9 within 3½ hours · 2 under 2 hours
Tuxtepec, in the hot lowlands of the Papaloapan, has its Pueblos Mágicos up in the mountains. Huautla de Jiménez, two hours into the Sierra Mazateca, is the town of María Sabina and the sacred mushrooms; Capulálpam de Méndez, in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, is a pine-forest village known for traditional medicine. For a weekend, Córdoba and Orizaba in Veracruz's coffee country, Mitla's Zapotec palaces outside Oaxaca city, or Teposcolula in the Mixteca.
Best months for the area: Feb, 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 Tuxtepec in a day. Closest first.
~1 h 50 min · 120 km
Best: Jan, Feb, Mar, Dec
Fiestas: Mar, Apr, Sep, Nov, Dec
Weekend escapes (2 to 3½ hours) 7
Worth a night or two. Closest first.
~3 h 20 min · 230 km
Best: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
Fiestas: Apr, May, Sep, Nov, Dec
On the map
Getting there
Tuxtepec has no airport with scheduled flights; the usual one to fly into is Oaxaca (OAX).
A car is the easiest way to reach most of these towns; the bigger ones also have direct buses from Tuxtepec. 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.