Cruising down the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco in a colourful gondola-style trajinera boat is one of the best things to do in Mexico City. In this post, I’ll share everything you need to know to visit the canals of Xochimilco, with or without a tour.
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What are the canals of Xochimilco?
Just outside central Mexico City is a small network of canals, known as the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco (pronounced so-chee-meel-koh).
Located in a neighbourhood of the same name, these canals are the last remaining evidence of the complex system of waterways built by the Aztecs back when Mexico City was the ancient city of Tenochtitlán. The modern-day Centro Historico is built on top of Tenochtitlán.
The entire area was once a wet swampy marshland in a lake, and the Aztecs constructed artificial islands known as chinampas to grow their crops. These artificial islands are what we know as the floating gardens today.
Also known as the ‘Venice of Mexico City’, cruising along these canals in a gondola-style ‘trajinera’ boat is a must-do activity on your Mexico City itinerary.
These days it is a fun and festive activity for both locals and tourists, and your captain will row you down the canals with nothing but a long wooden pole. It’s an explosion of colour, with each of the boats painted in vibrant tones with ornate decorations.
Information for visiting the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco
- ⏰ Hours: trajinera cruises are offered Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 7:00 pm, and weekends and holidays from 10:00 am – 6:00 pm.
- 🗓️ Best time to visit: on the weekend for a lively atmosphere, organise a 2 – 3 hour cruise.
- ⛵️ Piers: there are 8 main embarcaderos or piers designed for tourists to board the trajineras. The most popular and equipped is Embarcadero Nuevo Nativas.
- 💰 Cost: the government sets a fixed price for the trajineras, at 600 pesos per hour for the entire boat (NOT per person). Legally they cannot charge you any more than this, although they will try.
- 👩🏼🤝👨🏻 Capacity: most trajineras can fit 18 people. Considering the fee is fixed for the entire boat, this is an experience you want to share with as many people as possible.
Visiting Xochimilo without a tour
Visiting Xochimilco is simple and completely possible without a tour. It’s a lot cheaper to do it yourself, and the whole process is quite straightforward.
Finding friends to share a trajinera with
Cruising the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco is something you want to do with at least a few companions!
The cost of the trajinera boat is fixed for the whole boat (600 pesos per hour), so the more people you can share it with, the cheaper it will be for you. Most trajineras can seat 18 people.
Plus, the experience is a lot more fun with some company. It’s a day revolving around music, drinking and general Mexican revelry, so it can be a bit boring and sad if it’s just you, or you and your partner.
If you’re staying in a hostel, I’d recommend trying to recruit as many people as possible to join you. Your hostel might even coordinate this on your behalf.
If you’re not a hostel person, you have to get a bit more creative to find a crew to share your Xochimilco experience with. Brayden and I posted in a couple of Mexico travel Facebook groups to find other travellers to share with, and we often see other posts about Xochimilco in these groups.
Check out:
We managed to connect with a lovely couple from the Netherlands and share our day in Xochimilco with them. We met at a metro station in CDMX and travelled to Xochimilco together.
You can always keep an eye out for other tourists on the light rail to Xochimilco and as you walk towards the embarcaderos. Chances are you’ll be able to tack a couple more members onto your group!
How to get to Xochimilco (without a tour)
Getting to Xochimilco from central Mexico City is really easy. There are two ways you can do this: by public transport or Uber.
🚊 PUBLIC TRANSPORT
The public transport system in Mexico City is cheap and efficient and we never had any concerns around safety.
There are two steps to reaching Xochimilco via public transport. It should take around 60 – 90 minutes, and the total trip will cost 8 pesos.
First, you need to get yourself to the Tasqueña metro station, which is at the end of Line 2 (blue). Depending on where you’re coming from in the city (Centro Historico, Roma Norte, Condesa etc.) you might have a couple of short interchanges to get to Tasqueña.
We found Google Maps really helpful for planning metro routes in CDMX, so we would recommend plugging your starting point in and seeing what it suggests to get to Tasqueña.
Tasqueña is the beginning of the Tren Ligera or light rail system, which is an aboveground line that runs all the way to Xochimilco. You won’t need to change at all, you just stay on the entire line until the very end.
Once you arrive at the station in Xochimilco, you can walk or take an Uber to your embarcadero, depending on which one you choose.
As of 2024, most lines on the metro and the light rail line no longer issue paper tickets, so you must have a metro card to tap on
🚙 UBER
If you can’t be bothered with public transport, you can take a relatively inexpensive Uber from the city.
It should take around 45 minutes – 1 hour, depending on which part of the city you’re coming from and how bad the traffic is.
Expect to pay at least 200 pesos, if not more.
Organising your trajinera
The second thing you need to coordinate is your trajinera boat to take you on a cruise of the canals. You’ve got two options again: organise a boat in advance, or show up and organise on the day.
We would recommend booking your cruise for 2 – 3 hours. We opted for 2 and felt this was a good amount of time to enjoy the experience with 4 of us, have a few drinks and cruise around. If you’re splitting the cost with more people, you could easily go for 3 and not be bored as the atmosphere is so fun and lively.
📱 PRE-ORGANISE YOUR TRAJINERA
When I say pre-organise, I don’t mean book an organised tour from Mexico City. Rather, you can contact one of the local trajinera companies via WhatsApp and pre-book your trajinera for a certain time.
A local recommended we do this, and gave us the name of a company to contact via WhatsApp:
- Trajineras Xochiquetzalli
- Whatsapp: +52 55 1091 8880
- Website (slightly outdated): https://www.xochiquetzalli7.com.mx/servicios.html
We messaged them a day prior and confirmed they had availability and booked a trajinera for a 2-hour cruise at 1:00 pm on a Sunday. We did message in Spanish, but you could always text in English or use Google Translate if you’re not confident with español.
Their prices were actually cheaper than the government rate of 600 pesos per hour, and we paid 900 pesos total for a 2-hour cruise through the canals.
They gave us instructions to get to their embarcadero, which was Embarcadero Belem. It was a really easy walk from the train station.
They were ready and waiting for us when we arrived. No haggling, no getting ripped off and no having to shop around. It was really easy.
🛶 ORGANISE ON THE DAY
There is no problem at all if you haven’t pre-booked your trajinera. There are hundreds of boats, and most people just show up on the day and book on the spot. However, it’s important to know in advance how much you should be paying so you don’t get ripped off.
Despite the government’s best efforts to centralise the trajinera offerings and set a fixed price (600 pesos per hour per boat), there are countless people trying to rip tourists off. From the second you step out of the train station, there will be guys trying to push you to come to their embarcadero.
Lots of people will quote crazy prices, or try to tell you that the 600 pesos per hour, is per person not for the entire boat. This isn’t true.
As long as you know that, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, you won’t have any issues. If someone is trying to scam you, just walk away and find another person, there are boats everywhere and many of them do the right thing and adhere to the set price.
There are lots of embarcaderos you can board from, however, which you choose depends on how confident you are with your Spanish and negotiation skills.
Most international tourists recommend Embarcadero Nuevo Nativas, because the prices are printed and displayed they won’t charge more than the maximum government amount.
This pier is quite a walk from the train station though, about 2 km (1.2 mi), so you may want to take an Uber.
Other embarcaderos you can consider are:
Xochimilco tours
If the idea of navigating yourself to Xochimilco, haggling for a boat and finding others to join your trajinera does not sound fun, that’s okay! There are plenty of tours leaving from Mexico City that will take care of all the logistics for you.
A lot of tours combine a Xochimilco cruise with the neighbourhood of Coyoacan, as they are both in the same general direction south of the city centre. It can be a good way to combine two attractions.
- Xochimilco: Boat Ride & Mexican Party, with Unlimited Drinks: a Xochimilco-only, party-centric tour. It doesn’t include transport from the city, but it’s a great way to connect with other travellers. Snacks and unlimited drinks are included.
- Xochimilco All-Inclusive, Food, Drinks and Transportation: an all-inclusive Xochimilco tour with transport from the city, food and drinks. A good time, but not specifically party-centric.
- Xochimilco, Coyoacán & Frida Kahlo Museum: a combo tour including Coyoacan, Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul, Xochimilco and UNAM with transport.
- Private Tour: Xochimilco, Coyoacan and Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City: a similar style combo tour, but entirely private for you and your companions.
The Xochimilco trajinera experience
Once you’re on board your trajinera, it’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy the party!
The duration you’ve chosen will dictate the route that you take. We recommend 2 or 3 hours, and with that time you’ll just be cruising around the canals close to town.
For us, it was more about the experience of being on the trajinera and soaking up the festive atmosphere, than any particular sightseeing or route.
Because we went on Sunday, the canals were absolutely jam-packed, it was like a constant traffic jam! We were knocking into other trajineras, and there were rainbow boats everywhere you looked!
We didn’t really get too far, but we didn’t care, we were having way too much fun drinking, enjoying the mariachi music and soaking up the fun vibes.
We were passing trajineras full of local Mexican families celebrating birthdays and other milestones, groups of young friends drinking way too much tequila and even multiple trajineras strung together.
The best part about Xochimilco is all the vendors cruising the canals selling food and drinks. They’ll tie off to your boat or even climb aboard if you want to order something.
You can find all kinds of snacks, like tacos and tamales, and plenty of drink choices. We ordered pulque (a traditional fermented agave alcohol) and micheladas.
The prices are a bit inflated, but having someone serve you directly from a boat in the middle of a canal, I think it’s worth it!
There is a constant beat of lively mariachi music in the air, as the well-dressed ensembles cruise around the canals on their boats, ready to jump aboard and serenade anyone that wants to buy a song. The price is fixed (currently 220 pesos per song), but they offer discounts if you want to buy a few.
Some visitors hate Xochimilco, claiming the experience is commercial and crowded. In a sense that’s true. For me, it was one of the most authentic things we did in Mexico City.
It’s not a historic or natural experience. But if we’re talking modern-day Mexican culture, what could be better than being a part of the most popular way for Mexican families to celebrate special occasions?
Drinking, music, revelry and good times are authentically Mexican, and this is a fantastic way to experience it.
Other ways to experience Xochimilco Mexico City
All the information I’ve mentioned above is specifically about cruising the tourist canals – aka the fun, party experience.
There is a whole other part of Xochimilco, the Parque Ecologico de Xochimilco (Xochimilco Ecological Park), where you’ll see the wildlife and nature found around the canals, and get a better view of the traditional chinampas and farmland.
If you’re more interested in seeing the historical and natural side of Xochimilco, you’ve got a few options:
- Opt for a ‘nature route’: organise your trajinera as above, but coordinate a longer cruise, following the ‘nature route’, ‘green route’ or ‘ecological route’ which is generally 4 – 5 hours. With more time, your captain can guide you out of the touristy canals and into more natural parts of Xochimilco. You’ll get to experience both sides of the area.
- Depart from a different embarcadero: there is a separate set of embarcaderos specifically for nature-focused cruises. These depart from a different area of the town, much closer to the ecological reserve. Head to Embarcadero Cuemanco, and in most cases you’ll skip the busy tourist canals altogether.
- Take a kayak tour: if you really want to get in touch with the nature of the canals of Xochimilco, take a kayak tour instead. You can get into narrower canals where the boats don’t go, see more birds and wildlife and experience the farmland. For a truly unique and peaceful nature experience, organise your tour for sunrise, when the mist is rising off the canals and the town hasn’t woken up yet! This kayak tour has a sunrise, daytime or sunset option.
Xochimilco tips
- 💰 Bring cash: cash is king in Xochimilco and you’ll need it to pay vendors for drinks and snacks on the water, as well as the mariachis. It’s also best to have enough cash to pay for your trajinera too, as some charge credit card fees or don’t accept them at all.
- 🍻 Buy beers and snacks in advance: come stocked with drinks and snacks, to save some money. The vendors on the water are pretty pricey, so you want to at least BYO some things. There are lots of small tiendas around Xochimilco where you can buy stuff.
- 🗓️ Come on a weekend: if you want to experience the fun and festive side of Xochimilco. The canals come alive on the weekends, with hundreds of boats crammed in, each with a tune of laughter, mariachi music and revelry. Visit during the week if you’d prefer a quieter experience.
- 👩🏼🤝👨🏻 Find some friends to share with: this is an experience that is better shared, and cheaper too, so do some outreach and find some friends to share a trajinera with, if you’re travelling solo or as a couple.
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Final thoughts on the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco
Taking a trajinera ride through the canals of Xochimilco was one of our Mexico City highlights. The music, colour and atmosphere was a sensory overload, and we had a very fun day enjoying a few drinks onboard.
I know some people think it’s tacky and touristy, but we disagree. At least give it a try for yourself, and let me know what you think in the comments.
For another unforgettable experience in the city, you have to organise a hot air balloon ride over the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan!
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