There are many ways to approach a move to Mexico. Some people arrive on a whim, others by accident, and some people take a carefully structured approach to the move, perhaps with years of advance planning.
How you approach a potential move to Mexico, or approach changes to your lifestyle if you’re already here, will usually depend on your personality and the evolving priorities of your life situation.
Approaches to living in Mexico
Some people may throw caution to the wind and make an impulsive move to Mexico; others might pass through the logistical mechanics of a move here without carefully considering what propelled them to do so in the first place—perhaps due to extenuating or serendipitous circumstances. Some people make a detailed plan, perhaps years in advance.
Taking a step back to reflect on what is motivating you to consider moving abroad, and Mexico in particular —and through that, defining your lifestyle intentions— will help to underpin some of the most important choices you make in relation to your move.
If you’re already living here, this exercise can serve a means to reflect upon and redefine your priorities and reorganize your situations in Mexico, if necessary.
Whether Mexico will suit you depends on a range of factors; some you might be able to foresee, and others you will not be able to grasp until you come here and begin to settle in and cultivate your new life amidst the charms and challenges that Mexico will present to you.
Familiarity helps
To have some idea about how you might cope with living in Mexico, you ought to have visited the country, probably more than once. Although there are success stories involving ‘love at first sight’ situations and impulsive decisions that led to a successful long-term residency and settlement here, don’t underestimate the effort it takes to adopt Mexico as your home country and settle-in here.
For some, the move is propelled by work situations: perhaps your company is relocating you to Mexico. If this is the case, the resources here on Mexperience will help you to get a thorough grounding in Mexican culture and prepare you for your move to Mexico.
Choosing a place to live in Mexico
If you know Mexico already, then you are likely to have a clearer impression about what location or region you might prefer to live in.
Some people are clear about the location where they want to live in Mexico through previous knowledge of being there, local connections they have, or simply a ‘gut feel.’
If Mexico is new to you, and you don’t have any friends or family here, then your approach will require more research, or your ability and willingness to experiment and adapt to new environments.
Another approach is to spend a few months or perhaps a couple of years traveling to various places in Mexico, renting homes along the way, to find a place that feels right. This approach consumes more time and resources, but can be part of an adventure, or a sabbatical period of reflection to help you consider your life situation, needs and priorities.
The ‘structured approach’ is to research potential places to live, including recommendations from friends or family if you have those connections here, make a short-list, visit the places on your short-list for a time, and afterwards decide which one to move to for the longer term.
Mexperience publishes articles that help you to consider your location in regard to your lifestyle needs, as well as a series that helps you to discover and explore specific places in Mexico for living and working or retirement.
Financial considerations
Some foreigners approach a move to Mexico as a way of simplifying their lifestyle and reducing their living expenses.
While you can live simply and affordably in Mexico, financial reasons ought not to be the primary concern propelling your decision. Mexico can be affordable and offers good value but it’s not the ‘cheap’ destination paraded by some magazines and websites.
Our detailed guides to the cost of living in Mexico help you to get in-depth insights and plan a sensible and realistic budget based on your life stage, lifestyle choices, and your own unique life situation.
Learning Spanish is important
Spanish is Mexico’s official language, and although English is widely spoken in certain places, to get the most from your lifestyle experiences in Mexico —to get full access to the culture, and to ultimately settle-in properly— you will need to learn Spanish.
If you plan to live in Mexico, regardless of your approach to the change, you ought have or develop at least a basic conversational level of Spanish, and there is no better place to learn or improve your Spanish than by being present here in Mexico.
Mexperience connects you to helpful resources for learning Spanish including our detailed PinPoint Spanish series and connections to Spanish language courses.
Further research and resources
Whether Mexico is right for you and your lifestyle, only you and your partner/family can know—and you’ll probably need to come here and live for a while to learn the answer to that question.
Through research you can begin to make informed choices and commit to or abandon certain approaches with more confidence—and Mexperience offers you wealth of local insights and knowledge as well connections to people who can help you.
- Matching your lifestyle needs with your location
- Your motivations for moving to Mexico
- Influencing factors as you choose a place to live
- Finding your place in Mexico
- Discover places to live in Mexico
- Resources for planning a lifestyle in Mexico
- Principal routes to legal residency in Mexico
- Simple living in Mexico
- Learning Spanish
- Latest articles about lifestyles in Mexico
