These cities go all out for Day of the Dead. Here’s where to stay.

Marigold-strewn altars to deceased loved ones, revelers dressed as skeletons, and colorful parades make Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) a big spectacle in Mexico and U.S. border states. The somber-meets-celebratory holiday November 1 and 2 honors the dead with a fusion of Catholic and pre-Columbian traditions. It sees locals decorating family graves at cemeteries and travelers joining public celebrations from Mexico City to California.

(The evolution of Día de los Muertos in the United States)

“The elements of Day of the Dead are uniquely Mexican, but the idea of honoring your ancestors is universal,” says Jim Mendiola, artistic director of the Muertos Festival in San Antonio, Texas, which features nearly one hundred ofrendas (memorial altars decked with flowers, food, and photos) built by locals.

The Day of the Dead is big business, too: In 2023, Mexico’s economic development minister estimated that the holiday would generate $623 million and $109 million in hotel bookings, 18 percent more than in 2022. Hotels get in on the festivities, erecting ofrendas and serving traditional dishes such as pan de muerto (bread of the dead) at their restaurants. 

Here are 11 of the best places to stay in five cities that know how to celebrate the holiday.

Mexico City, Mexico

In late October and early November, multiple Día de los Muertos parades fill Mexico’s buzzing capital. They star women dressed as catrinas (fanciful skeletons) and floats decked with oversized models of alebrijes (mythical animals). November 4th, The Grand Día de Muertos Parade dazzles with thousands of costumed marchers between the trendy Condesa neighborhood and the Zócalo, the outsized central plaza, which is filled with memorial altars. “The best place to watch the parade is from a terrace on the Paseo de Reforma, where you can see the dancers and colors from above,” says Karla Gonzalez, director of the Mexico City tourism board.

Stay near the action at the Condesa neighborhood’s hip new Hotel San Fernando, where a rooftop lounge and 19 rooms decorated with local textiles in a converted Art Deco apartment building. For killer vistas of the parading skellies, the St. Regis Mexico City has some guest rooms overlooking the Paseo de Reforma. Its Diana restaurant serves a Mexican brunch menu—duck flautas, eggs with machacado (a dried beef)—with similar views.

(Related: These are the top 10 things to know about Day of the Dead.)

San Antonio, Texas

This south Texas city was once a part of Mexico, a heritage that surfaces both in the south-of-the-border-inspired River Walk and in its vibrant Day of the Dead celebrations. In downtown’s Hemisphere Park, the Muertos Festival features memorial altars, art vendors, plus cumbia, conjuncto, and mariachi bands. The Day of the Dead San Antonio festival brings a parade of illuminated boat floats to the River Walk the evening of October 25th and a display of oversized alebrijes to La Villita, a restored 18th-century neighborhood on the south bank of the San Antonio River.

For parade views, reserve a room with a waterside balcony at La Mansion del Rio, a Spanish colonial-style hotel in a limestone building that once held a Catholic boys school. On the River Walk’s northern reach, the stylish Hotel Emma has rooms, restaurants, and a boutique carved out of an 1894 brewery. During the first weekend of November, it erects an altar memorializing its namesake female brewer. “Many guests don’t know about Day of the Dead, but the altar tells the beautiful story behind the celebration,” says Beth Smith, chief marketing officer for the hotel. 

Oaxaca, Mexico

This southern Mexico state (and city) is known for candlelit cemeteries on Día de los Muertos, tapetes (designs on the ground rendered in colored sand), and comparsas (parades with marching bands and dancers in skull face paint) in the Jalatlaco neighborhood. “The city doesn’t sleep for three days,” says local tour guide Gabriel Sánchez. “It’s like a combination of New Orleans Jazzfest and Coachella.” He takes guests to the graveyard in Santa María Atzompa, a village three miles from Oaxaca City, where “the families go all out with candles, flowers, and even mariachis.”

Sánchez recommends staying in Casa Antonieta, a centrally located six-room boutique hotel in a renovated colonial stone house centered on a columned stone courtyard. Basket-woven headboards and pale wood accent the guest rooms at sleek Hotel Escondido, built in and around an ochre-walled, 19th-century house.

San Diego, California

The first European settlement in Southern California, Old Town San Diego is a seven-block state park and commercial zone with whitewashed adobe houses and storefronts dating back to the 18th century. It’s also the site of a long-running Day of the Dead celebration, with a crafts market and a candlelit procession to the El Campo Santo Cemetery on November 2. The pint-sized burial ground, which dates to 1849, holds white wooden cross tombstones.

In the middle of Old Town, the Cosmopolitan Hotel has an adobe first floor that dates to the 1820s and a wooden second story constructed around 1869. An impressive structure with double wraparound porches, it contains 10 rooms outfitted with Victorian furniture. 

Mérida, Mexico

The Yucatán state’s beauty queen Spanish colonial city celebrates both Hanal Pixan (Mayan for feast of the souls) and Day of the Dead with a Paseo de Ánimas (parade of souls) through the candy-colored buildings of the historic center. In addition to calavera (decorated sugar skulls), traditional holiday foods include pibipollo or pib (chicken tamales wrapped in banana skins). 

Though Mérida’s hotel scene has been slower to grow than the region’s over-touristed beach towns, stylish newcomers are popping up. Amid the cobblestones of the throwback La Emita neighborhood, Hotel Cigno is a 10-room guesthouse located in a rehabbed 19th-century mansion. Cenote-blue tile floors and furniture made from local wood pay tribute to the region. And the Treehouse Hotel situates its 15 guest rooms around a dreamy tropical garden with water features.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

In central Guanajuato state, San Miguel de Allende buzzes with pastel-hued colonial buildings and a lively artisan market. It’s also home to a growing Day of the Dead scene, with altars and processions around the Jardin Principal (main square). “It used to be a private holiday at the cemeteries, but the movie Coco changed all that,” says Joseph Toone, a local tour guide. He brings visitors to flower-, candle-, and sugar skull-decked graveyards such as San Juan di Dios and Panteón de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in the morning out of respect for families who come to decorate loved one’s tombs later. 

(These Mexican paper crafts bring the party on the Day of the Dead.)

Bunk in the center of town at the six-room La Valise de San Miguel, a Mayan-meets-mod building with a serene interior courtyard. Just outside of town in the cactus- and scrub-filled mountains, the new Our Habitas San Miguel has contemporary glass-and-adobe casitas and a locavore restaurant. On November 1, the latter hosts a Días do los Muertos bash with a spiritualist, DJ jams, and inventive cocktails.

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