- In this video, I'm gonna tell you
about very common products in the US
that you will just not find in Mexico.
The first thing is licorice of any kind,
especially the real black licorice.
Throughout Mexico, licorice is basically
impossible to find, licorice of any kind.
The only way you're gonna have any luck finding it
is if you're in an expat enclave
going into a specialty store
that caters to Americans or Canadians.
But other than that, you're just not gonna find it.
A couple more things you won't find here
are the original flavor of Fritos and barbecue-flavor chips.
If you're looking for those things, I wish you luck.
Another thing you won't find in Mexico
are pickles of any kind,
pickles are so hard to find here.
You know, I was recently in Puerto Vallarta,
I was at a bar and this guy next to me,
he orders a beer with pickle juice.
And I'm just sitting here like, "Oh, this is gonna be good."
And you might be thinking,
"A beer with pickle juice, who orders that?"
Well, where I grew up in Minnesota,
that's a very common drink.
Like if I go back home, like home to where I grew up,
and I go out with friends,
they're all getting beers with pickle juice.
The next minute or so was spent with this guy
trying to explain to the bartender what a pickle is.
(Jordan laughs)
And it was one of those situations
where I could have jumped in and helped out both of them,
but I was just too entertained by the conversation,
and too curious to know where it was going to go.
And this is a bartender who speaks perfect English,
he interacts with Americans and Canadians all day long,
but he still didn't know what a pickle was
because they just don't really exist here.
The things in this video are not only based
on my own experience,
but I also asked other expats living in Mexico,
what their experience is,
what products they have a hard time finding.
And of those answers, Bobbi said, "Bras."
This made me curious, so I asked her,
"Is this for real? Mexicans have boobs, why not bras?"
And the answers I got were,
"There's a very limited selection of bras
in Mexico compared to the US."
And Claire says, "I second this."
"Also, there isn't the variety of fabrics
and styles in Mexico that we are used to."
And then Lyndonna says, "I absolutely agree."
"I am short with a rather large chest,
swimsuits and bras that fit are impossible
for me to find in Mexico."
So there you have it, if you're looking for bras,
you might wanna get them where you're coming from
before you come to Mexico.
And although I'm no expert on the bra topic,
I do know that in a lot of big cities, there will be malls.
And in these malls,
there's a decent chance there's an Aerie store.
Aerie is like a sub-brand of American Eagle,
and I know a couple of women who swear by their products
and that's the only place to shop.
So maybe check that out if you're in Mexico.
A few more things you're gonna have trouble
finding in Mexico are kidney beans,
baked beans, and Velveeta cheese.
Considering how much Mexicans love their soda
and love their Coke,
I was really surprised that there's a few sodas
that are quite difficult to find.
Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, root beer,
good luck finding any of those here.
I have been to many sushi restaurants
throughout the entire country.
No matter where I am in the country,
no matter what sushi restaurant I'm at,
no matter what sushi roll I'm looking at,
there's a 99.7% chance
that that sushi roll has cream cheese in it.
It is darn near impossible here
to find a sushi roll without cream cheese.
Yes, of course, you can order it without cream cheese,
but then you usually get this sad ass looking sushi roll
that just isn't that appealing.
Something else you're gonna have trouble finding
in Mexico is unscented laundry soap and dish soap.
The unscented stuff is really hard to find.
Thankfully, Costco can be a bit of a life-saver sometimes.
Sometimes you can find this one,
it's the Kirkland brand laundry soap
that's unscented, so that's nice.
On the topic of unscented stuff,
another thing you're not gonna find
in Mexico is unscented toilet paper.
The good thing is that when COVID came around,
people here in Mexico were smart enough to know
that it didn't give you the (beep)
so there was plenty of this stuff on the shelves.
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Something else that has been impossible
to find in Mexico is bully sticks.
I've been looking for these things for years
since I came here and just recently, like a month ago,
my Costco started carrying them.
And Laska has become very interested
in this part of the video for some reason.
(Jordan laughs) Do you want a bully stick?
(Laska barks)
Do you want it?
If you're wondering why I cared about finding bully sticks,
it's because they're Laska's favorite thing to chew on.
She gets bored with all other chew toys very quickly,
but bully sticks, she absolutely loves,
and they're something healthy for her,
and they last a long time so I like that as well.
If you're wondering what a bully stick is, akc.org says,
"Bully sticks are a single-ingredient,
easily-digestible chew treat made from beef muscle."
Oh, that sounds nice.
On BeChewy's website, well,
they have a little bit more of an honest description.
"What are bully sticks made of?"
"It's a single-ingredient chew treat for dogs,
that lone ingredient? Steer or bull penis."
Yeah, that's right.
But you know, who am I to judge her?
A girl wants what a girl wants.
By the way, Laska had surgery a week ago today,
and I'm happy to report that she's doing well,
I'm seeing improvements pretty much every day.
My biggest issue is trying to get her to calm down,
trying to get her to chill out and relax
so she's not running and jumping all over the place.
And the best solution I've found for that,
is to just increase her dosage of CBD oil.
I've doubled her dosage,
and she's been pretty chilled out most days.
Some other things you might have trouble finding here
are sweet corn, grape jelly, and Seagram's 7.
If you go to a restaurant in Mexico and you ask for a lemon,
they're gonna bring you a small green fruit
that you know is a lime.
Lemons are pretty hard to find here.
But fortunately, I have a Costco reasonably close to me,
and they almost always have lemons in stock
so that's convenient.
And you might notice that's a theme in this video,
that I keep saying, "Oh yeah, these are really hard to find,
but they're at Costco!"
Well, you know, Costco has a selection of rotating products,
and they have a selection of products
that they have all the time.
Between the products they have all the time
and the rotating products,
some of those things
that I have a hard time finding in Mexico
I can occasionally find at Costco.
And disclaimer, I don't own any shares of Costco stock
although it may seem like it.
A few more things you're gonna have trouble
finding in Mexico are chicken noodle soup,
horseradish, and tomato paste.
Something else you might not find
in Mexico is marinara sauce.
I had been looking for it for a while,
and then finally, on a Costco trip
a couple weeks ago, I found it!
I filled my cart up with these
because I knew I may never see it again,
I went back there the next week and they didn't have any.
So if you're ever in that position where you're like,
"I don't know if I'm gonna be able to find it again."
I recommend you buy several.
I think it's funny,
Domino's Pizza has been in Mexico for quite a while.
And if you've been in the US and you've ordered pizza there,
you know that marinara is kind of like a staple.
Marinara sauce always comes with pizza,
or at least it's always an option on the side.
Well, if you go on the Domino's Mexico website right now,
and then you go to extras to see
what kind of extras you can buy with your pizza.
Well, you'll see marinara sauce, and on it,
there's a "nuevo" tag, meaning it's new,
they just introduced it after all this time.
But you know something you will get?
If you order a pizza in Mexico,
you'll always get ketchup with it. That's right.
The thought of that grosses me out,
but if you offered a pizza
to most Mexicans without ketchup,
they'd run you out of business.
Some other things that are really hard
to find here are Miracle Whip, Cool Whip,
and I think to a lesser extent, Half and Half.
And while we're in the dairy section of the grocery store,
I'll also talk about sour cream.
You know, sour cream is kind of tough to find here.
And you know, when I do find it,
I feel like it's one of those things
that just doesn't taste the same as in the US.
On the topic of shoes, some things that are hard
to find here are women's sizes eight or larger,
good hiking boots, and also wide-style shoes.
There's also some crackers that I really like
that I almost never find in Mexico like Triscuits,
Wheat Thins, Cheez-Its, they're pretty hard to find here.
So as I'm going through this list,
you might be thinking, "Well, I live in Ajijic."
Or, "Playa Del Carmen," or, "San Miguel de Allende."
"And I think I can find almost everything
on your list here."
Well, if you're living in a place
that has a ton of Americans or a ton of Canadians,
there's almost bound to be specialty shops
that cater towards those crowds.
The thing is, you don't find that in most of Mexico,
and the things you do find in those shops,
are usually like double the price
of what they would be in your home country.
Another thing that can be tough to find,
especially at a reasonable price,
is high-thread count sheets.
Now, Costco has limited options,
and also there's probably going to be some options
if you go to a higher-end department store like Liverpool,
or like the really high-end Palacio de Hierro.
I mean, in general, they're just pretty hard to find.
A couple more things that are very hard
to find in Mexico are tater tots.
I know, the horror!
But some people just love them tater tots.
And also, something I love,
that I just don't think I've ever seen here
are Cool Ranch Doritos, just can't find them.
Another thing I have a really hard time finding
is nutritional yeast.
I don't think I've ever seen this in Costco,
I rarely, rarely see it in normal grocery stores.
But occasionally, I can find it in a specialty food store.
But it's not cheap, it's probably gonna be
about double the price of what you're gonna pay in the US.
The next thing that's very difficult to find
is a lot of vitamins and supplements.
There are so many foreigners living in Mexico
who have trouble getting the vitamins
and supplements they need
because they can't have them shipped here.
Because it's one thing
that Mexican customs always confiscates,
so your options are basically
to bring it across the border yourself,
whether you're driving or flying.
That's fine as long as they're for personal use.
Or there's some expat enclaves that have a service
that where you can send them to Laredo, Texas,
and then they'll drive them across the border
for you for a fee, something like that.
But something I do, I stock up when I go back to the US.
But also, I'm always on the lookout at Costco,
because Costco has a rotating selection of products,
and sometimes I find the vitamins I need there.
For example, I picked up the fish oil.
On my last Costco trip I got this high-quality multivitamin
which is actually one thing that's particularly
difficult to find like a high-quality multivitamin
that's not absurdly expensive,
that actually has all the ingredients
that you would find in a quality multivitamin in the US.
So yeah, I'm always on the lookout when I go there.
Another thing you're gonna have a hard time
finding in Mexico is peanut butter
that doesn't have a bunch of crappy ingredients in it.
I always buy the organic peanut butter from Costco,
the Kirkland brand, it has two ingredients,
and those are organic peanuts and sea salt.
So this about as healthy as a peanut butter can get.
If you're coming to Mexico,
inevitably there's going to be products
that you love in your country that you came from
that you just simply can't find here.
So after you go home and you can't find your Triscuits...
You know? That reminded me of one other thing
that's hard to find in Mexico,
and that is cheddar cheese of any kind,
especially sharp cheddar.
Oh, I miss my cheddar cheese! Where was I?
So you can't find your Triscuits,
you can't find your cheddar cheese,
so you come home and you just wanna visit
your favorite websites.
Well, you go to yahoo.com, and it's in Spanish,
and there's no option to change it to English.
Well, a solution for you here is to get a VPN.
A VPN allows you to virtually change your location
so you're magically back in the US,
or Canada, or wherever you wanna be.
And boom! yahoo.com is back in English for you.
A VPN also allows you to get access
to location-restricted content
from various streaming services.
Heck! Even sometimes when you're on a banking website,
you have to be located in the US
to access certain features with certain websites.
I've also seen it where if you wanna pay
your property taxes in the US,
you can't do that from outside of the country.
So you turn on your VPN,
and that allows you to pay your property taxes.
If you wanna get a VPN,
don't go out there looking for the cheapest one
because they're not all the same.
I've used a lot of them,
and there's some that are way, way better than others.
The one I recommend can be found at TangerineVPN.com,
that's my affiliate link.
And if you go there, it will take you right there.
They're running a great sale right now,
it's 83% off, plus three extra months free.
Again that's TangerineVPN.com.
You know, I've made some videos on major changes
in Mexico immigration policies and I have some good news.
And that is that Immigration seems to be giving 180 days
to a lot more people who are coming into Mexico.
This is a change that I've heard
about happening just within the past few days,
so I'm going to continue monitoring the situation.
But so far, it seems like there's been some type
of internal change within Mexico Immigration.
And now, they're giving tourists 180 days again,
but we'll see if that continues.
Click on this video that I made last week
telling you all about helpful services in Mexico.
If you thought this video was helpful,
subscribe to the channel and,
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and I will see you on Saturday.