Matt

Less Likely to Be Ripped Off One of the easiest ways to ruin a trip is being stuck somewhere or needing help but feeling entirely helpless because you don’t speak the local language. It doesn’t matter if you travel to the Netherlands or Norway, where people are known to speak excellent English — the thing to remember is that you’re a guest. It even inspired me to create The Intrepid Guide, a travel and language-learning site designed to help travelers have equally amazing and life-changing trips, all thanks to the power of languages. Michele is “the guide” behind The Intrepid Guide, a travel and language-learning site designed to help readers enrich their travels through languages.

I mean, it’s going to get cold and snow a bit, but this isn’t the apocalypse! So I wasn’t too worried about the snow forecast on Valentine’s Day. The recommendations included weatherizing power plants and making sure there was backup natural gas (most of the energy in this state is generated through natural gas, and power plants don’t often keep a backup supply). And we couldn’t get any from other states, because Texas isn’t connected to the national grid, in order to avoid federal regulations.

Fast-forward to today and Oaxaca has become a center for heritage tourism, owing to the many historical attractions (including Monte Albán, a UNESCO Heritage Site; and Mitla, a Zapotec archeological site) in the city and surrounding area. Oaxaca is famous for its mole (a traditional marinade/sauce), tlayudas (a pizza-like street food), chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers), memelas (grilled corn cakes with bean, meat, and cheese toppings), and tetelas (triangular corn snacks filled with beans and cheese). Wandering among the 10-peso (50-cent) taco stalls of the city, I also came across the famous hamberguesa: a burger topped with a hot dog, sliced cheese, Oaxaca cheese, ham, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, and jalapeño. Then there’s the famous Mercado 20 de Noviembre, a huge bazaar of little stalls and a famous Pasillo de Carnes Asades, or “Meat Alley,” a gauntlet of grill stalls where the scents of hundreds of dishes waft in the air, all beckoning you to their source.

But in the age of COVID, that’s not what I wanted to do, so Playa didn’t really feel like the place to be right now. In the last decade, as mezcal has become incredibly popular, Oaxaca has also become the hub for all things mezcal, with tourists reaching record numbers before COVID. We discovered the hamburguesa, an Oaxacan street burger that contains beef, ham, hot dogs, two kinds of cheese, pineapple, tomatoes, and lettuce, all in a grilled bun (it’s as delicious as it was unhealthy); ate lots of moles, tacos, and Oaxacan cheese; and went to the mountains to see some ruins and learn how Mezcal was produced. Cases have risen a lot since I first went and even once-safe places like Oaxaca aren’t so safe anymore.