day doing typical Mexico City tourism stuff (archeological sites, museums, relaxing), the following day we will pick up a rental car and head off to the Monarch butterfly reserves in eastern Michoacan for a few days. After that, we will drive back to Mexico City, drop the car, and fly to CUN (actual destination is Cozumel, for some diving).

My questions are around: what's a good strategy/location for managing picking up a rental car, our driving departure from Mexico City (heading westward towards Toluca) to minimize traffic/city driving headaches; and upon return, minimizing those same headaches as we enter the city, drop the car, and get back to the airport for our onward flight?

I know that driving in Mexico City itself is crazy, and my goal is to do as little of that as possible.

Once we arrive in the city, we will be staying at the Hyatt Regency, which is located just off Chapultepec Park, in the Polanco neighborhood (from what I've seen, this sounds like a very nice area to stay in - we wil be there 2 nights before moving on). Our inbound flight from the US is scheduled to arrive at 11:30 pm, and from what I've read, I figure it will probably take an hour or more to get thru immigration/customs and out of the airport, so we won't settle in our hotel until pretty late. At least at that hour, traffic shouldn't be too bad.

First question: what's the best way to get to our hotel (probably around 1 am)? I assume an authorized taxi, booked at the Transporte Terrestre kiosk - no?

My primary conundrum is where to rent a car, with an eye towards easy departure from the city, and easy return a few days later. My goal is to get in the car, point it west, and get away from the congestion and stress of driving in the big city as quickly and directly as possible (I believe we will be heading towards Toluca, so maybe Peseo de la Reforma, or maybe Av Constituyentes, to 134D to 15? The destination is Angangueo, a small town east of Ciudad Hidalgo, north of Zitacuaro, so maybe route 134 to 6D/7D would be more direct, but looks like smaller roads and slower..).

In any case, a few days later, after we've mingled with the monarchs up in the hills, the goal would again be to arrive back in Mexico City with the minimum stress and navigational complexity (arriving from the west), drop rental the car, and get to our flight.

I assume that I could pick up a rental car at the airport (even though we will not be at the airport on the day we want to drive off - we could take a hotel shutttle or taxi or uber back to the airport if necessary) - but that might add unnecessary complexity (at least added complexity when driving away; it might simplify the car return). Or, we could pick up the car at someplace that's more convenient to our hotel (and/or better positioned for our "getaway"). If we have to return the rental car to a location off the airport, that's not necessarily a problem, if it allows for an easier entry to the city with significantly less traffic/navigation hassles. We could take a taxi or uber form the car drop off point to the airport.

In case it matters, when we drive away from Mexico City, we will be leaving on a Saturday morning. When we bring back the car, it would be late morning on a wednesday (our flight from MEX to CUN is scheduled to depart at 2 pm, so I am hoping to get to the airport by 11 am...after a 4-5 hour drive in from the mountains; we will get an early start).

Some metadata...

I have driven a fair amount in Mexico before (although never in Mexico City, and not recently). I have no real experience in Mexico City (well, was there as a young child, but that doesn't count), but have been around other parts of the country. I've driven in some other crazy/stressful places before (Marrakech, Paris, New York, Bangkok) so I know enough to know that I definitely want to minimize driving in the city itself, but expect to be fine elsewhere (once I get over the shocking first 5 minutes). I speak some Spanish (once was fluent, now rusty). We will have a GPS with Mexico coverage (brought from home so I'll know how to use it). I'll also have a decent paper map. Many, many years ago, I drove up and down the length of Mexico (man, what a trip that was...) so I have some familiarity - just none in the DF.

So....for those that know Mexico City, given our circumstances described above, what would you suggest as a strategy (and location) for getting away and getting back (by rental car)?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

wcj1

There is an Avis literally across the street from the Hyatt Regency - Campos Eliseos (ME4). I would look into pricing a one-way rental starting from there and returning to the airport. There is also a Hertz 500m away from the Hyatt.

nwflyboy

Thanks, wcj1, good to know. That would certainly make getting away simpler.

On the return end...how is (driving) access to the airport? I will be coming from the west. Is it fairly straightforward to get to the airport and rental car return facilities? The other option would be returning the car to the same place we picked it up from, near the Hyatt, then taking an hotel airport shuttle/taxi/uber from there to the airport. If that would avoid complex navigation/driving into the airport itself, I would consider that. Would you consider that a better option?

Many thanks again for the input.

wcj1

We haven't rented a car in Mexico, so I can't comment on actual driving, but unless there is a large price differential, I always think it would be easier to drop at the airport instead of taking it back to the Hyatt.

I checked prices for some random dates and one-way rentals seem to be the same price, so I would drop at the airport. I assume navigation would be easy enough if you have data and use Waze, or Here if you won't have data, on your phone.

JDiver

It may be over in February, but NOTE that the gasoline repricing ("la Reforma Energética" - currently up 20% with the new year) and establishing of price by 90 zones in Mexico is currently causing major problems (scarcity, gasoline station closures, street and road blocking protests, even some rioting in some locations) in Mexico City and many parts of the republic. Mexicans are referring to this as "el gasolinazo".

One article by The Guardian documents here.

In Mexico City, as of Thursday Dec 5, over 500 people have been detained for robbery and for vandalism associated with the looting of stores. Link.

Google "Mexico gasoline shortages" (or "gasolinazo") for more.

"Mexico" Mike Nelson explains a bit about the pricing and updates prices monthly here.

(Late to thd game - been vacationing with family in Monterey, California.)

nwflyboy

Oy vey - this is unhappy news. Thanks for the heads up. I will follow links and learn a bit about this complication.

nwflyboy

So what's a good online source for up-to-date news (like this story) from Mexico?

Googling for news on this, I see plenty of articles posted in the first week or 10 days of the year (although some of those are referencing events that took place in previous weeks in the lead-up to the policy changes). After that (starting around 1/10), I only see one article (Business Insider, dated 1/13). I also see more than a few highly suspect postings that appear they could be "fake news" (or, as I like to refer to it, "News For Idiots") - given the times we live in, I'm trying to view sensationalist stories from unfamiliar online "news" sources with a bit of skepticism.

That said, I've found El Universal online, which appears to be one of Mexico's largest daily newspapers (at least wikipedia says so). It's filled with other disturbing news (recent killings in a club in Playa del Carmen, 2 cops shot yesterday in Cancun...¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos! indeed) but I don't see anything (at least on their front page) about the gasolinazo, which suggests to me that things have probably settled down a bit.

I am generally not one to over-react, so I'm going to do more research and keep this in perspective (eg: if there was a riot in Miami, I wouldn't cancel a trip to Las Vegas). I know what protests and civil unrest looks like, and I think any tourist (even a clueless one) can almost always avoid finding themselves in the middle of that. But reports of pretty widespread gas shortages and scattered random highway blockades could impact my plans (I'm planning to drive out of Mexico City, about 5 hours out into rural eastern Mochoacan, and back to DF, covering some ground and burning some gas), so I'm taking the recent events seriously.

Would love to hear any recent, first-hand reports from folks here.

Section 107

I dont have suggestions for news sources for you but I just returned from visiting family in DF and Toluca. People are understandably mighty pissed at the sudden increase in fuel cost (as much as 20% now that subsidies have been cut and the price is free-floating) that caught many of them unaware because they were not paying attention (two year warning...).

Having said that, there are NO gas shortages. There was a run on gas at the very end of the year as folks tried to tank up before the price increase. That's it. There has been no systemic change in production capacity or distribution and gas is plentiful now.

There are demonstrations that block various routes but the point of the participants is to protest and they are generally doing nothing more than disrupting government operations (such as allowing motorists to pass through toll plazas without having to pay) and are not aimed at motorists. In some neighborhoods there are, of course, folks who are just looking to make mischief. These violent protests are typically not on the roads.

So, your point of being aware enough to avoid these violent protests is spot on.

The real challenge will not be avoiding the gas protests but rather avoiding the organized (and disorganized) crime gangs in Michoacán and vigilante groups who are sick of the Mafiosi and are fighting back. The crime gangs are unpredictable in where they show up and whom they target although they avoid activity on major and main roads but are a problem on small and back roads and in small towns/villages. The major highways are fine.