Where locals go

Off the tourist strip

“Local” in San Miguel is layered. There are Mexican families who have always lived here, and there is the resident foreign crowd. Both mostly leave the plaza-front restaurants to visitors.

Where people actually eat

For everyday Mexican food, residents head to the neighborhood market, Mercado Ignacio Ramírez, and the food stalls around it for comida corrida, tacos and juices at a fraction of restaurant prices. The colonia of San Antonio has the cafés and casual spots locals return to rather than the polished center places. And the taco and gordita carts that appear in the evenings around the residential streets are where you eat well for very little.

Where people spend a day off

• Tuesday market (Tianguis). The big weekly open-air market on the edge of town for produce, cheap eats, clothes and household goods. This is where the town shops, not the artisan market.
• El Charco del Ingenio. Locals walk and picnic in this hillside reserve.
• The thermal springs. Weekend soaks at the hot-spring balnearios north of town are a family tradition, not just a tourist add-on.

What a friend who lives here would tell you: eat one block off the plaza and pay in pesos, and San Miguel suddenly feels like the affordable Mexican town everyone says it used to be.