11 within 3½ hours · 5 under 2 hours
From the port of Veracruz, the Pueblos Mágicos are all up in the cooler hills behind the coast, under two hours away. The coffee towns around Xalapa come first: Coatepec with its colonial coffee houses, Xico with its waterfall and Naolinco with its leather boots. Córdoba and Coscomatepec, under the Pico de Orizaba, and then Orizaba itself with its river walk and cable car, are the other direction. For a weekend, Huautla in the Sierra Mazateca or Cuetzalan in the Sierra Norte de Puebla.
Best months for the area: Feb, Mar, Apr, Dec (when most of these towns are dry with comfortable afternoons)
Day trips (under 2 hours) 5
Close enough to drive there and back from Veracruz in a day. Closest first.
~1 h 45 min · 115 km
Best: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
Fiestas: Apr, May, Sep, Nov, Dec
Weekend escapes (2 to 3½ hours) 6
Worth a night or two. Closest first.
~3 h 5 min · 210 km
Best: Feb, Mar, Apr, May
Fiestas: Jan, Mar, Apr, Jul, Aug, Dec
On the map
Getting there
Veracruz has its own airport, Veracruz (VER), 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 Veracruz. 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.