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Where to go for 4-5 days in South/Central America/Mexico?

Posted by (Lima, Peru ) on

My husband and I moved to Lima, Peru last June, which was our first time in South America. We are flying home for "winter" break in late June and will have 4 weeks off. We'd like to stop somewhere on the way for 4-5 nights. We like nature, pretty vistas, good food, history, architecture, etc. Not into shopping, and we tend to be pretty "slow" travelers since we do it so much.

Any suggestions? Right now, we are thinking of Mexico City or Cartagena, but open to other suggestions. It needs to be somewhere that isn't terribly out of our way to our flight home to Portland, Oregon. We've been to Costa Rica (many years ago) but anywhere else on the way would be fair game.

Would love any recommendations!

Posted by
5686 posts

We just got back from Mexico City and really enjoyed it.

Posted by
654 posts

Good ideas so far although I think you don’t have enough time for both Mexico City and Oaxaca. I would also suggest Panama City. It’s a big sprawling city, but with an interesting historical district, and nature (rain forest) very close by, and the Canal is a unique thing to see. Quite a bit of rain that time of year, but it mostly comes as heavy showers in late afternoon and evening, and I think the same is true pretty much anywhere else you might go in the region. PC has one of Central America’s busiest airports, perhaps the biggest, so it probably would work well for your connections. I really enjoyed a trip there of about the length you’re planning a few years ago, and another time I had a flight connection there coming from Lima to US but didn’t stop over again.

Posted by
240 posts

Thanks everyone! I think we've decided to stick with Mexico City. We feel confident we only want to go to one place with our very limited time. (And @Slate- Panama City is on our list! We have friends who have family there, so we may wait until we can meet up with them in the future). Thanks for all of the recommendations.

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