3 within 3½ hours · 2 under 2 hours
Torreón's Pueblos Mágicos are desert towns. Mapimí, an hour and a quarter north in Durango, is a seventeenth-century mining town beside the Ojuela ghost town and its hanging bridge, at the edge of the Zona del Silencio. Viesca, an hour and a half southeast, has the Dunas de Bilbao, white sand dunes where films are shot. For a weekend, Parras de la Fuente's oasis of vineyards and the oldest winery in the Americas is two and a half hours east.
Best months for the area: Jan, Mar, Apr, Dec (when most of these towns are dry with comfortable afternoons)
Day trips (under 2 hours) 2
Close enough to drive there and back from Torreón in a day. Closest first.
Weekend escapes (2 to 3½ hours) 1
Worth a night or two. Closest first.
On the map
Getting there
Torreón has its own airport, Torreón (TRC), so you can fly in and rent a car there.
A car is the easiest way to reach most of these towns; the bigger ones also have direct buses from Torreón. Each pueblo's page has its own getting-there notes.
Drive times are from OpenStreetMap routing without traffic. Times marked ~ are estimated from the distance and may run longer on mountain roads.