Viva la Mami - Latina Motherhood, Modern Parenting, Latina Well-Being

132. Living in Mexico: How We Planned Our Drive From Chicago to León

• Jessica Cuevas

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In this episode of the "Living in Mexico" series, I address my recent hiatus and share the journey of moving my family from Chicago to León, Guanajuato. 

You'll hear about the planning and preparation for our road trip with two toddlers and a cat, the challenges and decisions we faced, and the valuable lessons we learned along the way. I also answer your frequently asked questions, discuss community support, and reflect on the privileged nature of our reverse migration. 

Join me as we embark on this new adventure and explore what it means to pursue a different dream for our family.

For detailed show notes, visit vivalamami.com/episode132

What You'll Hear:

  • The logistics of planning a move to Mexico with a family of four
  • Overcoming challenges during our road trip 
  • Our experience crossing the border
  • Lessons learned about resilience and flexibility
  • Our ongoing journey of reverse migration and reclaiming our roots

Resources Mentioned:

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Jessica:

We're not just reclaiming our roots, we're not just reclaiming our culture, our language, the traditions and everything, but we also wanna pursue our own dreams. And that is going back to Mexico. a lot of people are now pursuing the Mexican Dream, El Mexicano, and. That is because we've experienced a lot, especially in the last 25 years, I would say since the start of millennia like we've experienced a lot and this is causing trauma and the fact that we aren't able to feel like stabilized, that we're not able to feel like. We belong in a way that perhaps other generations did and were able to prosper, and so we're. Trying to not just like rebuild this life to reclaim our roots and heritage, but it's also how can we rebuild a life that is sustainable for us, that makes much meaning to us and our families, especially with raising our kids in a different country. Welcome back to the Viva la Mami podcast i'm your host, Jessica Cuevas, and if you're new here, well bien. Before we dive in today, I need to address the elephant in the room. Where the heck have I been? I know it's been a while since our last episode, like literally a month ago, but honestly, moving to a new country with two toddlers while running a business has been a lot. So I have been quiet because sometimes life requires you to step back and focus on what matters most. Our familia, if you haven't noticed yet. Literally has been in full transition mode and PIC really needed their mommy more than my phone needed content and everything else in between. But Amos now in Mexico. And I'd be honest with you, we are still adjusting. We are two weeks in at the time of this recording, so a lot has been going on, and in today's episode is. Extra special because it's part of our monthly living in Mexico series. If you've been following along on Instagram, you know that my family of four plus Arita just made the big move from Chicago to Leon Guanajuato and Mamas. Let me tell you, the questions have been flooding my dms like no other. This month I want to talk about how did we prepare to drive from Chicago to Mexico with a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a cat who has never left the city. And yes, we drove, we drove all the way down to Mexico and we all survived. In addition to sharing you how we prepared for the drive to Mexico as a family of four, I also want to answer a couple questions that have been sent in my dms. If you haven't followed me, which I highly recommend that you follow me on Instagram and on TikTok as well, but I'm mostly active on Instagram. I ask my followers and my, in general, any questions that they may have about our life in Mexico. And as we were preparing for our move, I definitely got a lot of questions. And so throughout this episode, I will be asking those questions as well. So let's start from the beginning, because I know some of you are probably thinking what you drove. Toddlers says Luca. And honestly, there were moments I questioned that decision myself and even my husband as well. But let me walk you through how we got there and how we planned this whole thing out. Well, we were contemplating whether if we wanted to drive or fly, we were actually thinking about. Me flying with the kids and our cat and Alex, my husband, driving alone with our car. Initially we were thinking about whether to sell our car in the United States, but for now we just decided to keep a temporary permit, which is called the tip, uh, through the, and basically it allows. You to drive and keep your car in Mexico for six months, you can always renew it, but you have to go back to the border and renew it, uh, because that, that just happens that way. However, I have heard of different ways to renew the tip, and so I'll be sharing with you more as. Time goes on because I believe our car may be eligible to get it legalized in Mexico. And so there's a lot of information about that and a lot of misinformation as well. So before I share anything about whether to renew our car or what have you, I'll definitely be sharing that. Once we have a better idea, but in the meantime, we have kept our car. We have our car here. Our car that is plated through the state of Illinois is here, but legally through the tip. But it was definitely expensive, I would say. And. I think in coming episodes I will be sharing with you the cost associated with like relocating and how expensive it was. Alex is still mind blown, and I get it. I, I kind of knew that we would be spending a lot of money even though we were being very strategic in terms of not spending a lot, but. You know, with getting the car fixed and ready to hit the road, we ended up buying a cargo box so that we can pack more things above the car, uh, because we have a tiny SUV and you know, we also had to get the tip, and that in itself was a cost, and we had to get. Mexican, uh, car insurance as well. So there were a lot of additional expenses that maybe it would've been cheaper to just fly, but also it was the experience and also just carrying all of our things with us, and what we decided to bring with us specifically were the belongings that made sense, the most practical ones, we definitely brought our clothes, some of the kids' toys, some of their books. We brought our computer equipment and that was it. I would have to say that we packed a lot for the road trip and I think that I probably. Spot, uh, more things for the road trip than the actual like, move for us to utilize here. And, and the reason why was because, you know, I just wanted to make sure that the. The experience was going to be easy on us and for the kids to not like get bored or get overstimulated or overtired. And so I kind of overpacked and over prepared for the road trip itself, and that ended up cluttering even. More of our, of the space that we probably didn't already have. So what we ended up doing was that some of the things that we wanted to bring, like for example, a booster seat for Mateo at the dinner table, like I wanted to bring that with, but it just didn't Fit. It's not like you can fold it and put it under the seat. And I was like, you know what? I can definitely find this in Mexico. There were other things that we left behind, like the kids scooters, there were a couple things that I left it behind as well. I know I can find here and we will come back. I mean, it's not like we are, we have left the United States forever. So, we put them in a storage unit. We've been having a storage unit for over two years now. From the time that we. Uh, lived in the suburbs and then moved to the city and downsized. And so we still have a lot of our belongings there. But at the meantime, for the purpose of this move to Mexico, we just brought the essentials and the things that we knew that were going to make sense, at least for a couple months. And so when it came to the adventure itself, like. It took us five days to travel from Chicago to Mexico. So we left the city technically it was the 22nd of July. Uh, we initially wanted to have a city experience where we. Uh, booked a room at a hotel. Actually, Alex did through his credit card, uh, because apparently you got more points and blah, blah, blah. Well, it ended up being that that hotel didn't reserve the room, although it was quote unquote booked. So I, which it made sense why at the end we noticed a lot of unpleasant reviews about that hotel. uh, Apparently they just didn't know how to update their bookings. And so on our end, through the. Credit card company of Alex's, like he was able to reserve and book a room well, I guess there was a misconnection there that the hotel didn't have enough space and we ended up getting in at the hotel like pretty late. I think it was like 10 or 11. At night because we were literally like trying to empty out the apartment where we were at and loading up the car and everything, getting things ready so that we can spend our just one night in, in the city in downtown Chicago and. Uh, yeah, I, I guess at that time, because it was so late, everything was booked and when I mean everything, like I called, we, we both called like local, uh, hotels in the city. Okay. This is. The city of Chicago and there was nothing available that night. Something was happening. No, it wasn't Lalapalooza because we intentionally wanted to move like a week before Lalapalooza. Uh, because even with traffic and everything, we knew it was gonna gonna be bad. I, I honestly don't know what happened, but it. We just couldn't find a room. We ended up finding a room in Oakbrook, Illinois, which is like 20 minutes west of the city. It's a suburb, and we were like, you know what? I guess we. Couldn't have the city experience one last time before we hit the road. Like we already lived in the city anyway. We just wanted the kids to have this like, fun experience staying at a hotel in downtown and getting to get like Garrett's popcorn one last time and all of that. But honestly, like we're gonna return back. It's, it's fine. But we just wanted this experience. So anyway, we ended up just staying at a hotel in the suburbs and it was fine. The next morning we had breakfast and we just did some last minute shopping because honestly, I had some gift cards that I had to get rid of, and we did a little bit of shopping, and then we officially hit the road, I think it was like in the afternoon. So that was the 23rd of July. We drove, uh, and we ended up spending the night in St. Louis, Missouri, the next day on the 24th, we were kind of doing mini, a mini excursion. We got to see the arc, and we had breakfast and we hit the road. Uh, we then decided to have dinner in Springfield, Missouri, and we had a, it was a pretty cool restaurant. It was a Dutch restaurant, never had Dutch food. Uh, and it was the best. Dinner I I've had in a while and it was really good. So we had dinner there and we decided to just like hit the road from Springfield, Missouri, all the way to Dallas. So this was almost like an overnight kind of. Like drive. And honestly, the kids were fine. We did do one pit stop, and that was like once we arrived in Oklahoma and there was a resting area and we just changed the kids to their pajamas. And this was like already 9:00 PM and we were like, you know what? Let's just, let's just plunge this. Let's just hit the road. And so. We, we ended up arriving to Dallas at 3:00 AM and we had already booked a hotel, a reservation. Uh, but unfortunately I had a very unpleasant experience at the hotel where I booked. Some situation happened. I really don't know what really happened, but the front desk person at the hotel was just not. Happy and accommodating. I guess what ended up happening is that I didn't call the hotel letting them know that we would arrive that late, that it resulted into an automatic cancellation. Honestly, I wasn't aware that I had to do that. I thought that once you book a room, you, it's yours until like 12:00 PM when you're supposed to check out or whatever. But I just wasn't aware of that. And so it ended up being an argument. So she ended up kicking me out. So we ended up calling. The hotel chain. This was an actual hotel chain, and I called the corporate number and I was like, Hey, this is a situation. I need a room right now. And luckily there was a room within a mile away from that hotel in Dallas. And so we ended up sleeping the night there and we were like, you know what? Let's just spend two nights here. Because we already did a lot of traveling, like literally from St. Louis to Dallas. And you know, we were just exhausted. So I'm really glad that we ended up spending two nights because I actually reached out to a mama uh, Juliana, Schomberg, who is the bilingual mom life. And she has been on the podcast twice. We've been connected through social media. We've been doing, um, a lot of collaborations and we will be doing even more collaborations. And so I was like, oh my gosh, I need to see this mu in person. So she lives in Dallas with her family, and it happened to be her birthday that Friday when we were in Dallas, and it was amazing. We got to celebrate her birthday, she and her. Husband invited us over to their house and the kids got to play with each other because she has two little ones as well. So it was such a great time and I'm really glad that we ended up spending the night because then the next morning we were fully rested and we got to hit the road, and so we left Dallas that Saturday morning. And then we drove through Texas. We stopped at the outlet mall near San Antonio, which is called San Marcos. Y'all. It's the biggest outlet mall ever. And one of the mamas who I met on social media, she and I reconnected. Because she lives in Leon and she's from the US and she is also raising her family here in Mexico. And she recommended, Hey, anything that you wanna buy, just get it at an outlet mall on your way to Mexico before you arrive to Mexico. So we got a couple things. We didn't go all crazy, but I definitely got myself a pair of shoes, got the kids some shoes because for some reason their feet grow like every two months. And we gotta update their shoes. And so yeah, we decided to spend the night that Saturday night in like the border. Uh, so this was still in Texas, and we decided to cross between the Eagle Pass and Piera Negra a border. I've heard really. Good positive things about it, especially as a family who has, you know, we have two little ones. We decided to go to a very low key, um, border just because I remember when we traveled to Mexico we would cross Laredo and it was kind of intense. It. We were waiting in line for a very long time. I just remember seeing like so much traffic and once you cross the border, it's a big city and Piera, Negras is pretty small. Honestly, once we crossed the border, it didn't even feel like we did, and this is very privileged for me to say this, right, but when we. Drove from Texas to Mexico, like the border No one asked for our passport. No one asked for documentation. I don't know why. We took another loop around and we asked, Hey, where are we supposed to go? And they're like. Just keep going. And we were like, uh, okay. One of the traffic people that were there, they didn't even know where to direct us for us to get our passport stamped. And so, it felt surreal, but then again, it's very privileged because we are coming from the United States to Mexico now. We got to see the other side of the border from Mexico to Texas, and we got to see lines and a lot of people and people were getting stopped and so. Just because of the things that are going on right now, I believe with immigration and deportations, it's almost like they're just letting a lot of people coming from the United States to Mexico, like pretty loosely. Which for me, honestly, I think that's, uncomfortable just because like anyone can come to Mexico, whether if you have a good background or not. And so that made me feel a little, mad and disappointed just because, I gathered all of our documentation, like I made copies of our car registration. I even made copies of our cat's medical records and all of this stuff and nothing. And I was just like, pretty, it, it honestly, it felt so surreal. Like I kept thinking as we were driving south and south and south from the border, I kept thinking, well, we're gonna get stopped. Like someone's gonna check our documentation. And no. We ended up, uh, arriving to Saltillo. Which is a pretty big city in Illa and we spent the night there. Uh, we stayed at a really nice hotel. And so then that Monday we decided to drive from Saltillo all the way down to Guanajuato. So that was a pretty. Big stretch. I wouldn't say from like St. Louis to Dallas, but it did take about eight hours. So we strategically left pretty early from Saltillo just so that we can make it to El Rancho, where my family is from, uh, which was our second to last final destination. I am already familiar with that area, so we arrived. Around 8:00 PM Actually it was 9:00 PM Yeah, it was 9:00 PM So yeah, that's how it was. I mean, we didn't really map out like specific staffs. We weren't, specific on like where we're going to stay at. Honestly, I made reservations like hours before we were supposed to check in. Uh, so we were pretty open in terms of like how long we would essentially take this trip. We did it with ease. We did it with an understanding that if we're ever going to have a situation like our car breaking down or getting pulled over or whatever, like we were open to that. And honestly, like nothing happened. Like even when we were driving through Mexico, like. Oh my gosh. Like honestly, I just think that, I mean, I'm not a religious person, but I think that the universe, again, has reinforced that we are making a great decision and everything was pretty much set into place, everything was put into our favor, and I'm really glad that this all worked out because I've definitely heard horror stories from specifically like family members that have had negative experiences like driving through the border or driving through Mexico. And these are recent incidents. It's not like. Stuff that happened like 10 years ago or whatever. Uh, and so I'm really glad that everything worked out very well for us. so now I'm going to answer some of your questions that you sent me on Instagram because I see you, I see that so many of you are thinking about making similar moves. And so the first question that came up over and over again was, what we packed for the road trip specifically, and I actually have an Amazon storefront, so I'm going to link that in the description of the show notes. But. Again, I felt like I overdid it, but then again, as a mom, like, I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna bring this stuff just in case. So I brought like activity books for the kids. My sister, uh, gave us a bunch of stuff from her job. I did get them like a sticker book. I got them a lot of snacks. We definitely brought a lot of snacks and not just for the road trip, but also for life in Mexico, just because my kids are very particular and they want specific snacks. And that was something that was recommended from La Mama Ma that I told you all about. Who, um, I'll be having on the show. By the way, I'm very excited to have her on the show and what her experience is like raising a family in Mexico, but. She definitely recommended to bring snacks, especially like specific snack bars because they don't have them here compared to the United States. What else did I pack? We packed comfort items, so like familiar things that the kids knew. So a couple months ago we went to Build a Bear and those two. Build a bear. Stuffies have been their favorite. I bet you they're not in the next coming months, but that's how it is. Um, I did get them a tray so that way they can eat if in case we were like on the go. So we definitely utilized that when we were driving through Mexico from Tyo to Guanajuato. That tray eventually converts into a dry erase. Board. Um, and then Diego, I remember he made like a little road and he, I brought like a couple Hot Wheels that were easily accessible to them. And they were kind of like driving the little cars on that like, uh, tray. And so yeah, that tray was very useful because it, the kids were able to use it in different ways, they're versatile in their foldable and everything, as far as with our cad, I definitely prepared. Uh, for the worst. Luckily she didn't do an incident in the car, but the first time when we put her in the carrier, she freaked out and she did a little incident there. But, I brought travel laundry detergent, and I was, you know, I had Alex like clean up, uh, the mess that she caused in her carrier and. We definitely discussed this with her vet as, as far as with like road tripping with a cat. And they prescribed her like this calming medication. So once we gave her that, she definitely like eased down and she was actually enjoying the road trip. I was so amazed and surprised because our cat, Rena, she is, she's a very nervous cat I did buy a portable litter box, so it was kind of a mess, but it was all right. I mean, I would say that it did. The job well because she used it when, once we arrived at the hotel, we tried to have her do her business at like whenever we stopped at resting areas or whenever we had lunch or whatever. But she wasn't a fan of it just because of the noise and everything, so. I am glad that we were able to spend a couple nights during the trip because this was when she was able to release her stuff and she, she did great. I would say, Another question that I had was, When did you start planning your move? If you haven't yet heard the previous living in Mexico episode, I, definitely talk about. Why we wanted to move, why we decided now to move as a family of four, especially, you know, having two little toddlers. And so I'll definitely link that episode in the show notes. But I would say that we finally took this leap of faith to make this move to Mexico. And in coming episodes I'll be sharing a little bit more about what it's actually like to live. In Mexico, but I would have to say that overall we are pursuing a different dream, a very different dream than what our family. Had, I don't think that our parents ever envisioned us to move back to the motherland because when they left their country, hence Mexico, like they thought that they were going to be fully established in the United States, raise their family, have jobs, and for their family to basically retire and die there. But I think that there is a wave of so many second generation people like us where. We're not just reclaiming our roots, we're not just reclaiming our culture, our language, the traditions and everything, but we also wanna pursue our own dreams. And that is going back to Mexico. And I've said this before, uh, through on Instagram and on this podcast, how a lot of people are now pursuing the Mexican Dream, El Mexicano, and. That is because we've experienced a lot, especially in the last 25 years, I would say since the start of millennia like we've experienced a lot and this is causing trauma and the fact that we aren't able to feel like stabilized, that we're not able to feel like. We belong in a way that perhaps other generations did and were able to prosper, and so we're. Trying to not just like rebuild this life to reclaim our roots and heritage, but it's also how can we rebuild a life that is sustainable for us, that makes much meaning to us and our families, especially with raising our kids in a different country. And so there's a lot that I wanna talk about this, but for now, this is. Why we made the decision to move to Mexico, and that is to pursue a different dream than what our parents did. And I, and if you ever thought about making a big move like this, or any big change and life transition, it is okay. Like as long as you and your partner, if you are in a partnered relationship. You know, agree with what you wanna do and in, in achieving your dream, like it is doable. It can be attainable. It can be achievable. It just is all about letting go past the fear if our families were able to move to a new country, that is so different than theirs, without any assets, without any money, at least in my family situation and in my husband's situation, like I'm sure that you can do it. Because we were able to do it. And I know that that is a very privileged thing to say and to do, and I recognize that. But I think that is part of the dream that our families had so that we can live a better life than they did. And that's what we're trying to aim for, to aim for a better dream, a better life. so that way we can. Live. Well, I mean, that's all what I'm trying to say. Okay, AMI, well, as we wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you with the biggest lessons we learned from this whole preparation process, because here's what I wish someone had told me when I was Googling how to drive to Mexico with toddlers first of all, it definitely takes community and building connections, and this literally made everything possible I would have to say that. The best thing that we have as Latinos is that we have this wealth, and that is community wealth. And the fact that we made this move possible, it wasn't because of us joining these expat groups, quote unquote, like I, I'm not a fan of. These expat communities just because it's not relevant to our experiences and our intentions of moving to Mexico to the motherland where our family came from. Uh, and what we had to do was just to branch out and reach out to the people that have been doing this, but on the low key that haven't been recognized for their intentions of moving to Mexico so those were the really good connections that we got to build along the way that. Not only were we equipped with having Google Maps at our hands and knowing where to go, but it's also having an understanding that in our preparation for this big move and the big road trip part of this was because of the people that were with us along the way. in addition to this Our kids are more resilient than we think, and I am so amazed and in awe of how amazing our kids did during this road trip, and even our Reina like the boys did so great. And I am so like in shock almost that. It, it happened. Like I was like, oh, this, this was it. Like for some reason I thought that we were going to spend weeks on the road or that we weren't going to sleep, or that the kids were going to scream and yell. No, they had as much of a fun time than we did, to be honest. And I would say that there, one of the lessons learned was that planning helps, but flexibility is key. And I already told y'all that like. We were pretty much like going with the flow and that's all what matters. And then finally the biggest lessons that we learned from is that the privilege and responsibility of reverse migration. Like I said, no one ask us for papers, even though we are dual citizens. It was just. Very interesting to experience crossing the border in a, in a different way than the way that our families came to the United States from Mexico. And I am definitely going to share a lot more about this. Uh, but for now, that was one of the biggest lesson that there is a lot of privilege in, in us not just traveling and driving through the border, but also the fact that we are here in Mexico. Because of different choices than what our families did. They did it outta survival to move from Mexico to the United States. And for us it was a choice. It was a decision. It was a privileged decision. Right? And so I'll be sharing more about this in incoming episodes, but for now, that was a big lesson learned. All right, well in next month's living in Mexico episode, we will cover what it's like living in Mexico, at least for the first month. I'll be sharing a lot about the first weeks because I've got a lot to share. And in addition to our living in Mexico series, you'll also be hearing regular guest episodes every week on Thursdays beginning at 6:00 AM central time, and please encourage other people to listen to Viva Lame. It really helps a lot, especially if you know in Amiga who is struggling in motherhood or who wants to build uni. This podcast is all about that. You will not only hear about me, but you'll also hear about. Guest experts, other mamas who are going through the same struggles as you are. And so please have your Amiga or Ana or another mommy that you know to tune in and listen to the podcast and also to please follow me on Instagram. I am at viva la and you're also more than welcome to ask any questions about our new life in Mexico. All right, AMI. Well, thank you so much for listening and I'll catch you in the next episode.