How to Move to Mexico Without Getting Burned

There are now a plethora of "how to expatriate to México guides" available for the potential expat. Unfortunately, most of those guides address the areas of México that have had large and thriving communities of English-speaking foreigners for many years. In cities like San Miguel de Allende, Lake Chapala, Puerto Vallarta, Ajijic, and others, American-dominated colonies sprang up decades ago. They are well developed, meticulously organized, and are, frankly, a huge help to the expat newbie. It is almost like moving to another state in America with a good neighborhood welcome wagon.

However, in areas gringos are just now considering, like most towns in central México, there are no well-defined or organized gringo communities. In those areas, no one really knows just how many gringos there are in town or where they all live. One would be hard-pressed trying to organize them. The gringos are coming.

Most, if not all, of the "move to México" and "how to expatriate to México " books specifically target the traditional gringo colonies. They are memoir-type guides on "how I moved to _____." They deal with one or more of the regions that have well-organized gringo communities that act as safety buffers for the uninitiated and unsuspecting newbie. These guides address areas of México in which the locals depend on the foreign community for their livelihood. What I mean is that in some of these regions, if the gringos were to leave suddenly, the local economy would flush down the toilet in no time. San Miguel de Allende, in my view, is one of those cities.

The authors of these books may or may not have lived in México. What they did was gather information on research trips. They've had to depend on the stories of those living in those areas. Others may have lived in México but only in the areas with the uber-developed gringo enclaves. What these books typically do is soft-soap everything. You will read that everything is sugar and spice and everything nice. You will think moving to one of the regions these books cover will be like moving to Disneyland. You will not be told anything that smacks of negativism. "Going to move to México? That's a move into heaven itself"-is the impression you will get.

Positive sugary prose and heavenly rhetoric is what sells. I can hardly blame the authors since I've had this encounter with book publishers before: they want what sells. They don't or can't sell reality. They cannot sell something hinting you might have a hard time settling in a town in México that is not Gringo Friendly. If you can't paint a picture of a virtual nirvana, a life of Disneyland proportions, they don't want to mess with your manuscript.

Those gringo wannebees read the books that paint a rosy picture and think the material applies to all of México. Gringos move on the strength of a book that deals with life in a Mexican town where the locals have been used to a large gringo presence for decades. They move to towns where the livelihood of many locals depends on the gringo presence. Later, they move to (or just travel to) a town in México that is monolingual-Spanish only-and wonder what happened. Not only do the people speak Spanish, but they also may not particularly care about you one bit.

This is a problem.

What you can do to prepare yourself to move to any region of México outside the resort areas is to read everything you can on expatriating to México. I mean, read the books that paint the Disneyland portrait as well as those that might have more of a reality-oriented base.

Be suspicious of books and articles that do not tell you the whole story. See red flags all over a piece of prose that tells you all the advantages, all the swell and wonderful pluses, but none of the negatives. Simply do not believe authors who tell you all about the beautiful dreams but none of the nightmares.

And, there will be nightmares that you will have wished someone had told you about before you moved to México and discovered them on your own.

Here are some search terms that will take you to a wide and accurate display of books and articles on moving to México. These should give you a complete and reality-based understanding of the pluses and minuses of living in México. I suggest using these terms in Google as well as at Amazon.com:

• live México
• live Guanajuato
• truth México
• living Guanajuato
• truth living in México
• Guanajuato
• Expatriate to México

How do you keep from getting burned? Read the Disneyland books as well as those that are more reality-based. All of them! You need the complete picture.

Total preparation is the key.