Mexico Wrap Up

We’ve wrapped up our first country and our first three months of slow travel in Mexico. So what did we think? Could we live in Mexico long term? We’ve developed some rating categories as we experience different cities and countries. Here are our thoughts on Mexico.

Cost - 5/10

I’d say our budget is middle of the road when you compare us to other full time travelers. We’re not luxury travellers, and we’re not budget travelers. We have a budget which includes normal monthly expenses like lodging, food, entertainment, miscelaneous shopping, and transportation. It also includes annual and recurring expenses like our health insurance, cell phone plans, Netflix, etc. We’ve got budgets for each of those categories. Some we try to stay within each month, like entertainment, eating out and groceries. Other expenses like rent we know may vary from location to location. Some months we’ll have cheaper rent, other months we’ll have higher. Keep in mind that rent typically means Airbnb, so that includes all utility costs.

So how did we do in Mexico? Rent was definitely higher in Mexico than we’ll spend in other locations this year. Over the three months, we were over budget for rent. Granted, that did include about 14 days when we were in “vacation mode” between San Pancho and when the kids came to stay over Christmas. But I’d definitely say that Mexico was not a “budget” location for lodging! For groceries, eating out, and entertainment, we were under budget. For us, entertainment includes the idea of taking day trips to explore neighboring towns and areas. With no public transportation (more about that later!) our entertainment was limited to a few tours and our tequila tasting. Groceries, particularly produce was relatively inexpensive. Eating out could be very cheap if you wanted to eat street tacos every day, but in order to get our daily fix of fruits and vegetables (and Pacifico!) we had to spend more.

For the quality of life, the cost definitely wasn’t worth it for us.

Weather - 10/10

Well, the weather was pretty much perfect. November was slightly warmer with highs around 90 and humidity around 80%. But December, January, and February were near perfect, with lows around 65, highs around 80, and humidity around 50%. We had one day of rain in three months! Not much else to say…the weather is perfection in the winter!

Walkability - 6/10

We’re a little split here. Walking in Sayulita was a bust. We would give It a 2/10. Very few sidewalks, and where they had them, they were very uneven, narrow, and full of stairs. Puerto Vallarta was much better with the Malecon, so we’d give that an 7/10. The biggest downside, even in Puerto Vallarta was a lack of variety! We could walk the Malecon up and down the bay, but it was only about 2 miles in total.

In our final airbnb, we had to cross this swinging bridge to get into the old town to buy groceries. Not my favorite!

Entertainment - 6/10

When you’re in a beach city, the entertainment is the beach. For us, we’ve learned that isn’t our favorite way to pass the day. We went to the beach a few times, but found it crowded and so full of vendors we had little time to actually enjoy the waves. This time of the year, the water in Puerto Vallarta was a bit chilly too! We did a few tours: the Botanical Gardens in Puerto Vallarta, a guided hike in Sayulita, a chocolate class in Puerto Vallarta, and a tequila tasting in Puerto Vallarta. Those were entertaining, but not something we’d ever repeat if we were to live there.

Food - 4/10

Its ironic that when we were in London, the thing we missed most from the US was tacos, salsa, and pepperjack cheese. In Mexico, we missed any kind of food other than tacos! Too much of a good thing maybe? In both Puerto Vallarta and Sayulita we were able to find decent pizza. No Minsky’s (IYKYK) but decent pizza. But other than Italian and Mexican, there weren’t many other cuisines available. Groceries were very hard for us. Without a car, it was very hard to access the large super markets and we had to make do with the local tiendas or the “gringo” stores full of imported (aka: expensive) American brands. There was no in between available to us. This made cooking pretty hard, other than breakfasts.

Language/Communication - 9/10

Because Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta are big tourist and expat destinations, language really wasn’t an issue. We did our best to speak as much Spanish as possible in restaurants….and we surely mispronounced everything because the locals always replied to us in English! I’m sure getting healthcare or anything dealing with the government would require Spanish. But as a short term tourist, we had no issues with communication!

Time Zones - 10/10

Technically all of Mexico is on Mountain Time, but they don’t follow Daylight Savings time, so it was effectively Central Time the entire time we were there. That made it super easy for us to work!

Culture/Acceptance of Expats - 10/10

Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta are major expat destinations in Mexico for both Canadians and Americans. I’d say at times it appeared that 50% of the people we saw on the streets at any given time were “gringos”. In many of the sit down restaurants we went to that would go up to 80-90%. There are certainly parts of town that would be more local, but we were mostly in the tourist areas in both cities. We felt it to be a very symbiotic relationship between the expats and tourists and the locals. The local economy is driven by tourists and expats. And the expats are there for the weather! We found the locals to be very kind, very welcoming and very friendly. Both cities are going through a building boom, so it appears that even more tourists are on the way.

Complexity - 5/10

This is our measurement of how “hard” it would be to live somewhere. For Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta there are a few factors that brought the score down for us. One was the hills. In three of our four airbnbs, we had to walk up major hills or 12 flights of stairs to get to our apartment. That limited how much we went out! We honestly didn’t leave and come back more than 2 times in a day because it was pretty tiring to get anywhere! But I would certainly never have a car in any of the neighborhoods we lived in. You could certainly benefit from having a car to get to the big supermarkets/Walmart/Costco for shopping. But driving on the narrow streets and hills made of cobblestone would not be for the faint of heart! There is a bus system in Puerto Vallarta, but we didn’t take the time to figure it out, and it wouldn’t have saved us from our hills! Beyond transportation, the infrastructure was a major downside for us. In every place we stayed we had power outages. Some lasted 3 hours, some lasted 12 hours, which meant we lost all our refrigerated food. Not being able to depend on electricity and wifi was a major downside for us in Mexico.

Safety - 9/10

Specifically in Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta, we felt very safe. There are very low crime rates there. From what we’ve read, the state and police know that the tourism brings in a lot of money, and are focused on keeping crime (and the cartels) out of the area. We never once felt unsafe walking the streets at night. I went out by myself a few times and never had any worries at all. Mexico City was a different story for us. We were much more on guard there. The size and chaos of the city is a lot to handle, and we felt a bit more on edge.

Vibe - 4/10

Mexico completely runs on vibes. Our daily joke was laughing at the cathedral bells, which sometimes rang on the hour, sometimes rang 3 minutes before the hour, and sometimes rang 7 minutes after the hour. That summed up Mexico perfectly to us. It is loud, it is bright, it is unpredictable, it is chaos. The trash is piled up on the street daily. When the trash truck comes, they ring a cowbell non stop. There is a guy driving around selling natural gas (it doesn’t come piped into the houses) that has advertisements blaring from a loud speaker. There are roosters, crowing all day long. There are electrical wires hanging down in the middle of the road. There are cats and dogs running the streets. There are people selling you things non stop. We did love the color and the sun. But for us, Mexico really made us realize that we like a bit more quiet and order.

And the results are….

Mexico just isn’t our vibe. On to Europe!