Your Guide to Moving Abroad—Beyond the Vacation Dream

Dreaming of moving abroad? Whether you’re seeking adventure, a lower cost of living, or a fresh start, making the move is a big decision. In this episode, we break it all down—from visas and expenses to cultural integration and the realities of life as a foreigner. Get the insights you need to turn your dream of living abroad into a sustainable lifestyle in Mexico!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Designing a Life Abroad: The Journey Begins
• 5:32 Understanding the Move: Practical Considerations
• 12:01 Navigating Financial Realities and Employment
• 20:20 Cultural Integration and Community Building
• 28:34 Embracing a New Lifestyle and Quality of Life
• 34:36 Reflections on Identity and Belonging

Transcript

Welcome back, Sh8peshifters. Today's episode is all about designing a life abroad beyond vacation. If you are someone who's interested in moving abroad, maybe you have this romantic affair with the city and you're thinking about it. This episode is for you. I'm going to share my personal journey moving out of the country, out of the United States, and my relocation process in Mexico.

So in 2021, I relocated to Mexico City. I am someone who always had the vision of wanting to live abroad. If you would have asked me five years ago, I probably wouldn't have been on the coast of the Caribbean somewhere or in a West African country. And Mexico was the place that culturally was very familiar because I'm from California. We know that California was originally Mexico. I went to school in the Fruitvale district, is an entirely Mexican neighborhood. Half of my high school is Mexican. In Deep East Oakland, the neighborhood is Mexican. So I never really had Mexico on my list. And at the end of 2020, after being on lockdown in California for months and months and really just needing to like get outside and have a change of environment, I said, you know what? I'm going to take the whole month of December. I'm just going to have two weeks to vacation and two weeks of working remotely. And so my daughter and I traveled to Merida, Mexico, which is in the state of the Yucatan, just for a vacation. definitely wasn't thinking about moving abroad at the time. I just really wanted a break. my friend, you know, maybe two weeks in, I was like, wow, this is kind of cool. Like everyone is nice. It's clean. I feel safe. I have a beautiful residence, the time difference wasn't that crazy. And I realized when I thought about what my list was, what my negotiables and non-negotiables were in terms of quality of life and lifestyle and safety and affordability, even though I had this idea of moving to Africa, that Mexico actually checked off all of those boxes. It was also way closer to home and be having access to my parents who are getting older was also something that was important, not having to get off of an island in order to go home. I wanted to have a level of proximity to my family. And so sometimes the places that we think we're supposed to be and the places where Spirit calls us are completely different. So that is the first lesson of my journey. If you are thinking about moving abroad, is really getting clear on what your needs are and building a life and identifying ciggies in countries that really match that versus the fantasy. So, you know, again, I wasn't putting too much on it. I had a good time. I went back home after the Christmas holiday and my relationship ended up completely transitioning. I was living with my partner at the time, so that meant that my housing transitioned. So now my work is remote. I'm going to have to move. My relationship is over. I had gotten rid of my car. I really sort of asked, you know, we're still on lockdown basically in California. I was like, you know, and then the quality of life, it was crime infested. It was dirty. It was unsafe. Nothing was giving for the price points. The prices are still pricing, but the life was not lifey. You know, and moving, you you move, pay $2,500 to $3,000 a month for a place. You pay first, last month's security. You 10, $12,000 about to spend. I had to really make an assessment.
You know, of how much money I was spending, what I was going to get from that, I'm over 40. I'm someone who has worked in startup culture and in entrepreneurship. So I haven't had the benefit of company benefits and a generous, 401k package where my job matches my amount. Sometimes I haven't even had health insurance. So I'm, I was also at a phase in my life where I was gonna have to start making some serious changes and questions about my future and the type of future that I wanted to have. Do I wanna keep sending all of this money where I don't really feel like I'm getting ahead or would I like to put myself in a position where I can still have a great quality of life and also save money at the time? And so it was like, it's a no-brainer. I'm moving to Mexico. And so I ended up coming back for a reconnaissance trip, which is another tip, is to definitely go visit the place, put your feet on the ground, get off of the YouTube and the Instagram, because those are just other people's highlight reels, and really feel if a place is the place for you. You have to know your lifestyle. You have to know what you're into. When you wake up in the morning, what do you want to hear? Do you want to hear the sounds of the ocean? Do you want to be in a very green environment? Do you want to live in a rural environment? Do you want to live in a more urban environment? And even though I thought I wanted to live in a very rural environment, in theory and practice, I realized, no, I actually like going to coffee shops. I actually would like to walk to a yoga studio. I actually want to be around people. I'm a single woman and I want to just...be in a rural environment. I was moving with my daughter who was turning 16, who had just gone through two years of online school and COVID, right? So they needed to be around people. They needed to be social. And so I also had to think about a place that was really going to meet those needs. And what was so interesting about coming to Mexico City was that even though, yes, it is the largest city in the Western hemisphere, it is a city of 20 million people. If you would have asked me if I would have chosen a place like that, I would have told you you were crazy. And yet when I came to visit, it checked up all those boxes. It was one of the greenest cities I had ever been in. had a walk for of a hundred. I could pick my neighborhood and pretty much everything in my neighborhood I could get. It had a number of public spaces and parks and open areas. It was safe feeling. It was tranquil Right? It checked off a lot of those boxes. So once I decided that I was going to live in Mexico City, I moved forward with the residency process, which is another tip. Make sure that you do your research, particularly right now in a time where immigration and migration is such a high point of discussion. You want to make sure that you are secure. And essentially when I moved, the requirements were if you are an American and you touch into Mexico, you can get up to, it's not guaranteed, but up to a six month visa. So you get six months and then essentially what people were doing was they would go back home, they would travel, and anytime you leave the country and you come back in, you get an additional six months. And there are people who have been living in Mexico for years, for five years, for 10 years, and never got residency. For me, I'm moving with my daughter. I want it to be secure. So I went forward and started my residency process when I moved. I came to Mexico with residency. You have to start that process in America at a Mexican consulate and you basically finish it here at the immigration office. So that was important for me. The type of visa that I was able to get was economic solvency visa. And so that meant that I do not have the ability to work in Mexico. I had to prove my income and that my income was enough for me to support my family. Which leads me to another tip. You gotta have your finances together. It's wonderful to live in a place that is cheaper than where you moved from, but you still have to make sure that you have an income. If you are lucky enough to earn the local currency. You also have to be aware that that local currency is probably not going to be at the value of an American currency. what getting paid in pesos and your purchasing power is going to be a lot different. If you are getting paid in a foreign currency, yes, you're going to have a lot more buying power, but there's also fluctuations in the marketplace that you have to be aware of. When I moved to Mexico, it was about $20 to one peso. Um, so I had a tremendous amount of purchasing power, but there was a moment where the dollar was $16 to the peso. And that was a difference of $300 in my rent. And I don't know about you, but I don't plan to have a $300 fluctuation in my rent. And so if my rent is in pesos and I'm earning dollars, it doesn't matter what the dollar is. You still have to pay that amount in pesos or whatever your foreign currency is. So having stable income, really understanding the budget, really living in your own means, meaning that my remote work had to be tight. Now I'm gonna be honest with you. When I moved here, I had a little money in the bank, not as much as I would have liked. I had a long-term contract for the first nine months of me living here. And so I knew that in month 10, I didn't know where my next dollar was gonna come from, to be honest. But I knew I had hustle and I know I can get out there and make some money. So when I landed, I immediately went into launching different aspects of my business, doubling down on my coaching practice, right? And I think that Mexico City has been a wonderful place for creatives, for entrepreneurs. There's a lot of other creatives and entrepreneurs and people here who are launching businesses. So it was wonderful to build community. And because I had that level of hustle,

I was able to increase my income, bring in more contracts, and now I'm very financially secure in my work. But that work also requires me to travel back to America several times a year, right? There have been plenty of people who've moved here. Maybe their remote work fell through. Maybe their work is still very place-based. They still have to travel back and forth a lot. And so even though they want to move here, it's just not an option because their work is not set up that way. And so there is a tremendous amount of privilege that comes from being a digital nomad, to be able to literally work anywhere in the world. And I would say that even though I'm a digital nomad, my work does not free me to the ability to work anywhere in the world. I need to work during American business hours. I can't move to Africa. I can't move to Thailand right now unless I'm going to wake up and try to be on American business hours, which I'm not going to do because I still have to show up in meetings even if those meetings are online.

So really understanding where you're choosing to live, the time differences, the financial needs that you're going to have, having secure employment, having your residency status locked in, which then leads me to your cost of living. That helped me to really figure out how much I was going to be able to spend. Now I want to say that I am extremely aware that their power of a blue passport carries tremendous privilege. I always say that there are numerous people of African descent all over the world and they don't have the ability to just get up and go to another country. know, an American passport for the most part, just like a Canadian passport or a European passport for the most part, offers you tremendous amount of privilege. And often as an African American, our privilege really begins when we move abroad, when we leave America that a lot of times the privileges that Americans have, we don't really get until we are in a foreign country. And so I'm very aware that the fact that I get paid in US dollars gives me a purchasing power, gives me a privilege, gives me choice in ways that local people here don't have. Some local people. This is also a very, very wealthy country. So by no means should you believe in the stereotype that there is not money in Mexico. There's tremendous wealth in Mexico as there is all over the world. There is an elite here like there is in any country. So that being said, that really shaped the neighborhood that I chose to live in, the places that I choose to spend my money. I don't want to just come to a foreign country and go to Walmart and go to Best Buy and go to Office Depot. All those places are here, even though they may feel more familiar. If I'm going to have that level of privilege, it's important that I spend money in local businesses. I'm going to local mom and pox. I'm supporting solopreneurs. I'm making sure that I'm putting my money to the best of my ability in the pockets of people. Sometimes when I go to a market, yes, I'm paying a lot cheaper than what I will pay in America. But I'm not nickel-ing and diming around the bargaining. If the price is what they say it is, now don't want to get taken advantage of. But also I recognize I might not get the local price everywhere. And I don't expect to get the local price because I'm not local, right? So there's a level of just shopping it up to the game that you're going to have to do because at the end of the day, I were to compare my lifestyle and my purchasing power in here in Mexico compared to what I would have in America. It goes without saying, you can't even compare it. I would say in general, you're gonna pay at minimum 30 % less of whatever your budget is for whatever item you're interested in. Whatever food you're used to purchasing, you're probably gonna pay 30 % less on groceries. Whatever level of home you're used to having, you're gonna pay a minimum of 30 % less. It can get even cheaper sometimes to half the price. Again, it just depends on what your personal standard is, and that is different for everybody. Mexico City is a city. It is one of the most expensive cities in the country. So you're not going to get the prices here that you're going to get in a more rural neighborhood. Things are going to cost a little bit more. And in general, I would say things cost. Things are better value, but I really tried to remove the word cheap out of my vocabulary and not so much that things are cheap, but things are better value. And so for that 30 % less than you're paying, you're paying for better value items. Me, I'm paying 30 % less for healthier groceries. I'm paying 30 % less on rent for an amazing apartment that probably would cost me three times the price if I was living in the States, right? So understanding your purchasing power, your lifestyle, your budget, and most importantly, being a global citizen to truly be intentional about the realities and the cultural differences and the cultural norms of not coming here and posing my own ideas of what I think things should be and how I think things are. I have to humble myself, which is another tip. Humility. I have to humble myself. And part of that humility means that I remove words like expat from my vocabulary. Why is it that when you are from a developing or Western nation and you move, you're an expat, but all the people who come to your country from more developing or poorer nations are immigrants. No, I had to humble myself and be able to say, I'm an immigrant in Mexico. I immigrated to Mexico. And because of that, I'm thankful that I welcomed and I have the ability to receive residency, but I'm a foreigner and I can't expect to be treated like a Lord.

And so that means that those cultural differences of learning a language, of walking down the street and sometimes not seeing anyone that looks like me, of walking down the street and having people stare, you know? And it's not necessarily because they all want you around, it's just because they're curious. Maybe they've never seen anybody that looks like you or met someone or seen them in their neighborhood. So there's all those cultural exchanges happening.

And I really think of myself as a cultural ambassador of what it means to be an African American and an African in America that has migrated to this country of Mexico. And even though I grew up around a lot of Mexicans in the Bay and in California, it is completely different here. These are their homegrown, this is their nation, right?

So they don't even see their Mexican holies in Framley the same way. It's a completely different cultural dynamic where we're constantly exchanging new ideas. It means that the simple things that we take for brand, like returning a pair of shoes at the store or signing up for the internet or signing a lease on a new apartment, take a lot more labor because I'm learning the cultural nuances. I'm learning the...I'm learning a new language. I'm learning a new pace that things are going to not move at the same quick, quick pace that if I go into an affluent neighborhood in Mexico City, they maybe are not used to a single mother purchasing or living in a high quality place because there isn't a precedent for that in the same way that people may be used to in America. And if I'm going to bring my black African-American baggage here, I might think, well, maybe they're being racist or they're being a certain type of way. And sometimes there is definitely anti-blackness, or for the most part, being more being a unicorn and just not having as many examples of people like me. And that brings me to my next tip, which is knowing your why. Because when the dust settles and the honeymoon wears off and you've gone to all the cool tourist attractions and you have gone to the fancy restaurants that you want to visit, you're going to find yourself alone. You're going to find yourself walking down the street and maybe no one looks like you. And those small little moments of, you know, not knowing how to translate something properly or miscommunicating with the gardener can really flip you. They can really get you fresh green. The smallest mundane tasks take a lot more labor when you choose to move to a different country. And so your why is going to anchor you and know this is why I'm here. I'm not here because it's just of the fancy restaurant. I'm here because I decided that this is where I wanted to move. That this is a land that I wanted to be on. This is a place I wanted to contribute to. This is a place I felt like I could thrive, right? It wasn't just about all of the shiny things that you see on the internet and your why is going to anchor you in that. And that is why a lot of people move abroad and can't stay abroad because they don't know their why. It's because they're chasing something outside of themselves rather than realizing that you bring yourself everywhere you go. And so there's a level of aloneness, not loneliness, but aloneness and isolation and isolation not always as a bad thing, but just being isolated, being alone that I've had to embrace. I've had to embrace more aloneness now than I ever had in my life And yet I have a piece and I have a quality of life and I have a purpose-driven life that is the best it's ever been. But it doesn't mean that everybody that I thought was going to be here or people that I was going to see or family members that I wanted to move with me. It doesn't mean that they're here, right? It's your why. It might not be everybody else's why. And so that can sometimes be a hard to swallow, where you want to step into this whole life and you want to bring all your people with you. And as you get older and you start making life choices, choices like moving to a new country, you realize that at the end of the day, you really only have yourself. And so being able to anchor myself in my practices, in my lifestyle, and the things that make me feel good and filled up are going to be the things that get you over the hump.

If you're feeling alone and you don't have access to the foods and the environment and the activities and the excursions that are gonna light you up, it's gonna be really easy for you to feel isolated and to ultimately give up. That also leads me to the next tip about building community. And I am very fortunate that I have an amazing community that I had to leave, that I'm still connected to, but I moved away from And so building community as an adult, building community in a place, in a foreign place is very interesting, right? Because you learn really quickly that just because you're American, just because you're black, doesn't mean that you necessarily have the same things in common. It doesn't mean that you share the same values. It doesn't mean that you like listening to the same music. It doesn't mean that y'all even vibe on the same level. And so in the beginning, you know, it's
that when any immigrant community moves to a foreign place, you want to go find people that look like you. You want to go find spaces that are playing your music and they're cooking your indigenous foods and are speaking your language, right? And so for that reason, Americans and foreigners and black people, we find each other when we're here in any country. But as you start navigating through, you really get clear on we're not all the same. And I actually don't even have anything in common with these people potentially. And so I'm very fortunate that there is a tremendous amount of community and WhatsApp groups and convenings and things to do. And my best practice has been to utilize those larger events to kind of find individuals to go out and do the things that I love. And so it means that it allows me to meet local folks that are Mexican that made me share my Sam interest. It maybe means that I have folks that aren't black, but they're from the Bay. And it's like, yo, you vibe on that tip more than someone that's from Arkansas. No, no shame to people from Arkansas. Right? So building community, but also knowing that you can't move to a place for community. Now, are you going to have great friends? Are you going to have great experiences? Are you going to meet new people? Sure.

But there is no magic wand. You bring yourself wherever you go. And so it's just important that you also tap into who you are and allow who you are to be enough to understand that you are your own best friend. You're in your own company more than anyone else's company and whose company is better than you. Right. So I've just learned how to enjoy my own company. It also means I have to be more intentional with my friendships that are not living in Mexico and making intentional time to call them, to FaceTime them, to set up trips for them to come visit, for me to go visit them so that I have a full life even if I'm not able to physically see some of the people that are closest to me all the time. Also, healthcare. Healthcare is a really big one if you have chronic conditions or someone in your family does or You just obviously want to maintain your own health, researching the healthcare wherever you are, looking at the quality of healthcare. Contrary to popular belief, Mexico actually has excellent seller healthcare here. It is pay to play. So by no means do I want to say that people who are working or lower class have safe access to healthcare that people who are middle or who are upper class. And that is not a Mexico thing, that's pretty much everything in the world. And because I do hold a level of privilege, I am able to access very high quality healthcare here. It's actually cheaper for me to pay for healthcare out of pocket than it is even to get insurance. I've been able to get my daughter quality healthcare. My mother has traveled here for better healthcare, even though she has insurance in the States. My father here has traveled and got me dentistry and got his whole mouth redone, even though he has health insurance in the States, because it was cheaper for him literally to get on a plane and to come here than even to get his insurance that he has in America. Mexico has stellar healthcare. Again, it is pay to play, but compared to what we're used to in the States, it's just a no brainer. It is important that you respect the local language of the place that you are moving. A little Spanish goes along way that when you want to move beyond the bubble of foreigners and Americans that are speaking English or beyond the bubble of the neighborhoods that are going to speak English to you, if you really want to be in a place that you're deciding to live in, if you want to connect with local people, if you want to make local connections, learning the language is going to have to be critical. And as you get older, it's harder to learn languages, right? Like your brain has got to do some work.

And so it's very critical to me that I made language classes, practicing Spanish, taking Spanish classes, keeping Spanish on my tongue, especially because I work remotely. So that means I'm speaking English all day for work, right? So I'm not intentional in speaking Spanish that I might not speak Spanish all day. It's so frustrating when I see people come here and have an expectation that everyone is supposed to speak English to you. Okay, here's a joke. What do you call people who speak three languages? Trilingual. What do you call people who speak two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American. So it's not uncommon here to meet someone who speaks Spanish, who also seeks their indigenous language, and maybe knows a couple of English. And Americans, we don't learn how to see multiple languages. It is a huge, huge drawback. You go to Africa, you go to Asia, everybody else speaks multiple languages. So you've got to learn the language. It is going to allow you to navigate and to connect with people on a much, much deeper level. Another piece for me in terms of the take was my quality of life, not just my lifestyle, but the pace of life that I am in in my life. And so I'm looking at the next chapter. I'm looking at what I want my pseudo retirement to be. And I did not want to be working my ass off all the time. I want to be in my leisure level. I'm a lady of leisure. I want to move slower. And so that is something that I've been able to do here. And so again,
understanding the housing, getting your visa together, knowing your why, picking your right neighborhood, understanding your costs of living, your healthcare, all of the different pieces have added up to me living the life of my dreams in this country. And I would say at a time where the political climate is so tense in America, for those of you who are on the fence, I'm going to say take all of these tips, but I'm going to say go for it because there is never going to be the perfect time for you to move abroad. There's going to be some things that are working in your favor and some things that aren't. And you just have to trust the universe. And so the last thing that I will share in terms of my journey to moving abroad, and this is something that I wasn't even aware of until maybe like a couple of months into moving here, as my friend, my sister Janice says, my shoulders dropped. I just relaxed. And there's a tenseness and a stress and a post-traumatic stress and an angst and a holding and a constraint that I had normalized living in America. It was like I was always on edge. And I didn't think I was on edge. I thought I was just normal. But when I moved to a place where I could be nourished, when I moved to a place that I could afford an amazing massage and good quality food and good healthcare and live in a home that surpassed my imagination, the level of ease and the vibrational frequency that I became emitting started magnetizing more and more of that to me. And so peace is what I gained. But I will say that frequency and the political climate and the political tension of America. You have to work a lot harder to maintain and keep your peace. It's possible, but it just requires a lot more labor. And frankly, that is labor that I'm just not willing to do anymore. I'm just not willing to do. And so I'm in a place in my life where my health is the best it's ever been. I feel stronger and more grounded in my body than I've ever been. I have a lifestyle that I love. I have an amazing community of global friends and people here and people abroad. My family is thriving. I love where I live. I have access to wonderful healthcare, beautiful parks. I can walk anywhere I want to go. Like the peace and the health that I have. And when I go home and I visit America, as soon as I get off the plane, it's like the frequency I can just seal myself constricting and things getting tight again. And I watch my American friends and I love y'all normalize a level of suffering that's not normal. It's like we're used to dirt, we're used to filth, we're used to crime, we're used to shovel, we're used to scarcity, we're just used to the struggle and the grind and it just becomes part of life. we as African, particularly as African-Americans, realizing we have choices. We have choices and some of you may say, but we built this country. Yes, we built this country, but we also circumnavigated the entire planet before anyone else did. And so even the notion of Mexico, the notion of borders, there were many African tribes that resided in Mexico. They came before Columbus, the Olmec civilization, which was an African black civilization as one of the oldest civilizations in Mexico. I'm saying abolished slavery before America abolished slavery. And there was an entire underground railroad system where slaves in Louisiana and Texas were fleeing across the Gulf of Mexico. And as their slave owners followed them to Mexico, the Mexico government actually defended them. One of the presidents of Mexico was Afro-Mexican. Veracruz was a slave port to a tremendous amount of Africans to the point where it actually had a maroon community, a palenque of runaway slaves that rebelled against the Spanish empire and formed their own independent and sovereign cities. And that city still stands to this day. So there is a tremendous history and lineage of Africans in Mexico. And it's important that we as African people begin to see ourselves beyond the borders that have been placed on us by patriarchy, by hierarchy, by capitalism. And the reality is, as an African, a woman of African descent, I have the ability to go anywhere I want. And there is no barrier, there is no border that gets to tell me where I belong and where I don't belong. That I am a cultural ambassador and I'm a global citizen. And as long as I carry my values and I carry my intentionality and my frequency wherever I go, I'm going to magnetize more of that into my life. And I would say to those of you who are questioning or wondering, yes, you're going to have to give up some things. Everything is not going to be perfect. There is no perfect place. There are earthquakes here in Mexico that have been very scary, right? There are sometimes the quality of air in this city is poor and I have to step up my health regimen in order to detox, right? There is no perfect place. You have to make the list of what your non-negotiables are and what your negotiables are. And you have to be willing to find a place that suits those needs. To get off Instagram and get off social media and not focus on what's perfect for someone else, but to find what's perfect for you. And when I think back and reflect on the last three years of living here, I know that this is the perfect place for me. I found my home. This is where I want to be. I've always felt connected to this land. It is very, very powerful. Even in my own journey in African spirituality in Ifa, one of the largest spiritual markets is in Mexico City, Mercado de Sonora, where I'm able to go and purchase materials for my arisha. The fact that African spirituality is even practiced in this country. Make it really clear to me that this is unique. I understand that everyone can't be a digital nomad and it's not gonna work for everyone. But for those of you who are willing to take the leap, for those of you who are willing to make the sacrifice, because it is a sacrifice, I can promise you that in return, you will receive all that you dream for and even more. OK, shapeshifters, that's what I have for you today. Until next time, keep shifting. Much, much love and light for showing up today, Shapeshifters. You could be doing anything right now and you chose to be here and I do not take that for granted. Looking for extra support on your journey? Explore my affordable coaching programs. Whether you prefer personalized one-on-one sessions or engaging group coaching, I'm here to help you align your vision and thrive on your own terms. Visit shapeshifterlife.com. That's S-H the number eight P-E ShiftYourLife.com and schedule your free shift call to discuss your coaching goals. Keep shifting.