Top Ten Reasons to Visit Rural Mexico

#10 Practice your Nahautl language skills, learning to pronounce place names like Ixmiquilpan and Metztitlán.

#9  Go beyond the guidebooks to visit locally known hot springs, archaeological sites, and shrines.

#8  Make your parents and/or kids appreciate you; they’ll either be jealous, impressed, or terribly worried … due to all those headlines about scary Mexico.

#7  Drink some goopy pulque with the locals.

#6  Explore the road less traveled for an invigorating, natural high.

#5  Practice defensive driving skills on well-tended highways and graded dirt roads.

#4  Expand your Spanish-language skills away from the big resorts and cities where English flourishes.

#3  Get super bargains in daily and weekly markets and restaurants.

#2  Try exotic foods like ant larvae and grilled cactus pads.

AND THE #1 REASON TO VISIT RURAL MEXICO: It’s fun!