28 August 2008 620 views 4 Comments

Mexico is not just a haven for retirees. Young people are seeing the benefits of escaping the traditional 9-5 in the US and designing a more fulfilling lifestyle in Mexico. Continue reading for our insightful discussion with a young expat who shares her experiences and thoughts on working remotely in Mexico, escaping the traditional path, and enjoying a new lifestyle.

Mexpat is a 31 year old woman who is happily married to a fellow wanderer and the proud parent of one black lab. She grew up in North Carolina, but lived most recently in New Jersey before moving to Playa del Carmen, Mexico almost 9 months ago. Mexpat and her husband run a software and web development company that services clients mostly in the US and Europe.

Today we are very lucky to have Mexpat, author of the top Mexico Blog Mexico or Bust, as our guest to discuss her experiences as a young person moving to Mexico. My first question is why, at such a young age, did you decide to move to Mexico?

We were already stuck in the rut that we saw so many of our friends in: School, Marriage, House, Cars… the next thing on the list was having kids. A couple years ago we decided that we weren’t sure we wanted to be stuck in that rut for life, so we started taking scuba diving vacations and assessing whether or not we could live in each location. We narrowed it down to Cayman Brac or Cozumel, Mexico. A few other things came into play and later we chose Playa del Carmen over Cozumel.

I had studied Spanish nearly all my life and was as fluent as I could get staying in the US, so Mexico had more appeal to me than the Caymans. My husband is an avid cave diver (I occasionally accompany him, too) and the Yucatan Peninsula has some of the best caves in the world, so it wasn’t hard to get him on board. Then things started to work out with our business in a way that made it possible for us to work abroad. Finally, I told my husband that there had to be more to life than working to pay for our mortgage, so we were either moving to Mexico or having a kid. That kid ultimatum works every time!

I guess the bottom line is that neither of us was willing to wait until retirement to have this adventure when we could do it now. Who knows what sort of health problems we may face in our old age (God willing we reach old age)! It wasn’t by accident that we structured our life and company to work from abroad. We are entrepreneurs on purpose. Besides, two weeks of vacation a year is not enough!

Since you are not living off retirement, how do you afford to pay for living expenses?

We have owned a software and web development company for almost 10 years now. Most of our work is referral-based or generated from internet searches, so we are able to work from here. We use VOI phones, so we were able to keep our regular business phone number. We still have employees in the States, but they all work from home, so it’s a virtual company. For now, this is working, and we always keep an eye out for business opportunities here in Mexico, which are plentiful if you are creative.

In what ways has your lifestyle changed when you moved to Mexico?

One of the biggest ways my lifestyle has changed is that now I live in proximity to the things that I enjoy doing. Pretty much everything is in walking distance: yoga classes, Spanish lessons, the gym, the beach, meditation classes, coffee shops, restaurants and bars. In that respect my life has gotten simpler, I no longer have to drive 1/2 an hour to do the things I want to do.

Neither of us are pack rats, but somehow we had managed to accumulate a lot of stuff over the last 7 years. It was really cathartic to get rid of most of our stuff. Now we are enjoying apartment living again and trying to keep our “stuff” to a minimum.

In the US shopping is a regular pass time and everything in the media is set up to make us think we need to buy whatever they’re selling. It’s not like that in Mexico at all, so we’ve enjoyed being away from that pressure and the insidious marketing messages. They still bother us when we go back to visit, though. Somehow, living here, it’s become completely unimportant to me to have a Blackberry or a nice car.

I probably work less here by choice, but working less means earning less. Unfortunately, Playa del Carmen has a higher cost of living than other Mexican towns, at least according to what I’ve heard other expats report regarding their expenses, but it’s still more affordable than life in New Jersey. We aren’t sure how long we’ll be here (”as long as it works” is the plan), so part of being here is enjoying the opportunities that exist. I could work the way I did in the States, but that’s so much easier when it’s miserable outside. I take more time out for me here, whether it’s exercising or just reading a book at the coffee shop. Saturdays are for laying on the beach and Sundays are for diving!

What was the biggest adjustment you had to make when you moved to Mexico?

The biggest adjustment for me was having to assume all the responsibility for things outside the house. In the States, my husband was the one who would call the Cable company or the Gas company. Since he speaks very little Spanish, I am the one who has to make all the arrangements. At first, it was very hard for me to get used to my new role, plus it was difficult to anticipate the questions that my husband would want me to ask. It led to a lot of, “Well did you ask him ____?” Followed by complaints about my translation services. It took us a while to figure things out, like paying bills, but after I did them once I was able to tell him how it works, my husband was able to do them by himself.

Likewise, one of my husband’s biggest adjustments was getting used to his newfound sense of impotence in certain situations due to his lack of Spanish. He was often extremely frustrated with not being able to communicate directly with Mexicans who didn’t speak English. He’s getting better at taking it in stride and I’m getting better at translating for him. He’s also learning Spanish slowly and, luckily, isn’t afraid to use what little Spanish he knows. He certainly isn’t afraid to make mistakes, which has led to some pretty funny ones!

Another huge adjustment I had to make was understanding that sometimes people will make plans with you and just not show up. Where I grew up, if someone stood me up I would be angry and wouldn’t invite them out again. Here it’s culturally acceptable to pull a no-show. I had to learn to take it in stride, and/or let the person know that I wasn’t ok with being stood up. I have heard that the longer you live here, the more likely you are to act the same.

Do you see many other young people from the US or Canada moving to Mexico to live, or is it pretty rare? Are there any trends you are seeing? Do you think the younger generation of Americans are more likely to move to Mexico than their parents?

There are lots of young people from Canada and the US (and Europe and South America, for that matter) living here in Playa del Carmen. Most of the young people that I know, though, are here for some undetermined amount of time, with the intention of going to their home countries to live again some day. I think anywhere in Mexico that has timeshares and scuba shops will have a higher number of young people. Although my interpretation of “young” is anywhere from 20 - 45 or so, since that’s the age range of most of my friends here.

Many of our friends in the US thought we were insane to leave, so I don’t know if the younger generation would be more likely to move here. I think they’re more likely to get stuck in the rut I spoke of earlier. There’s a lot of pressure to put off travel until retirement.

It takes a special type of person to move away from the US or Canada and give a developing country a shot, it’s not for everyone. I have met just as many retirees as young people who have wanderlust and fit in fine here. I’ve also met people of all ages who hate it here after they experience it as a life choice. I suppose that wanderers and adventure-seekers will be wanderers and adventure-seekers no matter their age.

What are your impressions of the quality of the infrastructure where you live? Have you had any problems at all?

Playa del Carmen has grown dramatically in the last 15 years. For the most part, they have tried to make sure that everyone has their basic needs met. In fact, I am very impressed with the Mexican government’s commitment to making sure that everyone has electricity and water, even in small villages in the jungle.

We chose Playa because we needed to have easy access to an office supply store, a courier and banks. We also wanted to have a redundant internet connection and here we are able to have both Cable and DSL internet service (since our business depends on it). The infrastructure is solid enough that we can run a technology company from here. We have met many expats who run their businesses from here, so, in that respect, Mexico is keeping up with the rest of the world. We thought we would need to be near Cancun in case we really needed something, but we haven’t needed to go there yet. We can find everything we need to run our business here.

Of course, it’s not all roses. There are times when we have been without water or gas, but it’s usually temporary and was often our own fault for not understanding how the system works. It took us a couple of months to iron out the kinks by asking other expats and Mexicans what we needed to do to ensure regular service.

The roads in Quintana Roo are some of the best that we have experienced in Mexico. Thanks to all the tourism we receive, the main roads are well-paved and lighted. We experienced worse roads on our drive down, but there are rumors that the government is re-paving the route we took around the Gulf of Mexico. There are some drainage issues in town when it rains and the highway gets exponentially more dangerous when it’s wet, but for a city that has exploded in size the way Playa has, they’re not that bad.

My husband has visited the private hospital and a local doctor and was extremely satisfied with both the cleanliness and the level of service he received. Health care is significantly cheaper here, even when we visited the emergency room in the private hospital without insurance. We feel comfortable enough with the health care system to consider having a child here.

What do you like most about living in Mexico? What do you like least?

I like a lot of things about living in Mexico: learning about Mexican culture, the weather, the food, living near the beach, finally using my Spanish, the laid-back atmosphere here in Playa, being able to walk almost anywhere, having lots of friends from all over the world, proximity to some of the best diving in the world. However, the thing I like the most about living here is experiencing living in another culture and breaking free of the rut we were in. I feel like I’m really living here, rather than just going through the motions. Mexico makes me feel alive.

I suppose after about 9 months we’re still in the pink cloud stage, but there are a few things that I don’t like about living in Mexico. The weather in August has been so hot that it can become frustrating. I have heard that this hot, muggy weather will continue until mid October. When I first got here, I was obsessed with finding a Health Food store. I have since, more or less, given up on that quest, so I don’t like that Health Food is not as ubiquitous as it can be in the States. Because Playa is a tourist destination and many of my friends are not retired, I find that often new friends move back home, or at least move away, shortly after you’ve really started enjoying their company.

You can read more about Mexpats’s experiences in Playa del Carmen at her blog Mexico or Bust.