Throughout our travels in Mexico and Latin America we have met a few writers along the way and many of them have great stories and insights about life south of the border. These are their stories. We hope you enjoy their quality writing as much as we have!
Bob Brooke
Writing has been my life and my work for the last 26 years. During that time, I’ve had the opportunity to explore a variety of subjects, researching many of them on travels to over 70 countries. I’ve produced nearly 4,000 articles and 14 books.
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Shari D. Farrar
Shari D. Farrar
Shari is the proverbial late-bloomer. She gave birth to four children between the ages of 30 and 37 years – the last a set of twins weighing in at 16.5 pounds. She divorced at 38, started jogging at 45 and started college at 46, and obtained her degree in Economics and Finance at age 54.
As a result of a childhood spent as an Air Force “brat” and several previous visits to the Yucatan area, at age 65, she decided Mexico was the place to be. She and her husband, Marv (the “Hillbilly”), now live in Uaymitun with the Gulf as their backyard, but are new enough to Mexico that they are still in the “adjusting” stage. Her Spanish is limited, but gets them by. The Hillbilly’s Spanish is notable only for its absence. Read some of my stories here!
Expat Stories
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Time to hit The Reset Button On Your Life? Hope and Change, the audacity to believe in one’s future! There are three ways to approach change… run from it… manage it or embrace risk or unknown. Avoidance is not a good choice because continual change is part of the universal order. Avoiding change is unnatural. ” Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no [...] |
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Doing Business in Mexico Mexico is known for its breathtaking natural beauty, which makes it an ideal vacation destination. But Mexico also has a sophisticated culture with an amazingly advanced and complex economic system. The complexity of its system is what makes doing business there such a challenge. While on the surface doing business in Mexico may seem [...] |
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Drug Dog Search at Cancun Airport! We got this seriously funny story from a friend of ours from Colorado who recently arrived for the Thanksgiving Holiday to their beautiful condo in Puerto Aventuras. They take drug smuggling serious in Mexico… Family and friends update and recap of Mark and Cindi’s Travel day from Denver to Cancun: We made it here, almost [...] |
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IS IT REALLY MOCTEZUMA THAT GETS REVENGE? By Bob Brooke, One of the proverbial concerns of tourists traveling to Mexico is getting sick while on vacation. And they should be concerned, for 20 to 50 percent of travelers to Mexico get Moctezuma’s Revenge (MR), according to a recent study by the Office of Medical Applications of Research. The leading cause of discomfort, [...] |
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Can’t Afford to Retire in the U.S.? There is Always Panama Bob Dennison wrote the following article after talking with Larry and Carol Denne about their decision to move to Panama to retire: Carol Denne and her husband Larry both worked government jobs for decades, but as they entered their late 50′s, Larry’s fast-shrinking 401(k) account and Carol’s modest pension pointed to one stark reality: Retiring with dignity in their [...] |
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Guadalajara…and Tlaquepaque Two characters come to mind when I think back on our recent trip to Guadalajara. One was a slightly seedy, tequila-saturated old guy who hung around the stairwell in Guadalajara’s municipal palace, collecting tips for talking about the ceiling murals. I’ll call him Ramon. Ramon spoke eight languages, he claimed, although all I heard was [...] |
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Wisdom from Baja Herb on “How to Mexico” I’m on oxygen 24/7 now so I gotta get this out. My name is Herb Thompson and I’m giving you this little late night sermon from a small town in Mexico. Doesn’t really matter where it is, could be most anywhere in the country. I have been happy here in Mexico for about ten years [...] |
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Finding a lost pet in Mexico By: Melanie Lamaga Editors Note: This article was provided for us by Cedros Outdoor adventures, based on their personal experience. Cedros Outdoor does not provide assistance in pet locating. Nobody wants to lose a pet, much less while traveling. We recently lost our dog while hiking near our home in Ensenada. We searched for three heartbreaking [...] |
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Green Angels to the rescue As many of you know we decided to re-locate to Ajijic from Tulum. Now the problem was figuring out how to get out stuff over there to our new house. When you’re moving over 1,200 miles and you don’t have enough for a moving company and you have way too much for our Honda [...] |
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My Lab loves Tulum and Mexico My pets are as much a part of my family as my daughter that’s just the way we are. When we moved to Hawaii in the eighties we took our German Shepard, our 2 cats a Siamese and Calico and both of my parrots a African Grey and my Blue & Gold Macaw. There never [...] |
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Getting a Driver’s License for the First Time in Puerto Vallarta By Liana Sazon’s I have been living here in Mexico for nearly 17 years now, and up until this time I had just renewed my Washington license when I was in Seattle. That was back in the good old days when I went every summer. The last time I was there I was going to [...] |
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How To Learn To Write Travel Articles That Sell ******************* September 11, 2011 The Right Way to Travel ******************* HOW TO FIND AN EDITOR WHO’S LOOKING TO BUY By Jennifer Stevens I needed a pair of boots I could wear to walk the kids to school – our winter is pretty snowy here in Colorado at 6,000 feet. So I went [...] |
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Why I chose to move from Tulum to Ajijic Some of my friends were shocked to say the least that I would give up the beautiful caribbean ocean for the central highlands of Mexico or more specifially the Lake Chapala area. We left Oregon in part because we never wanted to see snow again. We moved to Oregon from Hawaii and it was hard [...] |
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How I spent my summer in Todos Santos, Baja In case you are interested here is my summer update Cloudy last 2 days again. I was thinking that this was the cloudiest summer I have been here for sure but it might be cloudier than all the others combined. Nice. Amazing cloud formations over the Sierras (de La Laguna). No hurricanes have come close [...] |
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My Mexico Car Break-in Well I’ve been living or traveling around Mexico for many years now and we had our first mishap last night. We have been staying with friends in Ajijiic and parking our car outside of their house for the week. Admittedly I had been offered a secure off street parking space behind gated doors for my [...] |
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From a Basement in Brooklyn to a Café on the Beach in Mexico Posted on May 22, 2009 by IL | Add Favorite Print It’s Sunday morning and chef Susan Pasko is at the big six-top gas stove at Café Bahia. She’s got six tickets on the board, including five orders for her signature weekend dish, eggs Benedict. Aided by her two kitchen helpers, Gisela & Dora, she [...] |
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Group encourages Americans to live in Mexico Q&A: Group encourages Americans to live in Mexico JENALIA MORENO , HOUSTON CHRONICLE Published 05:30 a.m., Saturday, March 26, 2011 Chris Hill, a founder of the Mexico Real Estate Coalition, says Americans and Canadians who live in Mexico aren’t fleeing. Hill, a Houstonian, is CEO of locally based Stewart Title Latin America. Photo: Chronicle, Melissa [...] |
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Expat Center vs. Immersion Center by Tim Leffel I just spent the weekend in San Miguel Allende, perhaps the most popular place for expatriates in all of Mexico, but definitely the most popular non-beach location. There are somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000 gringos—most in post-retirement age—who live here at least part of the year. Nobody really knows for sure. They [...] |
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A Week-in-the-Life of Tim Leffel: Expat Travel Writer Tim Leffel chucked his music business career and took three trips around the world with his now-wife in the mid-90s. He taught English in Turkey and Korea and began a career as a travel writer. Three books later and his daughter turning 10, the family put everything in storage last June, sold both cars, and [...] |
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LA to Tulum Road – Trip Day 3-7 Arriving into Todos Santos brought a familiar sense of comfort as I’ve been coming here for 7 years now and both know & love this little town. I had called my friends James from just outside La Paz to see if he’d had lunch yet I was starving and both towns have great taco stands [...] |
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Business Ideas For Expats in Mexico Posted on September 21, 2010 by Glynna Prentice | Add Favorite Over the past three years I’ve seen entrepreneurs flock to Campeche from all over Mexico The other day I stopped by a friend’s new chocolatería in Campeche’s historic center. She and her husband renovated a colonial building and have turned it into a café. [...] |
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4 Tips for Starting A Business in Mexico Posted on January 11, 2011 by Glynna Prentice | Add Favorite You could open a B&B or a boutique hotel in popular cities like Puerto Vallarta More and more people who want to move to Mexico say that they can’t afford to stop working. Rather than give up their dream, how about this option: Start [...] |
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Expats Christmas Stories We thought this was a great post for those of you who haven’t signed up yet for IL free daily postcard International Living Postcards—your daily escape Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010 Dear International Living Reader, Len Galvin Managing Editor, IL Postcards P.S. The registrations for the Ultimate Event are coming in too fast to give an [...] |
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What The Hell Are You Waiting For? Get out Now! Well it’s almost Christmas here in the Yucatan, the weather is a lovely 80 degree’s with 7-10 mph trade-winds the ocean is crystal clear as always and most inviting. But there are big troubles brewing on the horizen up north. The US Goverment along with Congress, the Presidents past and present and of course Wallstreet [...] |
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Why are more and more Americans choosing to Retire in Mexico? More Americans and Canadians have retired in Mexico than to any other country in the world. It’s hard to pin down but many reports have suggested that as many as 1 million or more Americans live full time with 2-3 million more spending considerable time here during the winter months or for medical care. [...] |
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Your Passport to Mexican Resident Visas & Citizenship Considerations: Types of Visas Benefits of having a Visas When do you need a Visas FM3: Non Immigrant * FM2: Immigrant * Immigrate * Citizenship FM3 Non Immigrant: 1. Tourist 2. Transmigrate 3. Visitor 4. Minister or Religious Association 5. Political Refun7. Distinguished Visitor 6.Student refugee 7.Local visitor 8. Local Visitor 9. Refugee 10. Provisional [...] |
