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that helps you build your online presence and run your business all right number one
is definitely the number one biggest question and it was actually our biggest question when
we were coming to Mexico so I'm sure a lot of people are sort of on the edge of their
seats for this one my fiance man you know I've been in Mexico for almost two months now and
there's been a few surprises not everything's been exactly how we expected it so today we're
going to be giving you our seven things we wish we knew before coming to Mexico
foreign
on the list is Visas so there's one thing in particular I wish we knew before we came here
when I did a little bit of research about getting a Visa here I did find that there's
a certain amount of countries that's eligible for what's called a Visa exemption and luckily Canada
and Australia are both on that will bring up the list of countries on the screen now but what that
means is you can stay up to 180 days but what we didn't know which we found out after we got here
that's up to the discretion of the immigration agent that processes your passport and everything
when you get to the airport so we landed in Mexico City and I actually don't remember if
they asked us how long we were staying I don't know it was about 30 hours of staying awake at
that point so it was a long travel day uh but so the guy gave us 90 days on our tourist card
so when you travel to Mexico you'll get given what's called a tourist card on the plane to
fill out and you need to keep this with you at all times so the Mexican immigration agent will
ask you some questions and then they'll write a number of how long you can stay on that card
you need to be careful to read that card luckily I've checked ours and saw that it was 90 days so
basically we've only got 90 days here which is a bit of a shame because we thought we're going
to have 180 but what I learned is yeah it's up to them they decide if they're going to give
you 180 days 90 days it could be 30 days I think 60 days so if you have a certain amount of time
you're going to be staying here let them know but if you are staying for 180 days you might need to
show that you can support yourself and that you have outward flights as well you can extend that
tourist card by either leaving the country and getting a new one so I guess it's like a border
run but I think they're sort of like cracking down on that a little bit so I don't really recommend
that but you can go to an immigration office and get it extended but you'll need to show that you
can support yourself so you have the money to support yourself while you're here other than
that there is another Visa option so it's called an Extended Stay Visa or like a temporary resident
Visa if you want to stay longer than six months you can stay up to four years but again you're
going to need to show bank statements to show either an income or Savings in your account so
that you can support yourself I'll just leave the website in the description down below for
that and I actually have heard that if you fly into Puerto Vallarta they will give you 100
180 days pretty much guaranteed and if you're flying to Cancun now they're trying a new process
where you don't actually have to use the tourist card they're just going to stamp your passport
for 180 days so that's something to think about maybe it's worth flying into Cancun do you know
that no I didn't know that so number six is just the Spanish speaking in comparison to
places that we visited in Southeast Asia where a lot of English was spoken just automatically
to us it was just assumed we only spoke English which was true so far in Mexico that's not the
case we have mentioned this in another video but I think it's probably a good thing to mention if
you're coming over here with absolutely not a lick of Spanish it's probably a good idea to
even just pick up the basics before you come because a lot of the locals just speak Spanish and
I think it's also a good sign of respect as well here they're very strong in their culture even in
somewhere that's very heavily touristy like Playa Del Carmen so somewhere you would sort of assume
maybe would speak a lot of English and yeah some people do but predominantly Spanish yeah and I
think because like Mexico obviously does rely on tourism but not as heavily as a lot of the places
in Southeast Asia and because a lot of their tourists are local tourists from other parts of
Mexico and then like a lot of people in the United States speak Spanish as well yeah so they can get
away with not really having to speak English so I reckon if you don't know Spanish learn the basics
but also just use Google Translate if you need it yeah we've actually we've been picking up a lot
like we've been practicing a bit and being here because you just get thrown into that I feel like
you pick up the language so much quicker yeah and I like it yeah like Mandy said you just get thrown
into it and they'll start throwing out numbers and stuff to you and you've got to figure out
what it is so number five on the list is taxis so I didn't know this but Uber is only available in
a few cities in Mexico which is Guadalajara Leon uh Merida Mexico City Monterey Puebla
that's how you say it and Toluca so when you come to a new place like Playa Del Carmen or
Puerto Vallarta Cancun uh you're gonna need to figure out the taxi prices if you don't
speak Spanish is going to be a little bit of an issue as well they're probably going to give you
a higher price because you're a tourist and you don't speak Spanish but they do have set prices
and zones so in Playa del Carmen if you're going anywhere in the central part of Playa
Del Carmen it should be 50 pesos but if you get a taxi from a taxi stand or a hotel there's an
additional 50 pesos on top of that so it's a hundred so don't think you're getting ripped
off if they want to charge you 100 instead of 50 just look where you are if you're at
a taxi stand or something like that there is an extra fee but there is it's written
um in the center part of playa.com and there's like a sign where the taxi stand is and you
can ask the taxi drivers for this um like basically piece of paper that will show you
all the taxi zones and how much they should be charging for each zone so if you get to know the
prices then you shouldn't have any troubles and you won't get ripped off hopefully yeah probably
just the best bet if you don't want to pay like pay the hundred instead of 50. go wave down a taxi
on your own don't get it from one of those zones like even if you go to the grocery store for
example they charge the extra 50 as well just because they have that premium parking spot I
guess to get people coming out of like Walmart or shopping center so it's better to flag down
your own taxi rather than getting it out of the zones yeah and look I assume it's the same in
other places that we haven't been yet they've all got set prices just get to know the set prices
also don't expect taxi drivers to speak English we've found that a lot of them don't some of
them do like a little bit but we've learned what we need to say when we get into a taxi
and we usually like put it into Google translate where we want to go and then we say it in Spanish
um so again get Google translate if you're coming here I think I
think I banished from the taxi drivers so far all right we're just going to take a quick break
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right now back to the video all right number four on the list is how to find accommodation and this
is honestly one of the top questions we always get asked is how we found like our Apartments
our long-term accommodation and we've found the best place for long-term accommodation and if
you're smart about it not getting ripped off is Facebook Marketplace or Facebook groups there's
a number of different Facebook groups for like Playa Del Carmen or any other City usually they
have like an expats group so I kind of recommend that across the board wherever you're moving
looking up expat groups for any city everywhere that we've pretty much gone has had a expat
group so and they've always been super helpful like Bali we used them we used it in Vietnam
Thailand so looking that up sort of before you move anywhere but we've definitely had our best
luck through Facebook groups and Marketplace for finding our long-term accommodation
I'm we go to a new city we joined the Facebook groups because it's the easiest way if you're
looking for a place just put up a post saying we're arriving on this date and we're looking
for long-term or monthly accommodation this is our budget this is what we want and it's
super easy yeah I find the Facebook groups really helpful as well if you're looking for
something like you need like a local tailor I've needed before or like just things that you would
only know if you lived in the city like people that are hard to find and someone's always been
able to recommend someone to me like a tailor or like yeah anything like that so definitely
recommend joining them all right number three uh this took me by surprise because we spent a
bit of time in Bali about six months there and we found that gym memberships yoga memberships
um I did Jiu Jitsu it wasn't cheap like it was as expensive as back home in Australia if not
more expensive would you say I think it was our biggest expense in Bali yeah but here in Mexico
um in Playa del Carmen it's really cheap like I got a monthly gym membership for 1 000 pesos
which is about 50 bucks U.S 70 Australia and you got about the same for yoga yeah which is in like
insane it's funny they're drop in price is quite expensive but if you are doing like a monthly stay
somewhere the prices have sort of everything get better like your accommodation the fitness so yoga
was yeah super affordable I think in Australia and it comes to about 70 Australian dollars a month
which is insane because their drop in price was 15 US dollars per class but yeah um 50 us for the
whole month which is very very affordable here and a really good Studio as well we've been going to
Yoga Loft here in Playa del Carmen we really like it yeah and good gyms as well but uh definitely
pretty crowded yeah there's uh there's definitely a fitness culture here there's lots of really
healthy cafes as well if you're into the fitness atmosphere it's definitely a good place for that I
think very much at par with Bali was a lot like that and I think that's really the only place
I can kind of compare it to with that sort of Fitness healthy energy around so number two is car
rentals uh uh actually it's a lot more expensive to rent like a motorbike or a scooter here than
it is in Southeast Asia and renting a car is not very cheap either and that's mostly because like
you'll see signs and ads and stuff for like twenty dollars a day or thirty dollars a day Car Hire
but when you factor in like taxes and fees and then Insurance it ends up being like a hundred
bucks a day which isn't really much cheaper than at home but I've also heard stories that
when you rent a car here because you have rental car number plates you might get pulled over more
often and you might get a little bit of trouble from the police you are actually allowed to drive
in Mexico with a foreign driver's license from what I've seen I've done a bit of research but
you still as I said might get pulled over driving a higher car so there is an option to rent a
private car there's some companies or some people in Mexico in Playa del Carmen that will rent you
a car that has private plates on it you just got to make sure that it has the right insurance on
it because you don't want to rent a car without insurance and then something happens and you're
liable also check your travel insurance you might be covered with travel insurance but a lot of the
time you won't be we just found it really helpful for example when we wanted to go to Tulum a lot of
the places in Mexico think seem to be sort of set back from the beach some of them or there's just
towns cities only an hour away from each other so having a car here is quite handy yeah and
only like the ruins you can go and see and stuff like you it's definitely handy to have a car here
but as I said getting going through one of the big rental car companies just don't expect it
to be that cheap really yeah all right number one is definitely the number one biggest question and
it was actually our biggest question question when we were coming to Mexico so I'm sure a
lot of people are sort of on the edge of their seats for this one and from our experience in
the last six weeks since we've been here we felt very safe and I feel like we've gotten
more and more comfortable as we've been here if we're being completely honest we were a little
bit weary when we first got here just because of what you hear in the media here on the news
um Mexico can sometimes be painted in a little bit of a bad light I think like anywhere there
definitely is you know crime and things that happen but in the areas that we've been hanging
out we've felt super safe there's definitely always police around whether that's good or bad
I guess that's up to whoever's deciding but uh yeah since we've gotten here we've gotten more
and more comfortable and felt more and more safe with our surroundings and understanding that the
locals that we've spoke to have said that this sort of crime everywhere and we just hear about
that side of of Mexico more than the positive I think yeah we've spoken to a couple of locals
and they explained to us that like any like major U.S city or Canadian city Australian city wherever
there's just places that you shouldn't probably go and that applies for here too so there's places in
Mexico where maybe they're not that safe and you shouldn't really go but in general a lot of the
crime that you hear about on the news and that you see stories about is not directed at foreigners or
tourists it's people who are fighting with each other and those crimes are being done to each
other which is still bad but it's not something that you're ever going to be involved in if you're
just going about your daily business we don't party we don't go out at night we haven't really
what's the latest we've been out here nine o'clock yeah uh you'll never find us walking home drunk
from a bar here so that's something that we think about and we don't really put ourselves in those
situations but I can only talk about a general feeling that we've had since being here and
um we've felt safe yeah a real basic level of common sense with being safe not putting your
handbag on the back of your chair not putting like leaving your phone on the table for someone
to snatch it there's always going to be petty crime like that and that's been sort of consistent
anywhere I've ever been ever traveled to even in the safest places uh so it's sort of just
doing your due diligence to make sure that bad things don't happen and just yeah watching your
own back we haven't had any issues haven't met anyone really yet that's had any issues so and
from people we've spoken to we've asked them is it safe to like catch buses around Mexico and drive
around Mexico and they told us yes absolutely it's safe um but this is a we're painting Mexico with
a very broad brush because we can't really say definitively that the whole country is safe but
if you think about coming to Mexico and um you're going to go to one of the main tourist areas then
I think you have no problems at all don't get get drunk don't do stupid silly things I mean
obviously get drunk but um just be safe about it and do it in well secure areas I think yeah
we've been really happy here and we've felt more at home in Mexico I think than we have
in quite a while it it sort of just takes a lot of the boxes for us and we're very comfortable
here at the moment so maybe if you're on the fence thinking wondering if this would be right for you
I definitely recommend coming and trying it we're really happy here the lifestyle is awesome it sort
of just feels like you're on a resort holiday every day yeah we're about to go and venture
out and explore a little bit more of Mexico to get a better idea of it I've been here before
though so I do have some expectations but so far don't regret coming here at all so like we said we
are planning on heading out and seeing a lot more of Mexico so you if you have any suggestions for
us please fire them down in the comments if you haven't already please subscribe to our Channel
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you guys watching if you've made it this far and we will see you guys in the next one bye