Guanajuato was never supposed to be the trip.
About a year after Espoir and I moved to Austin, I wanted to surprise her for our first wedding anniversary. We had gotten married only a few months after moving there, and I started looking for somewhere beautiful and romantic that we could reach without turning a long weekend into an international logistics exercise. San Miguel de Allende kept coming up. Colorful streets, old architecture, rooftop dinners, supposedly one of the most romantic cities in the world. It seemed like a fairly safe anniversary decision.
So I booked the flights into León, found an Airbnb with an incredible view, and congratulated myself on having everything handled.
Then, as our plane was literally taking off from Austin, I opened Maps to see how far the Airbnb was from the airport. That was when I noticed a small problem: I had not booked us an Airbnb in San Miguel.
I had booked us an Airbnb in Guanajuato.
Until that moment, I barely knew what Guanajuato was. I certainly had not researched restaurants, mapped out things to do, or spent weeks building an itinerary. The wheels were already off the ground, so there was not much to do other than accept that my romantic anniversary surprise had developed a plot twist before we even left Texas.
It ended up being one of the better travel mistakes I’ve made.
Within ten minutes of arriving, I was wondering how the hell a city this beautiful had stayed so far off my radar. Guanajuato seems to pour into the surrounding hills, with houses painted pink, yellow, blue, orange, green and nearly every pastel shade you can imagine stacked above one another. Narrow alleys twist between buildings, staircases disappear around corners, church domes rise through the rooftops, and underneath much of it is an old network of tunnels that makes simply driving into town feel unusual.
We stayed at Casas Balcon, which was the Airbnb I had accidentally booked and therefore deserves at least partial credit for the entire trip. The views were ridiculous. Guanajuato is one of those cities that becomes even more impressive when you get above it because you can finally see how everything fits together, or perhaps how little of it seems like it should fit together at all. If you are looking for the exact place, they are @casasbalcon on Instagram.
The best thing to do once you arrive is also the simplest: start walking. Guanajuato rewards wandering more than planning. The historic center is compact, but the streets seem determined to prevent you from walking in a straight line. You head toward one plaza, notice an alley that looks interesting, hear music somewhere up a staircase, and twenty minutes later you have absolutely no idea where you are.
That is the point.
One stop I would absolutely make is Mercado Hidalgo. Go hungry and do not overthink it. Walk around, see what looks good, and order something. Some of the best food we had in Guanajuato was also the simplest: tacos, salsa, onion, cilantro, lime, a little heat. The kind of taco that makes you pause halfway through the first bite and smile because there is nothing particularly complicated happening and nothing needs to be.
That simplicity was something I kept noticing around the city. Guanajuato is full of history, but it does not feel sealed behind glass. In the center you come across the bright yellow Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato, a church that was already standing decades before the United States became a country. You can walk inside something centuries old, step back out a few minutes later, and immediately be surrounded by students, vendors, families and musicians filling the plaza.
The old and the alive sit right on top of each other.
That makes a difference. There are historic cities around the world that eventually start feeling more like museums than places people actually live. Guanajuato never gave me that feeling. Its history is everywhere, but so is normal life.
At some point while wandering, I found a man selling handmade chessboards and ended up buying a marble board with silver pieces from him. Carrying a marble chessboard home is, objectively, a terrible decision for anyone concerned with packing light. I bought it anyway.
Those are the souvenirs I tend to remember. I would rather bring home something slightly inconvenient with a story behind it than another object made for a gift shop. Years later, I can look at that board and remember exactly where I found it, the streets around us, and the version of myself standing there trying to justify putting several pounds of marble into my luggage.
If there is one thing I would tell anyone visiting Guanajuato not to miss, it is seeing the city from above around sunset. Monumento al Pípila gives you the classic view, but you will find plenty of elevated spots simply by walking uphill. Get there before the sun disappears and stay as the lights start coming on.
That was probably the moment the city really got me.
From above, the houses seem to keep climbing forever. Church domes poke through the layers of color, lights flicker on across the hills, and the sounds of the streets start drifting upward. Trumpets somewhere below. People talking. Music coming from a plaza. Groups moving through the streets.
I remember standing there thinking that more people should know this place exists.
Not because Guanajuato needs more attention. Part of what made me like it so much was that it did not seem particularly desperate for mine. It never felt polished into a version of itself designed entirely for visitors. There were beautiful corners everywhere, but they did not all seem built for photographs. People were just living their lives in a city that happened to be absurdly beautiful.
At night, I would resist planning too much. Walk back into the center, find somewhere to eat, follow whatever music you hear, sit in a plaza, and see where the evening goes. Guanajuato has enough street life that leaving a few hours completely unaccounted for is probably more useful than another reservation.
You also do not need a week. A few days gives you enough time to explore the center, eat through Mercado Hidalgo, wander the tunnels and alleys, step inside the churches, get above the city for sunset, and still have enough empty space to stumble onto something you did not find in a guide.
That last part matters.
Travel has become incredibly good at telling us what we are supposed to see before we arrive. We save the restaurant, the viewpoint, the hotel, the exact street where someone else took a photograph. Sometimes that information is useful. But it can also remove one of my favorite parts of travel: arriving somewhere without already knowing exactly how I am supposed to feel about it.
I had none of that with Guanajuato.
I did not arrive expecting it to be romantic, beautiful, underrated or anything else. I arrived because I screwed up an Airbnb booking and discovered the mistake somewhere above Texas.
Maybe that is why the city stuck with me.
I thought I was taking my wife to San Miguel for our anniversary.
Instead, I accidentally took her to Guanajuato.
I’d make the same mistake again.
