From a foreigner’s perspective, Mexico used to be pretty straightforward when it came to looking for a place to live.
Most expats generally came to live in Mexico at or near retirement age, and tended to cluster in beach locations like Puerto Vallarta, Playa del Carmen and Los Cabos or inland locations like Ajijic or San Miguel de Allende.
But things are changing — and quickly. Digital nomads are moving to cities, beach locations, and colonial towns. Younger families are making the move to locations throughout the country. More and more people are retiring early and many others are looking for a second home. The number of retired baby boomers increases every day, and it seems like an increasing number of people from all over the world are more adventurous, curious, and willing to try something new at an earlier age than previous generations.
Mexico draws in more Canadian and U.S. residents to live than any other country. It is estimated that over 400,000 Canadian citizens and over 1.6 million U.S. citizens now live in Mexico — and that number only keeps increasing daily.
Places once relatively unheard of for many foreigners are now becoming hotspots for them to live. Querétaro, San Pancho, Mazunte, Oaxaca City, Mérida, Bacalar, Holbox, Guanajuato, Mexico City, Todos Santos, La Paz, Tulum — the list of places being discovered by foreigners just keeps growing.
Which begs the question, with so many options now increasingly accessible and available, how does one even begin to figure out which location makes sense for you? How do you even begin to narrow the list down?
You might not be like your friend that chose Veracruz. You might have loved that beach location that your cruise ship stopped at for 12 hours, but is that really where you want to live? You might have loved that inland city you visited on a work trip, but is that really where you want to live? You might have read a lot about Mexico’s magical colonial towns, but can you really live without a Costco nearby? This whole process is made even more difficult when most people say that they love the location that they have chosen.
Mexico News Daily is very excited to be bringing you a series that will help you more effectively evaluate and rate Mexico’s top places for expat living.
Starting tomorrow, we will have the first in a series of 15+ articles to help you make sense of the many options available. Every Sunday for four months we will do a deep dive, exploring 32 expat-friendly cities across 13 Mexican states. We will rate the cities across key variables such as climate, connectivity, culture, availability of a Costco and more.
No doubt we will rankle many of you with this series. You may disagree with our criteria, you may disagree with our ratings, you may disagree with the cities we selected or didn’t select.
And that’s good! The objective is to get a healthy discussion and debate going.
So take it with a grain of salt, have some fun with it, tell us what we got right and help us understand why you think we got certain things wrong. The idea is to help you better understand and evaluate the different options. And if you already moved to Mexico and didn’t get it right the first time, that’s OK too. We increasingly come across expats who have moved or are thinking of moving from one location to another within Mexico. This guide will help you with that as well.
Perhaps most importantly, have some fun with this and let’s all use it as a chance to help educate, inform and learn from each other.
So buckle up, and get ready for the first article of the series tomorrow and follow the series each Sunday as we explore this diverse country.
Please send us your comments and feedback — while keeping the debate civil and respectful, of course!
Travis Bembenek is the CEO of Mexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for over 27 years.
