Mexico
Oaxaca
December 2015 • Oaxaca is catnip for vacationers of every stripe, so visiting between Christmas and New Year's is mostly an act of self-abuse. Hotels are booked up, streets are thronged, elbow room is an intermittent luxury. So it was sweet relief to finally home in on Calle Porfirio Diaz and its vicinity. Located outside the fray yet still within the city's central district, this area has some very cool art collectives, hotels, and places to eat and drink—in numbers too small to qualify as a scene. That day will surely come, but until it does, the artists and entrepreneurs in this corner of town are doing things with a lot of heart and soul, seemingly unaware that they're about to blow up.
