Living in Merida

Merida spreads outward from the Plaza Grande, and the colonial grid still runs the city: odd-numbered streets go east to west, even-numbered ones north to south. A rental in Merida Centro puts you inside that grid, a few blocks from the Catedral de San Ildefonso, which took thirty-seven years to finish in 1598. Around it sits a first ring of colonias, the city's named neighborhoods, from the early twentieth century. García Ginerés, to the northwest, was laid out over the old San Cosme estate and wraps around the four-block Parque de las Américas. Farther north, Chuburná de Hidalgo is an absorbed henequen village, from the sisal fiber boom that paid for the city's mansions, whose looping streets and dead ends locals treat as a maze.

What to consider before renting

The Anillo Periférico Manuel Berzunza marks the edge of the long-settled city, not the edge of the municipality. Well inside it, Campestre sits about five kilometers north of the Plaza Grande, next to the Club Campestre de Yucatán. Against the ring road on the northwest side, Francisco de Montejo is the largest subdivision inside the Periférico, five sections built since the mid-nineties with gated entrances, parks and Va y Ven route 71 as its bus. If a car is a given, Conkal is a separate municipality northeast of the city where renting costs less than in Merida.