MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL IN Mexico

Riding the Transpeninsular Highway by motorcycle, from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, is the trip any North American motorcycle traveler has checked off before heading further south into Latin America — 1,711 km of a single highway, inaugurated in 1973 as the Carretera Transpeninsular Benito Juárez, with an eagle monument at the 28th parallel marking the exact midpoint of the ride, between Baja California and Baja California Sur.

It is a route of abrupt transitions: you leave one of the busiest border crossings in the world, cross the Valle de Guadalupe (Mexico's most important wine region), enter the Vizcaíno Desert — a UNESCO biosphere reserve and gray whale sanctuary at Guerrero Negro — and end up in the tropics of Los Cabos.

Along the way sit the old 18th-century Jesuit missions, including Loreto, the first mission ever founded in the Californias. The highway remains narrow and shoulderless for nearly its entire length: it is not an interstate, it is a road that demands respect.

Riding the Espinazo del Diablo by motorcycle is, according to several motorcycle-specific blogs, the best road in North America: hundreds of documented curves packed into just 74 km of the old Federal Highway 40, with a viewpoint at 2,440 masl at kilometer 168 and the mountain crest at 2,744 masl, crossing the Sierra Madre Occidental between Durango and Mazatlán.

The weather up there is as changeable as the road itself: frequent fog and seasonal ice at the highest points are, according to several rider accounts, the main reason this road had a dangerous reputation for decades among heavy truck traffic.

In 2013, the 40D toll highway opened, a parallel route with 115 bridges and 61 tunnels — including the Baluarte Bridge, which was the highest cable-stayed bridge in the world at the time of its inauguration — which diverted freight trucks away. Since then, the old free road has been left almost exclusively to motorcyclists and curious travelers, quieter and more enjoyable than ever.

The surroundings add a lesser-known draw: the range holds a unique cloud forest with over 200 bird species, including the historic habitat of the imperial woodpecker, now believed extinct.

Descending from Creel to Batopilas by motorcycle means dropping almost 1,750 meters through one of the planet's most impressive canyon systems: Copper Canyon covers 65,000 km², four times the size of Arizona's Grand Canyon, and its deepest canyon, Urique, plunges to 1,879 meters — nearly 300 meters deeper than the Grand Canyon's lowest point.

The road drops from Creel (2,350 masl) down to Batopilas (600 masl), a former silver-mining town founded in the 17th century, crossing Rarámuri (Tarahumara) territory, an indigenous people of about 70,000 known worldwide for their physical endurance and traditional barefoot long-distance races.

This is dual-sport terrain, not paved touring: the final descent mixes tight dirt curves with river fords that, according to accounts from travelers who have ridden the area, can rise without warning during the rainy season and force riders to turn back.

Riding Highway 175 by motorcycle, down from Oaxaca's Sierra Norte to the Pacific, is one of the Mexican routes most cited outside the strictly motorcycle-focused circuit: National Geographic devoted an entire article to riding the Oaxacan coast on two wheels, describing it as the best way to experience the region.

Halfway down sits San José del Pacífico, a cloud-forest town at nearly 2,440 masl, known since the 1960s as a pilgrimage stop for the region's psilocybin mushrooms and today famous among motorcycle travelers for its lookouts above the clouds.

In just over 150 km the highway drops from cold sierra to the tropical coast at Pochutla, Mazunte, and Puerto Ángel, one of the sharpest climate-zone shifts of any route on this Top 10.

Oaxaca is also one of the few Mexican states where you can cross from the Gulf to the Pacific in a single corridor of over 500 km of continuous curves, following the 175 all the way from Tuxtepec down to the coast.

Climbing from Bernal to Pinal de Amoles by motorcycle means leaving behind the Peña de Bernal — one of the tallest monoliths in the world, according to the town's own tourism promotion — to enter the tight curves of Querétaro's Sierra Gorda, cresting at the so-called Puerta del Cielo (Gate of Heaven), a narrow pass where the road seems to float above the valley.

The Sierra Gorda is Querétaro's largest biosphere reserve, declared in 1997, spanning 383,567 hectares from 300 masl in the Río Santa María canyon up to 3,100 masl at Cerro de la Pingüica — since 2001 it has been part of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere network, considered the most ecodiverse reserve in Mexico.

Five Franciscan missions survive in the area, built between 1750 and 1760 under the direction of Friar Junípero Serra, the same missionary who would later found the California missions — their architecture, a Mestizo Baroque blending Indigenous and European motifs, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

Riding between Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende by motorcycle means crossing the colonial mining heart of Mexico through two World Heritage cities separated by just 95 km of gentle curves through the hills.

Guanajuato, founded in 1548 as a Real de Minas, hides its most distinctive feature underground: a tunnel network built in response to the catastrophic floods of 1760 and 1780, converted in the 1960s from the old riverbed into the underground street system cars and motorcycles use today. The La Valenciana mine once produced two-thirds of the world's silver at its peak.

San Miguel de Allende, founded in 1542, keeps an almost intact colonial layout of cobblestone streets, with the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel — its pink neo-Gothic facade dates to the 1880s — as the town's obligatory postcard shot, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Halfway between the two sits Dolores Hidalgo, birthplace of the 1810 Cry of Independence, the point that historically links the two colonial cities.

Riding the Huasteca Potosina by motorcycle means moving between jungle and turquoise rivers through one of Mexico's most photographed regions, deep in the Sierra Madre Oriental.

The most sought-after spot is the Tamul Waterfall, with a 105-meter drop — the tallest in the state — formed at the confluence of the Gallinas and Tampaón rivers; part of the access is by boat from the town of Tanchachín.

A short distance away is Xilitla, hidden in the jungle, where the eccentric Brit Edward James built Las Pozas starting in the 1940s and 60s, a surrealist concrete sculpture garden woven through natural waterfalls, today one of the most singular sites in the entire country.

The range's karst limestone terrain explains the region's abundance of waterfalls and pools: water filters through the rock and resurfaces, forming dozens of turquoise falls along the entire route.

Riding the Monarch Butterfly Route by motorcycle, between Morelia, Pátzcuaro, and Angangueo, means following one of the longest migratory phenomena on the planet up close: the monarch butterfly travels thousands of kilometers from Canada and the United States, and up to four full generations of butterflies are born and die along the way before arriving.

The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, spanning 56,259 hectares and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, reaches 2,700 masl in its oyamel fir forests, near Angangueo and Ocampo.

Along the way sits Pátzcuaro, on the shore of the lake of the same name, the heart of Purépecha culture and home to one of Mexico's best-known Day of the Dead celebrations, on Janitzio Island.

The entire state of Michoacán is under a Level 4 ('Do Not Travel') advisory from the US State Department, with no official zone-by-zone exception — but this tourist corridor between Morelia, Pátzcuaro, and the sanctuary is the one that draws the few motorcycle travelers and agencies who still visit the region, with the standing advice being to avoid detouring south of it, toward the Tierra Caliente.

Riding the Puuc Route by motorcycle, from Mérida to the Maya cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná, means crossing the low jungle of the Yucatán on a straight, flat road, very different from the rest of the mountain routes on this Top 10.

Uxmal, 62 km south of Mérida, was first built around the year 700 and abandoned in the 13th century; it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and its Pyramid of the Magician is unusual among Maya structures for its oval footprint, instead of the more common rectangular base.

The rest of the Puuc Route connects Kabah, Sayil, and Labná, cities far less visited than Chichén Itzá, without the tour-bus traffic — nearby are also the Calcehtok caves, historically used as a Maya refuge during the Caste War.

Unlike the rest of the Top 10, this is a rest-day route: flat, short, and ideal for anyone continuing south toward Chetumal to cross into Belize.

Climbing the Paso de Cortés by motorcycle, between Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, is the most classic weekend getaway for any motorcycle traveler starting out from Mexico City, just 90 km from the capital.

The pass, at between 3,600 and 3,800 masl, is named after Hernán Cortés, who crossed it in 1519 after the Battle of Cholula, on his advance toward Tenochtitlan to confront the Mexica — one of the few motorcycle routes in Mexico with such a direct, ancient, and well-documented historical reference.

The two volcanoes framing the pass are the subject of one of the country's best-known legends, that of the warrior Popocatépetl and the sleeping princess Iztaccíhuatl, though today Popocatépetl mostly makes news for its actual activity: it remains active and closely monitored, something anyone riding up there notices in the sulfur smell in the air.

Most riders combine the climb with a crossing toward Puebla or Cholula on the other side of the range, linking the capital, the volcanoes, and the Puebla Bajío in a single day.