Ten friends is a plan, not a problem
Mexico City is one of the few cities where adding people makes the trip better and cheaper at the same time.
Most cities tolerate groups. Mexico City was apparently designed for them. The tables are long, the Ubers cost less than the coffees, the apartments come with roof terraces, and the single best activity in town is priced by the boat, not by the person. Bring four friends and CDMX is generous. Bring ten and the city starts doing the math in your favor.
This guide is for both of those trips. Where the advice changes with headcount, we say so — at four to six you can mostly improvise; at eight or more, a little structure buys everyone's freedom back. The deep dives on food, museums, and day trips live in our other Mexico City guides, and we'll point you to them as we go.
One rule before anything else: the group that plans two things a day stays friends. The group that plans six does not. CDMX rewards the first kind. Now — beds.
Where to stay: one roof, or two doors on the same block
Roma Norte and Condesa solve the group-headquarters problem better than any hotel can.
Book the neighborhood first and the trip half-plans itself. Roma Norte and Condesa are leafy, walkable, and dense with the kind of bakeries and bars that turn "meet at 8" into an evening. A three-bedroom apartment there runs roughly MX$4,000–6,500 (~$210–340 USD) a night and sleeps six without anyone drawing the short straw.
At four to six: take one whole apartment. One kitchen, one roof, one group chat renamed after the trip. Condesa if your mornings start with a run around Parque México; Roma Norte if they start with pan dulce.
At eight or more: resist the compound fantasy. Ten-person houses exist — Coyoacán has beautiful ones around MX$10,000–17,000 (~$530–900) a night — but one house often means one water heater and a shower queue with opinions. The veteran move is two apartments in the same building or on the same block: two kitchens, two fridges of beer, and a door to close when you need twenty minutes of quiet. Book two to three months out for a big group, and double that for Día de Muertos.
Someone is going to front the deposit for all of this. That person is doing the group a favor roughly the size of a used car. Be nice to that person. We'll come back to them.
Eating as a group without forming a committee
Know which meals need a reservation, which need a sidewalk, and which need nobody to agree at all.
The big-table tier, book ahead: Azul Histórico seats long tables in a Centro courtyard under laurel trees and treats a party of ten like a normal Tuesday — this is where your one "everyone dressed up a little" dinner goes. El Cardenal does the grand Mexican breakfast — hot chocolate whisked at the table, nata on everything — and moves big groups with the calm of a place that has been doing it forever. Call a few days ahead for eight or more; at four to six you can usually just show up when they open.
Contramar — the long tuna-tostada lunch your food-guide-reading friend keeps mentioning — is honestly hard at ten. Go at the 1pm opening or accept two tables and trade plates across the aisle. It's worth either indignity.
El Hidalguense
Roma Sur, Friday through Sunday only — which is a gift, because it makes the plan for you. Hidalgo-style lamb barbacoa by the kilo, pulque by the pitcher, and tables that genuinely fit ten. Show up before noon, hungry, and cancel whatever you had planned for the afternoon.
Then there's the tier where headcount stops mattering: the taco crawl. El Califa for the dependable classics, El Vilsito after 9pm for al pastor carved off the trompo in a working mechanic shop. Nobody sits, nobody books. Ten people is just a longer, happier line.
And for the meal where nobody can agree: Mercado de Coyoacán. Everyone scatters to their own counter — tostadas, quesadillas, a juice the size of a fire extinguisher — and reconvenes at a shared table, victorious. Lunch for ten runs less than one Roma Norte brunch. The full taco taxonomy lives in our food guide; steal from it liberally.
The things that only get better with more people
Per-boat pricing, block seats, and a van with your group's name on it.
Start with the obvious one, because it's obvious for a reason. In Xochimilco you rent a trajinera — a painted, party-length canal boat — for MX$600 (~$32 USD) an hour, per boat, not per person. The rate is posted on official signs at the dock, which settles the negotiation before it starts. Ten people for three hours works out to about MX$180 (~$10) a head for an entire afternoon: floating past gardens and islands while boats selling micheladas and elotes pull alongside, and a mariachi boat offers songs at about MX$150 each. Say yes to at least one song. Bring a cooler — it's allowed and expected.
Nobody has ever come home from Xochimilco wishing they'd done a museum instead.— On the boat day
Lucha libre at Arena México was built for groups the way opera was built for velvet. Friday and Sunday nights; tickets run about MX$100–600 (~$5–32), so a block of ten seats costs less than one person's night out in most cities. Buy masks from the vendors outside. All of you. Trust us.
Teotihuacán at eight or more means a private van: roughly MX$4,000–5,500 (~$210–290) for the day, split however many ways you have. It leaves when you leave and it waits while you climb — which beats herding a group through a bus terminal at 7am by a margin you can feel. The sunrise hot-air balloon ($150–200 USD a person) is the splurge tier; our activities guide makes the full case.
For the slow day: a cooking class — Casa Jacaranda is the one people don't stop talking about; book weeks out for a big group — or a night at Las Duelistas, a pulquería where the curados come in flavors and ten friends turn the place into the party it was already having. Pick two of these, not all five. Remember the rule.
Moving ten people across a very large city
The two-Uber convoy is a system. Respect the system.
Ubers here are plentiful and cheap — most hops inside the Roma–Condesa–Centro triangle run MX$100–250 (~$5–13). At four to six, one UberXL is your whole transit plan. At eight or more, you're a convoy: two cars, one person in each with the destination pinned, and a rally point that is a place ("the fountain in Plaza Río de Janeiro"), not a concept ("somewhere in Roma"). The convoy leaves together or it doesn't leave.
The Metro is fast and costs MX$5, and at rush hour with ten people it is also a sorting machine that returns your group in a different order at a different station. Skip it at peak. On Sunday mornings Paseo de la Reforma closes to cars — rent Ecobicis and ride the boulevard with half the city.
The best trick is the boring one: stay clustered in Roma or Condesa and your evenings need no logistics at all. Dinner, bar, and bed sit a ten-minute walk apart, and that walk through Condesa at night is quietly one of the city's better activities.
Three group days, honestly paced
Fewer stops than the solo itinerary. That's on purpose.
Day one: land, drop bags in Roma, and walk the neighborhood until everyone's awake again. Big-table dinner at Azul Histórico; if it's Friday, lucha libre after. That is a complete day. Do not add to it.
Day two: Centro in the morning — and here's the group move: split up. Architecture people to Palacio de Bellas Artes, history people to the Templo Mayor, shoppers loose in the streets, everyone back together at El Cardenal at 1:30 (or the 1pm Contramar shift, if you planned ahead). Groups that split for two hours stay friends for ten years. Afternoon nap in a Condesa park or Chapultepec, then a cantina night at La Ópera — order a tequila, look up, and find the bullet hole Pancho Villa allegedly left in the ceiling.
Day three: Xochimilco in the morning, when the boats are cheeriest, then Coyoacán for the market lunch — and Casa Azul for whoever booked Frida tickets days in advance, because that part is real. Farewell dinner is El Hidalguense if it's a weekend, the taco crawl if it's not. End on the roof you rented. You paid for that roof.
Have a fourth day? Teotihuacán. A fifth? Now you want our comprehensive guide.
Where we would book
Direct where it counts, the dock for the rest.
Apartments and houses live on the usual platforms; for eight or more, message the host before booking — the good ones will tell you honestly whether the place handles a group or merely sleeps one. For a four-to-six trip that deserves a hotel, La Valise in Roma is the special-occasion pick. Trajineras need no booking at all: turn up at Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas, read the posted rates, pay at the dock. Lucha libre tickets are on Ticketmaster México, or cheaper at the Arena México box office the same week. Teotihuacán vans, cooking classes, and balloons: book direct with the operator — resellers add margin, not value.
Related guides
- Your Mexico City Travel Guide: Four Days, Honestly Done — the whole city, one guide.
- Mexico City Food Guide — the complete taco taxonomy your group will argue about, pleasantly.
- Mexico City Activities Guide — every day trip and Sunday trick, at any headcount.
- Mexico City Culture Guide — the museums worth splitting up for.
- Your Buenos Aires Travel Guide — another city built for a long table, with more steak.
