shoestring gringa

Method 1, the best way to decide where to go: Already be in love with a place you’ve vacationed in a hundred times, have a bunch of friends there and know your way around, line up a long term rental while on vacation, and go live there and check it out for at least six months. If you’re happy with it, you can start scouting for something to buy.

Method 2, the next best way: If you haven’t any specific place in mind, think generally what your requirements and desires would be. City or country? Beach or inland? Altitude or sea level? Tropical or temperate climate? Sophisticated or rustic? Easy or difficult of access? Many or few fellow gringos? (More will follow on these topics in separate posts.) Get some travel guides, visit the library, go to the bookstore, go online, and narrow it down to several likely possibilities. Then take a leave of absence, close up the house, and go visit them all, staying at least a month in each place, always of course remaining open to unexpected discoveries — it’s Mexico, after all.

Method 3a or 3b, the least desirable ways: Go because you’ve got some relatives there, and they can help you get started, without regard to any of the considerations named in paragraph 2. Or, go somewhere because it’s easy to get back from there to your business interests or your aging parents in the states, without regard to any of the considerations in paragraph 2.

We’ve lived in four different places in Mexico, having used the cretinous and ill-advised methods 3 twice and method 2 but once, and I cannot praise numbers 1 and 2 highly enough in the light of our experiences. No matter how expensive or impossible it seems to get away and do this much-needed research beforehand, trust me, it is going to be 1000 times more expensive, not to mention insanely stressful, to do it on the spot, with all of your worldly goods, dogs, cats, children, photo collection, or whatever, in tow. Do your homework! You’ve been warned.

Keep in mind:

Rental properties vary from slightly difficult to impossible to find in Mexico, depending on where you are. Even HOTELS can be difficult to find, more so if you have a few cats with you, say, or if you’re towing a trailer with all your crapola in it and need a safe place to park it while you sleep.

Mistakes tend to be costlier than in the states. Mexicans just don’t move around much and things are set up for the long term. We paid two $60 penalties for moving our internet service before they got rid of the obligatory contract business recently. You might have to wait weeks for phone or internet service to be installed, while your whole life goes on hold. And setting up house in a new place can take two people a good month to accomplish, full-time, without doing anything else.

Of course, if you have oodles of money (and an overdeveloped sense of adventure) then preparation doesn’t matter so much, but if you are moving “on a shoestring,” my words of wisdom for the day are: plan, plan, and plan some more. Know (something — anything — as much as you possibly can!) before you go!