It's been four years since I decided to move to Mexico, but I can still remember sharing
my plans with family and friends, like it was yesterday. Sure, I got a few, you're crazies.
But overwhelmingly, the first thing out of people's mouths was, why? In today's video,
I'm taking a trip down memory lane and sharing with you the reasons that I decided to move
to Mexico. For the best advice about moving to Mexico,
subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when I upload a new episode every
Thursday. If you're new to my channel, welcome. And if you've been here before, welcome back.
My name is Alex, and I'm an American ex-pat who is called Queretaro, Mexico home since
2017. Why did you move to Mexico? Is hands down, one of the most frequently asked questions
I get from readers and subscribers. Other frequently asked questions include, is Mexico
safe, how long do you plan to live in Mexico, and what's the most complicated part of moving
to Mexico? If you'd like to see the answers to those frequently asked questions, then
head to the link in the description and grab the completely free move to Mexico Quick Start
Guide. It also has my top tips for apartment hunting in Mexico, plus a really handy renting
in Spanish cheat sheet. Again, the link for that guide, that free 25 page guide, is in
the description below. I'm originally from Michigan in the United
States. But before Mexico, I lived in Madrid, Spain. And that's where my moving to Mexico
story starts. In January 2017, I was halfway through my second year of living in Madrid
and teaching English with the North American language and culture assistance program. It
was a great gig. I absolutely loved living in Spain, loved living in Europe. But I was
starting to feel a little restless. It felt like it was time for something new. I wanted
a new adventure. Fortunately, in my case, I didn't have any
student debt, forcing me back to the US and into a higher paying job. [Taylor 00:02:07],
who was also in Madrid... We've been together for more than 10 years. And I started brainstorming
different possibilities. Where did we want to go next? Countries on that list included
would have Uruguay, Ecuador, and Chile. This might come as a surprise, it surprises even
me looking back, but we weren't even thinking about Mexico until my mom suggested it. And
once she said it, we turned to each other and we're like, "Duh, that makes total sense."
Why didn't we think of that? Mexico ticked all of our boxes. To prepare for this video,
I looked back on a blog post that I published in October 2017, just two weeks before we
moved to Mexico. Moving somewhere with an affordable cost of
living was very important to me. And that criteria alone ruled out returning to the
US. It was easier and more affordable to move to an entirely new country than it was to
go back to the United States. Startup costs like buying a car, paying a security deposit
on an apartment, stuff like that would have plunged me into debt. Something I really didn't
want to do. And there was no guarantee for how fast I'd find a job had.
Had I felt strongly about returning to the US, living in the US, I probably could have
found solutions to those things. I probably could have found a way to make it work. But
I didn't feel strongly about going back to the US. I didn't want to live there. That's
not the life I wanted. The affordable cost of living here in Mexico has allowed me to
transition from teaching English online to freelance writing. And now I'm in the process
of becoming a full-time content creator. My video next week will be all about my story
of working online, plus tips to help you do the same. If you're excited for that video.
Let me know in the comments below, After living in Spain for two years, I felt
like I was finally starting to get somewhere with my Spanish. I'd put in so much time,
so much effort, and I just didn't want to give it up. I wanted to keep learning, keep
improving. Maybe I could have done that if I had moved back to the US or moved to a country
where another language was spoken, other than Spanish. But if I'm being honest with myself,
I know myself, I probably would have put effort towards another language, or just let my Spanish
skills fall off. It was a really important to me that I kept building, and I knew I'd
be able to do that in Mexico. When I was living in Spain, I was only traveling
back to the US, traveling back to Michigan, once, maybe twice a year at the most. But
really for the time, that was fine. However, with my new home, with my new country, I knew
I wanted to live somewhere, where it would be easier and more affordable for me to travel
back to the US multiple times per year. My friends were starting to get married. People
were thinking about starting families. My relatives were getting older. It was more
important for me to spend time with those people. So I knew that going back to Michigan,
once or twice a year, wasn't going to cut it.
Another separate, but kind of related reason to this that I decided to move to Mexico was
the fact that I would be on CST, Central Standard time here. And that's only one hour difference
from my friends and family back in Michigan. This was a huge change for the better, after
being six or seven hours different from those people, while I was living in Spain. It was
really hard to communicate. It was hard to find times to schedule phone calls, schedule
FaceTimes. And being in Mexico. I knew that would just be a lot easier, and it would be
a lot simpler to stay in touch. As I said in the beginning of this video,
these reasons were taken straight from a blog post that I wrote about why I was moving to
Mexico, less than two weeks before I actually moved to Mexico. And this one, looking back
on it, it makes me laugh. After living in Europe and getting used to country hopping
on the weekends, I was imagining this life in Mexico, where we would be flying to South
America, hiking Machu Picchu, on the beaches in Brazil, like every other month. But in
reality, for a variety of reasons, including the fact that we are in a global pandemic,
I have not been to South America yet. But that's fine. I am not mad about it in the
slightest. Of course, I really want to go to South America. There are a lot of places
that I want to go. But I have enjoyed immensely traveling around Mexico. Seriously, this country
has it all. You could spend a lifetime and I might, traveling around Mexico and never
get bored. I'm not sure if I've shared this on my channel
before, but my family is Mexican. My mom's side of the family is Mexican. Her parents,
my grandparents moved to the United States from San Luis Potosi in the mid 1940s. So
another reason that I wanted to move to Mexico was to be able to connect with family. To
see people again, to get to know people that I hadn't seen since I was a little girl, when
we took a few family trips to San Luis. In addition to connecting with family, I saw
moving to Mexico as an opportunity to connect with my culture. The older that I get... I
think that this is probably pretty common. So if you feel the same, let me know in the
comments below. The older I get, the more curious I become about my family, about our
history, our stories, where do we come from? I really feel like I'm... I hope this isn't
too cheesy. I feel like I've been discovering part of myself while living here. There, you
have it. Those are the five reasons I decided to move to Mexico, way back in 2017, when
I was 25 years old. I thought it was a good idea then. And I still stand by it today.
I think it worked out pretty well. If you have any questions about moving to
Mexico, living in Mexico, feel free to leave those in the comments below. I'll be sure
to get back to them. I'm Alex from backpackingbrunette.com. Thanks for watching.