What I Learned Walking Mexico City Alone in 2017

In 2017, before Mexico City populated the algorithms and before “digital nomad” entered common parlance, I flew down alone. Only one person in my circle had ever visited. Roughly two weeks of formal Spanish instruction came with me, along with a single piece of neighborhood intelligence: Roma Norte was the place people named, so that is where I booked an apartment, sight unseen.

Those two weeks of Spanish instruction contained a distinct structural flaw that became apparent the moment I needed food. The course assumed a foundation of high school Spanish. Having studied French instead, I had never learned numbers. At a street-corner stall, a vendor worked a comal laden with tortillas azules. When the transaction arrived, I could neither ask the cost nor comprehend the reply. An open palm filled with pesos was the only answer, extended and left for her to take what she was owed.

She selected the correct bills and returned the remainder, remarkably patient with an adult male who could not count to twenty. The scenario repeated itself at taco stands and bodegas for the following eleven days, and not once did anyone seem to take more than their due. There is a specific, humbling education in handing a fistful of pesos to a stranger and trusting the return, the same trust a child extends handing over allowance money and waiting to see if it comes back whole.

Numbers were a very specific hole in my Spanish, one covered in Common Spanish Phrases for Your Mexico City Trip.

There was no grand itinerary. Before departing, I had stitched a concealed zipper into the interior of my belt, stuffing it with thinly folded emergency pesos, a card bearing emergency contacts, a passport copy, the apartment address, and the location of the U.S. embassy. My daytime carry consisted of a heavy portable battery and nothing else of value.

Each morning began with a landmark chosen at random across the map. I would select a destination and walk toward it, entirely unconcerned with the intervening geography.

The methods developed organically. Every few blocks, I would cross the street or execute a deliberate turn, watching to see if anyone mirrored the adjustment. My phone stayed pocketed, pulled out only for brief orientation checks every ten blocks or so. Standing on a curb transfixed by a screen felt like an unnecessary invitation.

These walks bypassed the curated corridors of any guidebook. On one occasion, a detour down a sketchy street brought me directly into the path of a small group passing a crack pipe. I altered my pace, kept walking, and nobody followed.

That mode of navigation feels distant now. Mexico City has evolved since 2017, but perspective shifts as well. Nearly a decade later, I move through the streets carrying little more than a phone, rarely stopping to consider my coordinates. On most blocks, at most hours, I feel considerably safer here than I ever did in parts of the United States.

Some of that is the city. Most of it is years of walking, teaching me where to look. Certain corridors demand heightened attention. Certain situations warrant a quiet course correction. Most do not. Learning to distinguish between the two proved infinitely more valuable than painting an entire metropolis with broad strokes of safety or danger. That discernment began on those early, cautious walks.

Everything else in Neighborhoods and Safety in Mexico City, which colonias are the safest, which ones ask for more awareness, comes out of that same nine-year education.