Día de Muertos 2026 near Guadalajara

The potters' and glassblowers' town that Guadalajara has grown around throws the city's most complete Day of the Dead festival. In 2025 it ran October 23 to November 2 with more than 100 free events: a Gran Altar at the Museo Regional de la Cerámica, a parade of comparsas, giant catrinas and floats along Hidalgo, Emilio Carranza and Juárez on October 25, altar exhibitions at the Centro Cultural El Refugio, a monumental altar on calle Juárez, a children's catrina gala in the Jardín Hidalgo and a procession of brides and catrinas on November 2. The craft shops along Independencia sell clay and papier-mâché catrinas all season, and Tonalá's potters are next door.

Ajijic, the lakeside village of cobbled streets and painted walls, puts on the most charming Day of the Dead near Guadalajara, run by the community under the name Axixic Vive. On November 1 the Desfile de Angelitos, a children's parade, leaves Seis Esquinas at 5 pm for the plaza. November 2 is the big day: families set out altars and colored-sawdust carpets around the plaza and along the Colón-Morelos pedestrian corridor, there are short street plays about death in the afternoon and evening, a parade of catrinas and catrines heads to the malecón for a waltz, and the lake itself gets a floral offering, a canoe parade and paper lanterns launched into the dark. The Lake Chapala Society sets up a community altar, and a hairless xoloitzcuintle costume contest has become a favorite.

Tequila's Day of the Dead is a one-day town party rather than a deep local rite, but it is a fun one and an easy trip. In 2024 the festival, called Tequilero hasta los Huesos, filled the main esplanade on November 2: a parade of catrinas and catrines through the streets at noon, a catrina contest for costumes and sculptures made from recycled materials, Voladores de Papantla, folk dance, mariachi and, at 9 pm, video mapping on the facades. Combine it with a distillery tour and the agave fields, which are a World Heritage landscape.

Sayula, known for its cajeta and for the house associated with Juan Rulfo, holds the Festival de las Ánimas, which reached its tenth edition in 2024 and ran October 26 to November 2 that year: an altar contest for families, schools and local groups, a catrina parade with mariachi, workshops in papel picado and skull painting, exhibitions of folk art and photography, live music and plenty of mole, tamales and pan de muerto with hot chocolate. It is a local festival on a human scale, and it has joined Jalisco's state-wide Festival de las Almas.

Be clear about what Mazamitla offers: a pleasant, small-town Day of the Dead, not a famous one. The town's own tourism program describes altars for All Saints and All Souls, catrina parades by the schools on October 31 and November 1 that end in the main plaza, and verbenas with live music, food and hot chocolate. The reason to go is the setting, a mountain village of pine forest and wooden cabins where the first cold nights of the year arrive just in time, and it takes part in Jalisco's Festival de las Almas with about 20 activities.

Coming from Guadalajara, Tzintzuntzan is the first of the lake towns you reach, just past Quiroga, and arguably the best place to spend the night of November 1. The old Purépecha capital holds a cultural week of crafts, cooking and a lakeside float parade; on the evening of November 1 a game of pelota purépecha is played with a flaming ball, and then the town cemetery fills with candles, marigolds and families who stay until morning. It is crowded but less so than Janitzio, and the 16th-century Franciscan monastery and the Yácatas pyramids are a few minutes' walk away.

The town at the center of it all. Pátzcuaro's Festival Cultural de la Muerte turns the main square into the state's biggest market for Day of the Dead crafts in the last week of October, and boats leave the Muelle General for the island of Janitzio, whose hillside cemetery holds the most photographed vigil in Mexico on the night of November 1. Book rooms in town months ahead or sleep in Morelia, an hour away. Our Pátzcuaro & Janitzio guide has the full program.