After more than four months of deliberation, Mexico News Daily has compiled an exhaustive list of expat living destinations across the country in the Where to Live in Mexico 2024 Guide. We’ve quite literally scaled the country, from river deep to mountain high to find and assess the best expat areas in the country.
Of course, some places have fared better than others. Our Where to Live in Mexico Guide has always been designed to appeal to the broadest range of people — so if you love the wilderness, you might find that the places you prefer have scored low.
But enough preamble, you’re surely keen to find out the winners and losers in our inaugural list. First up, the bottom three:
San Felipe, Baja California (2.17)
Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of things to like about San Felipe — although it didn’t receive much coverage in our Baja California guide. The town offers all the tourist comforts you would generally look for, and even boasts the Baja 500 road race as a jewel of the annual calendar.
The tradeoff of living here is that San Felipe is further away from all the home comforts found in the rest of the state. This also, critically, includes access to flights, with the San Felipe International Airport only serving those who can afford to charter their own aircraft. Instead, travelers will need to journey to Mexicali or Tijuana — two and a half hours and four and a half hours away, respectively — in order to catch a flight home.
The climate is also much hotter and more oppressive than other parts of the state, which may be perfect for snowbirds looking to escape the frozen north, but can present serious challenges during the summer months.
Manzanillo, Colima (2.17)
Once upon a time, Manzanillo was a destination in its own right. Those days, sadly, are long gone, though the comment section of our Mid-Pacific Trio guide certainly rode out in defense of the port city.
While commenters touted a low cost of living and great beaches, potential residents should be aware that Manzanillo offers poor connectivity with the rest of Mexico (and the world), with a handful of seasonal flights to Canada and the United States. With Aeroméxico launching regular flights to Atlanta and Los Angeles later this year, however, this may soon change.
Manzanillo also boasts a local arts scene, with music and events from around Colima, but it lacks the pull of bigger, grander destinations. Anyone in search of meaningful cultural experiences and events will be forced to travel elsewhere — either by taking a flight to Mexico City or a four-hour drive to Guadalajara.
Loreto, Baja California Sur (2.00)
Baja California Sur saw high scores for life in Los Cabos — which rated a very respectable 4.0 on our scale. Many locations throughout the rest of the state, however, suffer (or perhaps benefit, depending on your point of view) from the splendid isolation of the peninsula.
This is especially true of beautiful Loreto. Here, you will find yourself in a pleasant mission town with a modest marina, a golf course and wilderness as far as the eye can see. It’s a great place to come and enjoy the great outdoors.
That’s where the benefits end though. So, if you’re not into fitness, Loreto’s remoteness is perhaps not such a good thing. Access to the wider world is limited — which can be a problem for expats when it comes to healthcare, travel or even just finding some home comforts in your new environment.
And now, the moment that you’ve all been waiting for. The three best cities for expats in Mexico for 2024:
Mexico City (4.33)
It should come as no surprise that one of the most-loved cities in the world scores so highly in our list. Whatever you want, Mexico City has it in spades. Culture, art, history, music, food — especially food — are all present in seemingly endless amounts.
Of course, its traffic, dizzying altitude and ever-present smog are negatives, but if you can get past these, there is truly nowhere else in the country — or perhaps even the world — quite like Mexico City.
An important caveat is that this ranking does not include the modern business suburb of Santa Fe, which suffers from traffic bottlenecks between the ultra-modern hillside district and the city proper.
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato (4.50)
SMA doesn’t keep being voted the “Best Small City in the World” for nothing, you know.
There actually isn’t much to say about San Miguel that hasn’t been said before — in fact, one commenter asked when we planned to change our name to “San Miguel News Daily!” — but the Guanajuato city receives a glut of coverage for very good reason.
As much as cities like Playa del Carmen or Puerto Vallarta are accused of being “Little America” in Mexico, San Miguel de Allende truly is that — but in all the best ways. It’s the perfect fusion between unapologetic “Mexicaninity” and a truly U.S. standard of living, with everything that entails. Enjoy a world-class meal, take in some authentic local culture and then retire to a house with all the modern conveniences you could want. This is the essence of San Miguel life in a nutshell. For comfort, connections, healthcare and a feeling of really being part of Mexico, it’s hard to see where expats could do better.
Guadalajara, Jalisco (4.50)
Tapatíos, rejoice. Our half-term rankings saw this giant of Mexican culture come out on top, and the final report is no different. Guadalajara likes to think of itself as the birthplace of Mexican culture, and in many ways, it is.
A great way to think about life in Guadalajara is that it is a lot like Mexico City without the negatives. Traffic can still be heavy, but the flat and comparatively non-seismic nature of the city means that getting around by public transport is much easier. Gone too are problems with altitude, though the city is still high-up enough to avoid the excessive heat of the Jalisco summer.
An excellently connected international airport and modern highway network mean that leaving town — whether for the pleasant shores of Lake Chapala, the Riviera Nayarit or a flight back home — is painless compared to most of Mexico.
Whether you’re in Guadalajara for work or play, this is a city that has everything — and it’s rightfully crowned our inaugural “Best City for Mexico Living 2024.”
A full breakdown of our rating system can be found here.
Do you disagree with any of our rankings? Want to see somewhere else covered in our Where to Live in Mexico 2024 Guide? Let us know!
You can see more of our Where to Live in Mexico 2024 series here, including ratings for Yucatán, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, the Baja California peninsula, Jalisco, Mexico City, a Pacific trio of beachside cities and major Bajío and Southern metropolitan areas.
Chris Havler-Barrett is the Features Editor at Mexico News Daily
Totally rigged worse than NFL referees 😁
Thanks was fun to watch! Keep up the great reporting
All the grumpy old anglos with there walking poles was enough to convince me San Miguel wasn’t a place to settle in.
I think I’ve seen walking poles twice in ten years and those were hikers. Only the fit live there given the precarious sidewalks and cobblestone streets. You’ll need another reason to hate in SMA.
I’m 61 and a gringo. Some spanish but not enough to speak and understand at local speeds. I’m both boomer and genX. There are two mexicos for gringos. Old slow moving and younger faster moving. One is more focused on culture and comfort. The other more adventure and bohemian lifestyle. The articles were great for for both but definitely felt more boomer. Boomer – SMD, GenX – Guanajuato….Thank you for your effort. I learned a lot.
Good Morning Greg.. I liked your series of articles, the information and opinion was, in my opinion, fairly correct. My comment / question has to do with the places you didn’t review.. Puerto Penasco, San Carlos / Guaymas and Chihuahua, Chi. Was there a specific reason why these places weren’t reviewed or mentioned ?
People with a bunch of money and people without.
Thanks so much for seeing that the secret remains intact for Manzanillo. Don’t come here. SHHHH.
I have lived in mexico for five years… this article reads like something from fodors circa 2003… very lazy reporting!!
You’re supposed to click on the links and go read the other articles that are more fleshed out.
Also Fodors writers in 2003 got paid a load of money to write destination guides compared to what anyone earns for that now in 2024, let alone journalists and writers for a very niche online newspaper with a very limited staff and budget.
This is also the first edition. This will allow them to update and expand it every year, with the groundwork already done.
I’m not here to tell you that it’s good, but I am here to tell you that for the tiny sums of money involved to produce this content, it’s fine.
I’ve traveled all over Mexico many times mostly away from the more touristed cities. I have 4 favorite cities that I would enjoy living in 1: Tepoztlan (except on weekends when the chilangos descend on it) 2: Orizaba, probably my favorite 3: Xalapa. 4: Zacatecas. There are lots of other towns that I really like though. I have tried to visit as many Pueblos Magicos as I can and I now have been to well over 60 as I lost track. It’s a great way to see all types of different pueblo’s and diverse parts of the country. Most of them deserve it but some should never have been selected for the list but it’s an adventure to locate and visit each one. I would love to see articles on each one of them. Thanks for the great articles I really enjoyed them. Mexico is one of my favorite countries to visit and I love the Mexican people and their country.
You’ve probably seen enough pueblos magicos. Once they started the 2nd round, they started awarding it to impoverished areas they were hoping to improve with tourism, it bore no relation to any kind of magic. The 3rd round was a joke and completely undercut the success and integrity of the Pueblo Magico the 1st time around. Now people are going to go to one of the disappointing places and stop trying after that, so they’ve managed to ruin it for everyone.
Big cities like Mexico and Guadalajara are fine to visit but, unless you like city life will avoid them like the plague. I like a lot of the small towns in the interior but they can get pretty chilly in winter. Lots of small coastal towns within an hour or two of larger centers (Costco and major shopping) that are quite livable. You may have to escape to the interior or US or Canada in the summer to reduce the time in the heat and humidity.
Expats: Veracruz is not for you. Please keep out.
Please start looking at Puebla Mexico for some true arts and history as well as amazing food options.
Hi Brock,
We did cover Puebla in an earlier article in this series – alongside dozens of other great Mexican destinations. Please feel free to check out the rest of our Where to Live in Mexico Guide for deeper analysis of the pros and cons of expat living across the country!
This guide is a great service for those living here and those weighing a move to Mexico. However, you’re not considering an environmental factor (at least one) that impacts everyone of us (being the electrical beings that we are), and that is the level of EM Radiation in many of these cities. That is the density of cell towers and cell phone population connecting to them. If you live in an adobe structure or heavy cement building the Radio Frequencies are probably blocked, but what’s the situation outdoors? About 36% of the population is suffering health effects (headaches, sleep disorder, etc) from this pollutant we can’t see, hear, or smell. I’m lucky to have found a small, beautiful city in the mountains that has minimal ambient EMR–and I use an ethernet cord behind 30″ adobe walls. If they roll out 5G in Mexico every single one of us will be suffering–the children (and pets) first!
Great article. My wife and I have taken multiple trips to different parts of Mexico over the years. We are finally retired and looking forward to spending our winter in Mexico (first of many more, I hope). Lots of helpful information in this series. We will be RVing down the pacific coast this time and looking forward to some of the many beautiful places Mexico has to offer.