When a gas-can-like decanter of mezcal started making its way around the group’s 15-passenger van, editor Tim Wenger knew it was going to be a wild night.

What followed in Etla, a small town in the hills outside Oaxaca City, started with dinner at a local family’s home and ended with a party-hopping parade that carried on until sunrise.

Oaxaca City goes all out in October, with calaveras de azúcar in shop windows and streets lined with marigolds, skeletons, and papel picado. But for the holiday itself, the best move is to get out of the city.

Here’s what it’s really like.

Pint-sized Carmel-by-the-Sea packs fairy-tale cottages, Pacific views, and seriously dog-friendly dining into one square mile, and it doesn’t even have street addresses.

Here’s what to do when you get there.

I skipped Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka for a week on Japan’s Kii Peninsula, looking for a kind of wellness that has nothing to do with cold plunges or biohacking.

Walking sections of the thousand-year-old Kumano Kodo pilgrimage, I spoke with monks in hillside temples, burned prayers in a fire ritual, and stood in the mist of the sacred Nachi Waterfall.

-Kelsey Wilking, newsletter editor

Just 90 miles south of San Diego, Baja California’s Valle de Guadalupe has gone from a handful of kitchen-table wineries to Mexico’s premier wine region, with more than 100 producers and a refreshingly rustic, anything-goes feel (no McChateaus, no stuffy tasting rooms).

This guide covers crossing the border, getting around, where to stay, and the wineries and sunset dinners worth planning your whole trip around.

It’s officially hocus-pocus season, or at least pumpkin-patch season. Whether you’re plotting a Halloween getaway or squeezing in one more fall road trip, these Airbnbs bring the spooky without the tricks.

The Matador Editorial Team

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