The Anthropology Museum in Mexico City is an absolute icon for presenting Mexico’s prehistoric and ancient history. This place is massive, and you must visit when you are traveling in Mexico City. It’s easily one of the most comprehensive museums of human history of the area I have ever been to, and following are my tips for enjoying it.

First, this place is huge. There are two floors of exhibits in an absolutely massive building on the northern side of Chapultepec park, across Avenida de la Reforma. I would not recommend trying to see the place all at once, or even in one day. The museum is closed on Mondays, and open every other day from 9am – 6pm. I would recommend purchasing tickets in advance through their website. Tickets are $100 Mexican Pesos, or about $5 USD, which is ridiculously cheap compared to most museums in the world.

Many of the exhibits are written in both Spanish and English, making things a little easier for us Americans to visit and learn here. That said, this is only for the main write ups of each section. The cards near each piece are solely in Spanish. You may wish to hire an outside guide through a reputable company such as Context Travel to make the most of your visit.

We enjoyed taking our time through some of the main exhibits on the ground floor of the museum. They have extensive artifacts from each time period in history, and we spent a lot of time in the Mayan and Aztec sections since those were the ones we were the most familiar with.

This is an exhaustive and exhausting museum. We spent about three hours here and did not even manage to view everything that was on the main floor of the museum. I would recommend taking your time here, making multiple trips here, and possibly also hiring a guide. This was our first time to this overwhelming place, and I think when we go back, we will definitely hire a guide to get the most out of the visit. Obviously, you’ll get to read all my thoughts and tips about it here!