Mexico City Attraction Tours: Real Entry Prices
Six of Mexico City’s biggest sights add up to about 1,125 MXN total, and one of them offers free entry on the one day a foreign visitor can’t use it. Knowing the ticketing rules before you go saves more time here than any queue-jumping trick.
Museo Nacional de Antropología (210 MXN, INAH standard fee) is the one to budget half a day for: 23 halls around a courtyard fountain, the 24-ton Aztec Sun Stone, the jade funeral mask of King Pakal, and colossal Olmec basalt heads. Walk-up tickets are sold at on-site kiosks, the museum is closed Mondays, and Sunday admission is free only for Mexican nationals and foreign residents, not for tourists passing through.
Museo Frida Kahlo (Casa Azul) in Coyoacán is the one exception to walk-up planning: it runs 100 percent advance online booking through boletos.museofridakahlo.org.mx, 320 MXN, with no day-of ticket booth at all. Slots sell out 2 to 4 weeks ahead, longer around holidays, so book this before anything else on the list.
Chapultepec Castle, the only royal castle in the Americas, costs the same 210 MXN INAH fee and carries the same closed-Monday, resident-only free-Sunday rule. It holds gilded imperial carriages and murals by Siqueiros and O’Gorman, with a rooftop terrace over Paseo de la Reforma.
Palacio de Bellas Artes is 75 MXN, closed Mondays, and worth it for the Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco murals inside plus the Tiffany stained-glass stage curtain depicting Popocatépetl.
Templo Mayor, the excavated Aztec temple beside the Zócalo, is 100 MXN and displays the carved Coyolxauhqui stone disc.
Teotihuacán, 50 km northeast, costs 210 MXN entrance. Climbing the pyramids is permanently prohibited now to protect the stone, so plan on walking the Avenue of the Dead rather than the summit shot older articles still promise. One correction worth knowing before you go: climbing the pyramids is now permanently prohibited to protect the stone, so budget your visit around walking the 2.5 km Avenue of the Dead rather than the summit views older guides still promise.
A note on timing: Mexico City sits at 2,240 meters, and a full day moving between the Zócalo, Chapultepec, and a long walk at Teotihuacán is more tiring than the flat distances suggest. Go easier on day one and carry more water than usual.
Verdict: Casa Azul is the only sight here that needs weeks of lead time; book it first, then treat the other five as flexible walk-up days.
One concrete tip: bring cash for the automated kiosks at Antropología and the Castillo, since card readers there are inconsistent, and never queue at a Casa Azul ticket window, because none exists.
For a longer trip that spreads these sights across a full week alongside day trips beyond the city, see the multi-day trips guide .