Mexico City
The journey opens in the capital with museums, neighbourhoods, food, strangers and the ancient scale of Teotihuacan.
Part I · 2022
Mexico
Mexico · August - September 2022
The first country changes everything.
The route crosses Mexico from the capital to the Yucatán Peninsula, through cities, highlands, jungle ruins, cenotes and the Caribbean coast before ending at the Belizean border.
Somewhere along the way, solo travel becomes ordinary. Spanish improves, plans loosen and by Chetumal, travelling is no longer something I am trying - it is simply what my life has become.
11
Stops across Mexico
5
Weeks on the route
347 km
Walked along the way
2,537 km
Travelled through Mexico
Before the diary
About Mexico.
Begin with the country itself - its landscape, people and history - before following the route from the capital towards the Caribbean.
Read Chapter I.I
Eleven stops. One very long beginning.
Follow the Mexico journal chronologically from the capital to Chetumal, with every destination kept in its original order.
After Mexico
Five weeks into the gap year, the first country closes with a reckoning: the language learned, habits changed, kilometres covered and expectations already exceeded.
La patria es primero.Mexican national motto
The homeland is first.
What Mexico becomes
The foundations of the road.
The first country sets the habits, contradictions and obsessions that continue through every chapter that follows.
The complete gap-year journal
Mexico is only the first country.
Continue through Central America, South America, Antarctica and the long route back home in the complete Reflections of a Roving Doctor collection.
The first border waits.
Mexico ends in Chetumal. The next chapter crosses into Belize, where the route slows into Caribbean islands, jungle caves and the first serious stretch beneath the sea.
Continue with Belize.