Lake Chapala vs Guadalajara: Pros and Cons of Each

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Disclaimer: The information in this video should not be considered tax, financial, investment, or any kind of professional advice. Only a professional diagnosis of your specific situation can determine which strategies are appropriate for your needs. Entrepreneur Expat can and does not provide advice unless/until engaged by you.

Transcript

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We've lived in both Guadalajara and now the Lake Chapala area in Mexico. And one of the top questions we get asked is, where should you go? Should you go to Mexico's second largest city? Or should you go about an hour out into the very famous Lake Chapala area? And in this video we're gonna be telling you the pros and cons of each and. What might be suited for each person, depending on what your preferences are? Welcome to Entrepreneur Expat. On this channel, we talk about everything to do with moving overseas, having a location, independent business, or remote or investment income that allows you to support this lifestyle, as well as all the little details involved in actually making that process happen. If you're interested in working with our team directly and having us help you. With the immigration and relocation process, make sure you go to the link on your screen and below this video, which is entrepreneur expat.com/console, and we can get your personal situation squared away and tell you exactly what you need to do next in order to get going. And also 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. We're doing our best to answer all the questions, uh, that we get asked even in the last two weeks. While we were moving, we had a record number. Of relocation applications coming in every single day. Every single day. And we're doing our best to answer all these questions as quickly as we can. So make sure to subscribe and hit the notification, but also you don't miss a single video. And if you like this video, go ahead and give it a like,'cause we have a mission of getting in front of 1 million entrepreneur expats or aspiring entrepreneur expats, uh, so that we can help people internationalize themselves in a crazy world. So here's the kind of profile that would probably make sense for Guadalajara. Let's say that you really love to go to different international restaurants. You frequently go out, maybe you'd like to. Occasionally, you know, once, once a week or something go out to like a bar or a nightclub, uh, and you're looking for a more, I guess, metropolitan, um, scene where there's people from all over the place. It's a little bit more of an international vibe. Um, that's more Guadalajara. You would also definitely find more, I would say active, like business people there. Um, you would find. More to do overall. Uh, obviously it's a big city. If you're looking for juujitsu, I mean, you're gonna find it there. Although they probably have jiujitsu and Joko depe already and haven't actually checked. Um, but you're looking, let's say for, for specific sports or clubs or, or things to do. There's definitely a lot more of that in Guadalajara. So if you get bored, really easy, if you're not constantly out and about doing something, meeting people, whatever, maybe that's more of a. Vibe for you. Anything else you would add to that? Uh, I would add a couple things. I think if convenience is really important to you, like it was for me for a long time, then maybe you want to be more in a big city or a city center, uh, because then you could just walk to anything that you need. One of the things that we loved about Guadalajara and the neighborhood we were living in, we could literally walk anywhere to anything that we needed. Here it's a little bit different. We need the car, granted, there's no traffic, and we're only 10 minutes. From the nearest town, so it's not a huge deal. Um, but if convenience is very important for you, then maybe the city makes a lot more sense for you. We've had a lot of comments come in from some of you on our older videos about Guadalajara, about how you chose certain areas in Guadalajara specifically because they were so walkable. And then on that note, if you don't have a car and you're not planning on getting a car, you certainly could get by depending on how far you are from the center of a town. But if you want to really enjoy the true nature and beauty, let's say somewhere in the Chapala area. You might be, you know, maybe on top of a mountain or some, somewhere that's not necessarily right in the middle of a town. Especially if you want a lake view like we have. So it's not that you can't get by at all without a car. You're gonna be just doing a ton of walking. And by I mean like a lot, if we were to not have a car, we would have to probably walk around a quarter of a mile down the hill to the highway and then uphill. Uh. Same distance, which is gonna be significantly, um, harder. So if we didn't have a car and we weren't planning on getting a car, we would either, either choose to be in a city like Guadalajara, or at the very least, somewhere like downtown Al or Ahah, or Joko Depe, um, at least in Al and Ahah, I believe they have Ubers in this area. I have not yet actually seen or heard of Ubers. They have people that like, sort of do Uber. Um, but it's not actually on the platform. They're more like just, you know, drivers that you can text in a group or whatever and they can come pick you up. So it's possible without a car, it's just not gonna be as comfortable, uh, to, to go on Amanda's note about convenience. Um, and then things like Uber Eats or Wrappy if you're trying to get groceries or things like that delivered. Now, interestingly enough, when we were filming the first part of this video, our grocery delivery guy showed up. It wasn't a wrappy type of situation or Uber Eats or whatever, where you could order from an app. But we, we have his number because we, we found it in one of the, one of the stores in HoCo and texted, there's a, yeah, there's a lot of people who will deliver things to your house, and so we texted him, we said, Hey, we need this, this, and this. We gave him the list and then we paid him when he got here, and we paid a few dollars as like a service fee for him, bringing all that stuff up to us so you can find things that are delivered to you. It's just not as convenient as, let's say, okay, you know what? I want a pizza right now. I'm gonna go in three clicks and order, you know, one out of 50 different kinds of pizza that I can find on Rappi, for example. Yeah, no AHI in Chapala is more developed, so there might be more in those areas in that sense. But nowhere near like where you're going to find in a major city, like, whoa. Yeah, there's gonna be like a hundred different restaurants. Yeah, and one thing I would add is it might depend on the kind of business that you are in. So for example, Guadalajara is known for tech, for example. There are startups there. So if you're in that world or have something to do with that world, then you know, you might have to physically plant yourself in a location where those things are happening. Now, for us, that doesn't really matter because we work online and we can go anywhere in the world and we don't have to be tied to any specific location. So for us, that doesn't matter. But for someone who's watching this, then it might matter. And I will also say,'cause this actually came up with one of our contacts in Guadalajara, who actually, if you're watching Hi Angela. She actually moved to Guadalajara in part thanks to some of our videos and got her residency in Mexico and things like that. And she said something really interesting. Mm-hmm. Which was my logic when I got to Mexico a couple years ago, which was that. If you're in a transitional period and you're coming from a major US city, uh, or Canadian city or European city, then moving out to the Lake Chapala area or a small beach town or anything of the so Pueblo or anything of the sort might be too much of a shock to your system. Yeah. So for example, you know, I liked Guadalajara because I was like, and this is what, what Angela said. Right. It was like, uh, she was from Atlanta and I was from Miami. And she goes, well, Ajara still seems slower to me than Atlanta, for example, or it seems slower to me than Miami. Now after a couple years or three or four or five years, then obviously, um, it's kind of like, I think your nervous system kind of, uh, regulates to the country and the culture. So now, while Laja seems fast to me, and I think it's because of the, the different like culture and pace of living in Mexico in general, even though it is a big city. You take out the traffic, which is just absolutely crazy in Guadalajara. Uh, it is definitely a slower pace of life than a US city. So it's, it's too much of a, a like cognitive dissonance if you go from, let's say Miami to somewhere like jal. Exactly right. So for me it's too many levels. It's too many levels. It's like changing country. That's enough of a shock now. Changing from a city to a smaller town in another country, way too much of a shock. So I think that might be something to consider. As well because that was basically my reasoning when we, a couple years ago, when we were traveling all throughout the west coast of Mexico, I was like, I can't, I can't, like I have to go back to like a city. I understand the energy of a city. Now, obviously, you know, my nervous system is kind of regulated to the pace here in Mexico and we've traveled a lot more and I got to know a lot more areas'cause I didn't even know that Chapala area existed until like I got here. I know a lot of you already know about it, but I had no idea of its existence until I got to Mexico. So that might be something to consider. Like if you're coming from a major city in the us, Canada, or Europe, then maybe Guadalajara is the place for you to start. It may not be where you stay, uh, but it could be a place for you to starch because it's gonna seem slower to you. Maybe not European cities, but at least American and Canadian cities like Guadalajara, even though it's very fast paced in the second largest city in Mexico, is still going to seem slower to you than Than LA or than LA or New York or Atlanta or Miami. Or Houston. Or Chicago. Yeah. And I think that it's also, it's more of a soft landing too, because there's definitely a higher concentration of expats, especially in certain areas like Lon Medica. Uh, Alita definitely has a hand. Full, um, cia. So, so there's more like expats, there's more meetups. You could probably find a little. It's not that you can't find community out here because we're already starting to make friends with our neighbors and things like that. And we've even bumped into some people on the streets that were just subscribers from ours and they riff nice from, from the us. Yeah, that was, that was pretty cool. Um, but you'll probably find it a little bit easier to adapt if you've never moved to another country and you really like going to meetups and, and things like that before you become, I guess, a little bit more independent, if you will. Uh, from that, that place that you live, like if you're looking to, to build connections more readily, maybe the city would be a better fit. It's a little bit more, like I said, of a soft landing. Um, in some cases, depending on where you are, the infrastructure might actually be a little bit better or at least more accessible. Like, hey, if you want to go get a cell phone, you just, uh, go down to the, the tell cell store or the Oxo or whatever. You can easily get a chip here. You might have to go all the way to, to, I think he was the closest tell cell. Yeah. And you could still buy prepaid sim cards. Grocery stores and things, but if you have an issue and you need to go to the customer support, for instance, it's a lot easier to do that. In b Hara, you just hop into an Uber, um, transportation also, it's, it's easier to, to get to the airport or some other transportation hub or just hop in an Uber and go downtown versus maybe trying to figure out buses and things like that a little bit more. Uh, if you're more out in Impala or an area, Japa itself will have Uber, but again. If you're in, in the Lakeside area, but not right downtown, in one of those population centers, you're gonna find it harder, uh, to find some of those, uh, transportation options. Yeah. Also for culture junkies, if you like art, if you like theater, if you like music, uh, Guadalajara would probably be a better fit for you because Guadalajara is known in Mexico as an epicenter, uh, for arts and culture. There's international festivals going on all the time. All all sorts of dance, dance, all kinds of things going on. Uh, in Guadalajara so that if, if you like those types of things, then Guadalajara, uh, might be a better fit, uh, for you in that sense. Again, not to say that those things don't exist, uh, out Lakeside, it's just Lakeside is more chill. It would be, would be probably the best way of describing it. So anything else you would add in terms of like the profile of a person that Guadalajara might be a better fit than like the Lake Chapala area? No, I think, I think that's pretty, pretty good. I mean, if, if you want to, let's, let's say that for example, you know, back to the car issue, you don't want to own a car or you wanna like, really reduce the number of things that you have. Uh, and especially if you're planning on, let's say, hopping around countries a lot, it might be easier to do. So if you're in a, if you're in a city and you don't have to get a car or have a car here, long term, um, versus out, out here, I mean, again, it really depends on where you go. But Guadalajara, I think. Has more options for, uh, I, I, I would just say like different, different types of stays. So here, I mean, yes, you can find like Airbnbs and then long-term leases, but in Guadalajara there's all sorts of options in between as well. So you can find more, more flexible things. And it's probably a little bit more digital nomad, uh, centric. Yeah. Uh, I don't know the best way to put it, but like co-working spaces, things like that. Working, co-living. You can find the, the hybrid co-working, co-living in Gule. You're just passing through. Uh, it, it just really depends on how long you're planning on being here, what your vibe is, what your profile is. Mm-hmm. What you're looking for. I'll add one thing, uh, which is kind of like a maybe, right? Which is if you're on the younger side, then you might like Walla Hara more than you're going to like the lake side. But again, it just depends on you.'cause we're on the younger side and we like to chill out. Like we go to spas for fun on the thermal waters. Um, and our neighbors. Here. They're, they're our age. They're also in their thirties. They're not that, and they like to garden for fun. Mm-hmm. Uh, so they, and they're from Guadalajara originally, and they were just kind of done Yeah. With, with the city, the high pace of, fast pace of everything, the fast pace of all that kind of stuff. So again, it depends, right? Because I would say that Lake Chip tends to go on the older side, more the retiree side, but I also see that changing. Mm-hmm. Uh, depending on the profile of the person and what they're, so that, that reminds me of another thing. Yeah. Which is, if you're single. The dating scene is probably gonna be a lot better for you. Oh, yeah. Than Guadalajara. Yeah. There's, there's more stuff to do. More places to go. Yeah. More people, more of a younger crowd, more of the meetups, more of the apps to meet people, stuff like that. Yeah. And just in general, because of the population distribution here, you do see, you know, a lot of like older Mexicans, uh, that either live here with their retirement homes, uh, or, uh, vacation homes, for example. Not retirement homes, but they'll have like their vacation homes down here that they'll come to. You know, once a week or so, um, you'll see the retired Americans and Canadians. It's actually, I think Ahah is one, one of the top retire or top expat communities in the world. The most is for Alala. Haah are the large, is the largest expat community of Americans and Canadians in the world. Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spot on. So, um, but that is more, more of an older crowd and now we're, we're I think, very old souls. So we get along, um, you know, with, with more people with, with more of that, uh, that vibe. We're not really. Too into the, the partying and everything else. I kind of got that out of my system in my, in my twenties. Same. Um, but yeah, if you are single and you're like looking to make connections, I mean you could do it anywhere, right? Uh, but Guadalajara is definitely a little bit more geared towards that. Yeah. So now let's go into the profile that might like the Lake Chapala area. I think if you really need nature, so for example, that was one of our deciding factors. It's like this business is growing really quickly. We've had a couple years. Were that were very fast paced, uh, in terms of travel and just lots of things going on in life. And I was like, I think this is gonna keep growing and expanding very quickly. I need to put my feet in grass and I need to grasp, and we got grass right out there. Um, so if you wanna be closer to the nature, right, um, that's something that's very important to you, then obviously the lake chip area is going to make a lot more sense for you. Uh, I would say there's some areas where you can get more of that nature vibe than others. Along the lake, but obviously it's gonna be easier out here if you like quiet. Uh, then definitely the lake chip area. I think, again, depending on where you are.'cause if you're like in Ahi Centro or Chip Centro, then obviously there's going to be a lot more noise. You're like in a, in a city center or a town center. But if you're like, where we are, where it's a little bit out of there, uh, and you're like in a Koto and you're up a mountain, like it's, it's silent. Out here and it's fantastic. It's great. Yeah. We fall asleep to the sound of like frogs and crickets and things. Yeah. So I think that's And bugs if you like, if you like all of nature. Okay. If you like quiet then lake chip area, if you like more of a smaller town vibe. Not so much a big city Lake Chapala area age. It does tend to be an older crowd. We do see that changing. Uh, there are more younger people interested in the area. More younger people with older souls though. Is what I would say, um, that are interested in the area. I think, uh, that would be something that's really important. What else would you say in terms of like what profile makes more sense for like this Lake Al type area? I would say definitely people that can work online. I mean, we, we spent a few years in the city, uh, here in Mexico and I've lived in other Mexican cities before, but. The way that I look at it is like, if I can already work online, make money online anyway, why do I have to be in this like major population center with all of these issues, like the pollution, the traffic, the noise. Oh, that's important. Yeah. Um, I, I think, and when I, when I had, uh, I actually did some work with the founders of Barefoot Wine several years back, and I got to stay a few times at their, uh, they've got like this ranch in Sonoma County in California. And that, that was one of the, one of the times where I, I just realized how much I love just being in nature. I mean, there's just so much vast space and peace and quiet and like grass and trees and plants everywhere. And I was like, huh, this is, this is a vibe. And they told me why, you know, why they like being out in nature and kind of away from people. So it's like if you, you know, if you work remotely, if you can make money from anywhere, if you don't have to be in this like major population center. My opinion is why do it? You can always go into the city, you could drive in or take the bus or whatever, and be there in an hour, an hour and a half. We work online. The internet's actually quite good here. Yeah. I mean we were able to get the same. Super impressed. Yeah. Almost a gigabit up and down on fiber as we were in, in Guadalajara. Yeah, exactly the same. It might even be better here because it's less, uh, less saturated since there aren't as many people, so. We have everything we need to, to do our work. We can get, get things delivered, uh, through like the, the delivery people here at different shops and restaurants or going into town once or twice a week. Um, get our hair cut, do whatever we need, um, then come back up and we can get from, from where we are right now to downtown pack in about 10 to 15 minutes in the car. Yeah, it's really not that bad. You can't get anywhere in 10 minutes in Guha. You're stuck in traffic. No, you're stuck in traffic. Yeah. So I think that's something interesting. And then from here we're like. 10, 15 minutes to the thermal spas. Um, which are amazing. Amazing. We talked a little bit about those in our last, you video you 25 minutes to Ahi, you know, it's, you're, you're, and Ahi is already becoming like not a big city, but a sizable city. Yeah. Like you could find any, I mean, they have Popeyes there to give you an idea like yes, the American chicken. Uh, chain Popeye's. We went there when we, when we went to tell Cell we were running some errands and nah, he, he, yeah. And it was like storage unit, Walmart tell Cell, like all in the same area. Uhhuh. And there was a Popeye's right there. I'm like, you wanna go get some chicken? Louisiana chicken? It's actually quite good, but they're a little stingy on the sauces here compared to the us but I digress. Um, so I think, uh, that makes sense. Like, again, it depends what side of the, the lake that you're on, right? But if you're on the side where we're on, where it's not as developed. Um, then, you know, you just go into Ahi and Chapala or Hoko and there's no issue, uh, whatsoever. What are they? We almost don't even need to. Yeah.'cause everything comes to us. Everything kind of comes up here and it's just so, it's just so chill. I mean, I don't know if you can, if you guys can tell, but like, my, just Well, how would you describe it? Just groundedness and just chillness is, is on a different level, uh, than it was, uh, in, in Guadalajara.'cause you just hear the birds outside. There's no. Crazy neighbors yelling or, or Banda music playing. It's just like, huh? No traffic. No traffic. I mean, sometimes you hear the gardener mowing the lawn of our, of our complex, but that's about it. Like there's no noise. That's about it. And you can just kind of breathe. And when you can breathe and when you can connect with nature, you tend to get a lot of good ideas. And, uh, we don't even have to do any, any mushrooms or anything like that. Like, like certain spiritual community leaders that we've been hearing a lot about lately to, to connect with ourselves. Like we just. Walk outside barefoot, put our feet in the, in the ground, maybe do a little bit of meditation or Qigong, and, and you connect with nature. You're not like in the middle of a city trying to either be spiritual or be grounded or, or like connect with nature and connect with yourself in the middle of, you know, in a little park while three lanes of traffic are going. Around you and people are honking because somebody didn't go a second after the light. Yeah. Turned green. I think this would, it's a different vibe. I think this would also be good for those of you who like living in more of a country vibe, but visiting the city. Mm-hmm. Like you don't like living in a city, you would rather visit a city. Chapala is really nice because you're very close to a major city should you need to go or if you like to visit cities, uh, it's very nearby, so it's not, it's not a huge issue. I mean. It's very obvious why this is such a desirable area and why people are so interested in it and why they keep moving here and buying property, and now why they're starting to eye other parts of the lake. Yeah. Uh, which all the people in real estate, they know that and the developers know that as well. Trying to think if there's any other like, profile of a person. I think it's just if you're a more chill person, uh, and you're okay with more country vibes and you're okay with more pueblo vibes. And you need nature. Like that's something that's very important to you. Then, you know, chip Paul is fine. It's not like you're out in the middle of nowhere and can't get access to anything. It's not like that. Yeah. It's not like the, you know, country living in the US where maybe you're an hour, you know, half an hour to an hour from the nearest town to go and buy groceries. I mean, we have, we have a little like convenience grocery store type of thing right down at the bottom of the hill. So if wanted to, and Amazon still does two day delivery. Yeah. We get stuff in two days from Amazon. That's great. Can come all the way up here. It's not a huge deal. Well, I think that's basically it in terms of the, the profiles. I will add one more. If you're interested in real estate investments, maybe the CHIPA area is gonna be more interesting for you because Walla Hot is just basically saturated. Yeah. In terms of real estate, I mean, they brought out a space. They're growing. They're, they're growing up, um, at this point, and it's more of a saturated and, and from our. Research and what we've heard from a lot of our real estate people, like, unless you have to be there for some reason or you have to invest there for a specific reason, you're gonna find way better stuff, uh, out here by the lake. Even just buying land, even just buying land, waiting for it to grow, you're gonna find a lot more interesting opportunities out here by the lake where there's still a lot of opportunity available. Whereas in the cities, it's themselves, like W Lahara and Mexico City, stuff like that, like the opportunities just aren't really there. Um, so for those of you who are interested in real estate investing, then that could be a more interesting proposition for you than perhaps Guadalajara, which if you're in a different kind of business, like if you're in the tech business, then Guadalajara is gonna be a lot more interesting for you and beneficial than out here on the lake. So again, it totally just depends on you and what your preferences are. And what your needs are. So we hope this video was helpful in terms of helping you make that decision for yourself. Our goal here is not to be like, Hey, we're in this part of Mexico, so we only recommend this part of Mexico. Um, no, because we understand that people have different needs. There's different profiles, there's different personalities, different strokes for different folks. So we just wanna lay it out for you and then help you make the decision that's best for you. And that's why we're traveling all around. We're showing you different towns, different cities. We're trying not to spend too long in one place, but but still enough time to really understand and report back. So if you'd like our teams direct personalized advice on how you can move to Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, then definitely go to entrepreneur expat.com/consult and we can tell you exactly what you need to do, what the next step is for you to be able to have your dream life brought. Make sure you like, like, and subscribe if you haven't already, and we'll see you on the next one.