Mexico City

Tree-lined streets with the densest concentration of restaurants, cafés, galleries and bars in the city, and enough hotel supply to choose from. Days need almost no planning here — the walk itself is the activity. It is also the busiest of the central districts, and the streets around the main corridors are noisy late. Choose it if you want to be inside the food scene; choose Condesa or Polanco if you want to sleep in quiet.

Immediately south-west of Roma and materially calmer: art-deco blocks arranged around two large parks, more residential, more shaded. The dining is good but thinner and more neighbourhood-scaled than Roma's, and nightlife is limited to bars rather than a scene. The best choice for longer stays or anyone who wants a walkable base without the volume.

The luxury retail and high-end dining district beside Chapultepec, with the most consistent international hotel standards in the city and the shortest walk to the anthropology museum. Broad avenues and corporate blocks make it feel less characterful than Roma or Condesa, and evenings are quieter and more formal. Right for travellers who want space, service and reliability; wrong for anyone whose trip is about wandering into small places.

Between Reforma and Roma, and the most centrally connected of the four — walkable to Chapultepec one way and Centro the other, well served by transport. It carries much of the city's cocktail and mezcal-bar life, including the Zona Rosa's late-night stretch, which is either the reason to stay or the reason not to. Less uniformly pretty than Roma or Condesa; more useful.

The Zócalo, Templo Mayor and Bellas Artes; spectacular by day, and much quieter and emptier at night than the western districts.

Colonial villages absorbed by the city — cobbles, plazas, the Frida Kahlo house. A long way from the centre in traffic terms.