Best Places for Expats in Mexico 2025

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Online Business Tips to Working and Traveling In Mexico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zGH0voCyOc&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_IA6s3KvB_g9Cc9Ze1eji8j&index=2

Moving to Mexico: 10 Reasons Why We Chose to Live in Guadalajara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK23vD8_xjc&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_LAY7UV78YMgms-f2e1UcwN&index=23

Tips for Moving Overseas: Top 5 Remote Work Skills That Make Money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzjCrlNAL8&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_IA6s3KvB_g9Cc9Ze1eji8j


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Transcript

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In this video, we're gonna be talking about the different categories of places that expats will typically come to live in Mexico. Welcome to Entrepreneur Expat. I'm Amanda, and this is Justin. And on this channel we talk all about making money online, doing international business, real estate opportunities. All over the world. We also talk about business opportunities in different countries, and lately, because we're spending most of our time in Mexico, then you're also going to find a lot of videos about Mexico and moving to this wonderful country. So if that's something that you're interested in, make sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single video that we have coming out on this. Channel. And also make sure to give this video alike because we have a mission of getting in front of 1 million entrepreneur expats or aspiring entrepreneur expats. And you can help us do that by giving this video alike. Now, if you listen to this whole video and you're like, dang, that sounds like it's for me, we can actually help you relocate to Mexico with our white glove relocation services. Now, in this video, we're gonna be talking about all the different places. Where expats are, and you may decide, okay, I know enough about that place and I wanna move to that place. Or you might be in the camp of, let me go do a vibe check. Let me go figure out whether or not these places are good for me. We can help you either way, because we have relocation, tour experts all over the country that we partner with that we can refer you to. So the first place to get started is to book a Move to Mexico, consult Below so we can determine what your specific needs are and make a game plan. So the first category of places that people decide to live in Mexico is the big cities. So Amanda and I currently are living in Guadalajara, and Guadalajara is the second biggest metropolitan area in Mexico right after the Mexico City area. And there's a lot of benefits of being in a city. And of course there's cer certain drawbacks as well. So it really depends on your personality, but some of the things that we love about being here. Is number one, convenience. No matter where you are in Guadalajara, you can order a rappi at pretty much any time, day or night and get tacos delivered. You could get pizza delivered McDonald's if you're into that. Although I don't recommend eating McDonald's in Mexico because like why? Why? Um, but you can get just about anything delivered. Food, uh, groceries, any kind of medicines or, or creams or whatever you need from the pharmacy, even pet products. Whatever you need, you can get it. Typically in as little as 15 to 20 minutes if you order on Wrappy or Uber Eats or a similar platform like that. And of course on the delivery front, you also have Amazon Prime. They even have same day delivery on a bunch of items on Amazon, Mexico. So super. Uh, convenient in a lot of ways. They also have really good infrastructure for internet, good public transportation in the big cities, uh, big expat communities. If you're into the business world, you're probably gonna find that more in the bigger cities than some of the other areas that we're going to mention very well connected airports. So really to your point, it really is that convenience thing where one that a lot of people don't think about in terms of convenience is especially the first year, year and a half, two years. That you are in Mexico, you're gonna be going to the immigration office. A few times, and if you're in the cities, then you can more easily access them. Whereas if you are in a smaller town or a smaller city, you're probably looking at a much longer drive just to get to and from. Uh, things like immigration offices, I've seen people say, oh, it takes me an hour to get there. But they're usually in one of the smaller cities or smaller towns. Exactly. And we touched on infrastructure a little bit, but infrastructure, especially in terms of internet is really night and day between like a city and a small town. Uh, we, we know some small towns on the beach like cta. Have internet, and in some cases it's even fiber optic, but the level of quality is not the same. It doesn't even come close. Now, even if you do live in an area like that, you can still get things like starlink, but you're not gonna have the availability of those T terrestrial internet plans to the same extent as you will in a city. You might still be able to get decent internet, but you won't have as much competition, probably won't have as much velocity and you'll likely experience. A lot more downtime. Um, just because we work online so much. We have two internets and they either one of them very rarely ever goes down anyway, but if there's an outage that's 20 minutes in the middle of the day, every few weeks, I'd rather not have it. I affect my calls and video uploads and things like that. Now the cons to living in a city, because this is worth mentioning, uh, pollution, particularly in Mexico City is where it gets really bad sometimes. Here in Gu Guadalajara. This particular pollution allergy season, I think is worse than last year's was, although I was also told that, uh. The first year that you're here, you don't really feel it.'cause your body's still kind of running on adrenaline as you're handling things and getting used to things. And then the second year is when it gets you, and then the third year you feel better. I'll let you guys know on the third year, uh, how I feel. But that's definitely one of the downsides, uh, to the big cities and that's kind of big cities anywhere, uh, is you are. Subject to more pollution things. So if you have some health concerns in regards to that, then probably not the best place for you. And then of course, uh, chaos. Now I don't think Gule hot is that chaotic. Mexico City, on the other hand, does have a little bit of a chaotic energy to it. Uh, sometimes it's a city of 22 million people in Mexico City. So if you don't like people, don't move to Mexico City. Or any city for that. Pretty much. Yeah. And uh, another thing that we'll mention is definitely the traffic as well. So I have a car here. We, we typically don't drive much though just because there's so much traffic. It's stressful. There's people honking at you and they say that Mexicans are some of the nicest people in the world until they get behind the wheel and you see them on the highway. So we don't love driving. There's a lot of traffic. If you don't like traffic and. And, um, pollution and all that, you know, that that's probably a, a con for the city as well. But of course you can also get to things a lot quicker in a city that than you can in a town. It's just probably gonna be a little bit, uh, more adventurous of a drive, you know, with people weaving in and out and honking, all that. So let's move on to the next category of places, and that is the beaches. Now, when Amanda was actually on her way down here, I thought for sure I was gonna leave Guadalajara and go live. On the beach, like in Porto, Escondido, in Oaxaca or in some other beach town, because I thought that I just, maybe I was over romanticizing that idea of just living in a nice quaint Mexican beach town. Um, you wanted the hippie life. I wanted the hippie life. And uh, when she came down here and we actually went to tour some. Uh, some of the Mexican beach towns, at least in Jalisco and close by near, you know, near-ish to Guadalajara, I realized I am a little too bougie for, for that. Um, so we can start with some of the cons, uh, especially that we realized of those beach towns, which is number one, you don't have the same level I would say. Of quality in terms of the service, depending on where you are. Oh, definitely. In terms of things like, like reliable people, let's say contractors, what are, what are some of the other things. That make them a little bit less bougie venue? I think it depends, right? Because there's like, uh, places like, uh, a Porto or play Garmin, which arguably those are cities, not beach towns, but they're on the beach, so we're gonna add them to this category. Or Cabo where there, or Busia where there's a lot more expats. Then there's like the smaller places I would consider Edia to be a smaller place. It's almost like a little. Baby Vallarta kind of is what's going on in Busia. So, you know, there's like a difference between like Busia, which is a smaller beach town full of expats versus, you know, Lanita for example. Like the massive difference in terms of what you're going to experience and. It just kind of depends on what you're looking for, because places like Busia are probably, you know, for those of you who are investors, those are probably gonna be a lot more pricier. But then if you go, how far was Losa and La Penta and all those places? Mm-hmm. From Busia, like an hour, if you go an hour and you go to more of the Mexican beach towns and it's, it's definitely a lot more rugged. Let's put it that way. Yeah. It's more rugged and you can check out our video when we were checking out Riviera and uh, but you could probably find some golden opportunities there if you're, because you're getting in early, basically. Um, but to your point, you know, there will be issues when it comes to infrastructure. There will be issues when it comes to service. I think in general, the cities are just more. And people tend to be more on point here as well. I mean, yes, you, you deal with the manana energy a lot, even in the big city. But if I need to find someone to fix my fridge the same day in Guadalajara, usually I can get it done. If you're in a, in a smaller town, especially a beach town where the. The attitude is a lot more like, like they say in, in Costa Rica, URA, uh, URA Vida. Right. Then you may not find people to, to help you get things done as quickly as you can perhaps in the city. So it's a slower pace for sure. Which can also be a pro, depending on your, your personality, right? Yeah. Now, the beach cities like Puerto Vallarta. And Blythe Garmin, different story. There is a lot more infrastructure. I went to Puerto Valda and I've seen Blythe, Garmin. I'm like, this isn't that different from Miami in a lot of ways. Uh, so obviously those places have a lot more infrastructure. They do have a lot of expats, so there's certain expectations in terms of the level of service that they're providing in those places. So it, it depends on whether you're going for like Big Beach City. Big bitch. No. Big, big beach city. Uh Okay. So obviously it depends on whether you're going for the big beach city like Puerto Tota or Garmin, uh, versus a smaller town, uh, which a lot of investors are looking at the more smaller towns at this point. So that's why we're bringing it up. Mm-hmm. As well. Huge, huge difference. Uh, now, obviously a pro is the ocean. Sometimes we miss. The ocean, but it's hot. Any place where you can swim in the ocean, like Play del Kaman, uh, you, you are battling with heat all the time. And if you like to have AC on when it's hot, like what we do, you're probably paying three to$500 US a month in just electricity. Yeah, it gets very, very, very hot in these places. But I love the beach. I mean, I'm a certified diver. I love to be in the ocean. I probably would have a second home in, in a beach town. I just dunno if I'd wanna live there year round. Especially in the summer. Yeah. It, it gets pretty brutal. Like we're in the hot months now in g Guadalajara and it's like in the eighties. It's in the eighties. This is like, it's hot as it's gonna get. Basically if you're on the beach towns, uh, or beach cities, it is. It is, yeah, it gets into the, occasionally even into the really high double digits. Sometimes a hundred or above, depending on where you are. And yes, it's nice'cause you're by the coast, you still get a little breeze to cool you down. But I would definitely not want to be inside working when it's 95 outside and super humid without like a bunch of AC cranking and that AC can, you know, mess up your, your allergies or your sinuses or, or whatever as well. That, that happens to us a lot where we're really sensitive to that. So if you're running the AC 24 7, it's not necessarily gonna be as comfortable, um, as being somewhere where the climate is a little bit more temperate. All right, so this next category, we called it country'cause we wait. We didn't cover even most of the pros there's lot more. Most of pros. Yeah. Oh, that's fair. We just decided, just said the ocean. Yeah. There's a lot more, there's a lot more that there is to love about, uh, beach towns. I think on the flip side of the, you know. Hey, it takes a long time to get things done. Well, one of the reasons that I wanted to move to the beach when I did was because it is, it is just a much more laid back lifestyle and kind of like Mexico is different from the US in the sense that in Mexico overall it's a slower pace of life. Beaches are much more relaxed than cities and. When you, whenever you go to the beach, you're just kind of hanging out. And even if you are there because you know, you're, you're filming video or you're, you're doing some work or whatever, it just feels a lot less stressful and it's a lot slower of a pace and it's more chill. And I think that you, you probably have a, a better connection to like actually the enjoyment of life when you're there. That's what I think. I know you grew up in Miami. So you were around beaches all the time and it's the street's like, ah, whatever. But I, I do enjoy being on the beach. I think I'm probably more likely. To be like, let's, let's move to the beach at some point than you are. Yeah. I think for me it was like I've been dealing with hu humidity in hurricanes my whole life. I could use a break and then Guadalajara was a very pleasant surprise. We forgot to mention one pro for the cities that could be in the con category for the beaches, depending on which beach and where you are. Food. Mm-hmm. Uh, the food in the cities in Mexico is superior. Oh my gosh, the gastro, the gastronomy now in the beaches, our experience has been, it's not as good, especially in the little towns. Like if you're in los, I mean, you're gonna have mediocre food and probably even more mediocre service. Uh, because outside of the major cities on the beach, there isn't that service orientation. So if you like food like we do and you like good food, it's, it's harder to find, especially in the smaller, uh, towns that are on the beach. But other pros though, if you like water sports, you know, obviously you're next to the ocean. I love diving, uh, kayaking, all sorts of different things like that. Water sports nature. Like you, you like to just be grounded and have your feet in the sand. I would say that the beaches here are still significantly nicer than the ones in the us. Um, you don't have to deal, at least that I've seen, God forbid, with like there being some, some sort of like, you know, drug paraphernalia, uh, in, in the sand or something like there is a lot of the time in. Beaches in LA and you're not gonna get fined for drinking a beer right on the beach in Mexico. You can actually enjoy the beach. There aren't as many things to worry about. There aren't a lot of like homeless people roaming around everywhere. Um, we were in Venice Beach just a couple years ago and we had to leave by about 5:00 PM We're just like, what, what is going on here? You know, we were, we were, um, you know, al almost, uh, accosted by, by people on the street. It's like you have to just really keep your guard up and, and Mexican beaches. Yeah, there's petty crime occasionally, nothing's perfect in smaller towns. Maybe you want to keep your guard up a little bit, but it's nothing like what I've seen in, in the beaches in a lot of major cities in California. It's a lot more relaxed here, it's a lot safer. Um, arguably a lot of beach towns here are even safer than let's say cities. Yeah, depending on where you are. So next category, we called it country because we didn't know what else to call it. To be fair. Mm-hmm. Uh, to be El Rancho. El Rancho, that's what we're gonna call it. And, um, this is for those of you who want that country live in, because some of you have asked us questions about, well, where can I buy property? Because I really just wanna have like the land and then I wanna go solar and I wanna have a well and I wanna off grade. And a lot of you have asked about those kinds of things and others of you maybe are not to that degree. You're just like, I would like Mato. I would like my ccho. I would like to be in a smaller place, not so much in the city, but also not in the beach, maybe more in tequila country, all that kind of stuff. So that is the next category. And here obviously we have anything around Lake Chapala, uh, would. Cover that category. And then we also have the surrounding areas like tequila. There's lots of small towns, uh, in Jalisco that are more in, in the, well, they're in tequila country, literally, where, uh, our contacts are telling us, you know, you can now buy. Pieces of land. I know that there's some near Puebla that there's a lot of people who are doing that as well in that area where they're buying up land and they're building. So that's another option for those of you who are like, I don't wanna do the city thing and I also can't stay on the beaches, just gimme my little pocito and I will be happy. So that is another category that we have here. In Mexico. Pros of that are, you have a lot of space to work with. The air is clean. The air is clean. You don't have to worry so much about privacy. You've got a bunch of privacy. Just, just throw up a, uh, a little privacy, you know, fence or wall or some plants around your, your lot and you're good to go. But even then, uh, we were looking at some towns like Lan that we visited, uh. Back, back last year, and you could buy land there for around$20,000 US for an entire acre. And that's not like super super out there either. That's like within a 10 minute drive to town and, um, you know, have all the services you need, the, the pharmacy doctor, uh, post office, whatever, like within a 10 minute drive. It's even less money than that in areas like tequila country where maybe you're 30 or 40 minutes out of the nearest town. You could get a lot of land very, very cheap. Um, just like you could in the US maybe 20 or 25 years ago. Um, you could still get some land in some places affordably in the us, but it's not gonna be as close to population centers, uh, as you can get here in Mexico with the same budget. So that's another really big pro is the price. Um. You may be paying more for certain things and you, you, you might not have, uh, as much flexibility in terms of like being able to order online and things like that as you would in the city. But for most things, especially rent or purchase of a property, which is gonna be your main expense, you're gonna be paying significantly less than in a big city. Now let's talk about a few of the cons of living in the country. Very similar to the cons of the beach towns. You're not always gonna have the best infrastructure. I. If you can get hardwired internet at all, it's probably gonna be slow. You might need to rely on something like starlink or, we've even heard of a lot of people that they're living in the country and maybe the fiber optic internet gets as close to the nearest town and they've, they've gotta use something like a third party microwave dish to get the internet from the town. To their house. So something to consider for sure. But with things like starlink, with things like four and 5G, you can usually get around that and still have pretty good connectivity. Some of the other cons, of course, are there's a lot more driving, especially compared to a city. You can't just walk down to the neighborhood coffee shop because you're not in the neighborhood. You've got your own sort of area there. And sometimes, you know, there's, there's little. Little Titos little shops, um, along the highway that might not be too far from your house, but you're not gonna have as much selection or variety as you would if you were living in the city. I would say final con, for those of you who maybe are a little bit more intense and energy like we are, is boredom. Um, you might run out of things to do. One of the things that we like about being in the bigger cities, and that includes the beach cities, is there's always something to do and in the. Smaller towns in more of the countryside type of thing, you're, you're not gonna get as much of that energy. So if you're, like, if you're a person who has a lot of energy and needs things to do, it's probably not good for you. Now if you're the type of person who's like F all that, I am over it, I just wanna go be a little bit more secluded, then maybe it's great for you. Now let's talk about the small cities. So these are cities like. San Miguel Dee or Meida, although Merida is not that small of a city, but definitely smaller than Guadalajara or Mexico City. What are some of the things that you think are really good about those smaller cities? Well, in those two cases, safety is very high up on the list. They're. Full of expats those cities. And safety is one of the things that they rank as number one for those very popular small cities. I would say the other thing is like they have big expat communities, so you're not gonna feel isolated or anything like that. Now. It will be difficult to integrate, I think more into Mexican culture because they're so full of expats at this rate and they're also more, um. You may not find as good deals, like they're more expensive mm-hmm. Uh, in those cities again, because they are full of expats. So that was kind of like two pros and a con. What do you have to add to? Yeah. And maybe a little bit less convenience in this city as well. So you might not be as likely, let's say, to have same day delivery on Amazon or find. As many things on Rappi in your local area, uh, for immediate delivery as you could in somewhere like Guadalajara. Um, tho those might be some of the, some of the downsides, but of course safety is an upside. Uh, another thing is it might feel a little bit more of a small knit community when you're in a smaller city. Uh, so it might be, especially with the expat community, it's not as spread out, so you might be more likely to connect, especially with certain groups of people like expats. Um, I know when I lived in LA I. Uh, obviously this isn't Mexico, it's the us but in LA if you're gonna go visit your friends, you might be stuck in traffic for an hour or more. Now in Guadalajara, maybe it's 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get from one side of the city to o to the other side, depending on how bad the traffic is. Um, but because if you're in a smaller city, things are a little bit closer. You don't have to worry so much about traffic, about distance, about, uh, taking a long time, let's say, to connect with other people. Yeah. And then I'd say the other con for those two small towns, smaller cities in particular, is they're not near an ocean, either of them. I think Medi is the one closest to an ocean, and it's still, it's at least an hour. It's still at least an hour. So it's not like right on the ocean. Or anything like that. So I would say that's probably another con for those of you who like absolutely need ocean and uh, temperature wise, it depends, right? Meida is insufferably hot, some is more temperate'cause it's kind of more in the middle of the country. So, uh, you kind of get to pick and choose. In terms of the smaller towns when it comes to the weather, which I would say is nice because you know, in the big cities it's not really that hot. There's no ocean in the beach towns or the beach cities. It's just hot. There's no choice really. So at least with the smaller cities, there's a bit more variety in that department. So if you like this video and you'd like our help specifically to help you pick where a good city or town would be for you to live and also help you. Create a plan to figure out all the other little details in your journey to move to Mexico. Make sure that you book that paid consultation below this video. You can find that@entrepreneurexpat.com slash consult, and we can get on the phone or on Zoom with you and help you figure out some of those details to make your journey a lot. Easier and definitely give this video a thumbs up if you liked it. Subscribe and hit that notification bell. If you're not already subscribed to our channel, we have multiple videos coming out every single week about Mexico and other countries around the world. So we look forward to continuing this journey with you and seeing you again on the next one.