South of the Border

[earlyretirement]

[quote=zzz]Forgetting about crime for a second, for those considering living in LATAM, who are not of latin / spanish descent, some things to consider:

1. you are considered a gringo and will be treated as such
– people will assume you have more money than they do, if not consider you rich. you are rich by their standards, even if you are not rich by US standards
– you will get gringo pricing

2. things are SLOW there. stuff does not get done efficiently. if you buy a home, prepared to take forever to get work done on your home. things will not make sense to you and if you take your American expectations there, you will be frustrated ALL the time

3. most American friends I know who live there also have private insurance that allows them to come back to US for treatment of major medical issues- like cancer

4. the quality of life – it really depends on what you are used to, which country you pick, and whether you are in a major city. if you have a pretty high standard of living now – its not necessarily cheaper to maintain that standard of living. eating out at nice restaurants or drinking at high end establishments is not that much cheaper. expensive clothing is not cheaper.

pros- you can have things like cooks or maids clean your home super cheaply, you can likely live ( rent or buy) more cheaply than comparable to US.
you can eat out at average / local spots more cheaply
local grocery is cheap – if you still want to enjoy your American food brands, or buy fruits from outside LATAM, CA wine, or french wine, be prepared to pay WAY MORE

All of my friends- even the ones of latin descent who have gone to places like Panama, Rio, Sao Paolo to work and live, have all opted to come back to the US. The quality of life is better here. Its safer, its more efficient. And ultimately, its where friends and family are- a little extra cash can’t replace that.[/quote]

GREAT post and spot on target. You are exactly right. Most Americans, even if you can speak perfect and fluent Spanish (or the local language) you will pretty much always be thought of as a Yankee. The biggest annoyance for me is the lack of transparency and the hassles of people always trying to pull a fast one on you.

The way you avoid this is to build up long-term beneficial relationships with people but even then MANY people in Latin America have this “make the most for today” type attitude. Here in the USA we have these relationships where we try to have long-term mutually beneficial relationships where we try to do business with one another for many years.

Sure you have some of that but in many countries they try to extract the most they can out of you one time. So it can be frustrating to deal with.

Even if you aren’t wealthy as mentioned, you will always be thought of as being well off even if you are on a fixed income, etc.

#2 that is SO true. EVERYTHING for the most part is slow. Grocery store, banks, post office, you name it. It can be frustrating doing small little everyday things. I don’t care how long you live there, if you are used to efficiency it can drive you mad! I lived in South America for almost a decade and NEVER got used to it.

Everything is always tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow (mañana mañana mañana).

Obviously there are many positives but this last post was brilliant and spot on target.

deadzone,

I haven’t read enough of your posts to know your personality or if your other posts are intelligent or not. I’m not even saying I disagree with all your points but you just come back with “prove it” “prove it” “prove it”. Even when people are taking the time to post some good URL’s. Like a stubborn little kid whose mother tells him to each his spinach because it’s good for it.

I WILL agree with you that Brazil is a wonderful place outside of Rio and Sao Paulo. Especially the South like in Florianópolis. Just gorgeous! But Brazil has gotten really expensive now with the exchange rate. I still love Rio and it’s one of my favorite places in the world and I still own an apartment there.

Edit: Deadzone, I was curious so I read a random sampling of some of your posts the past few years and actually I totally agreed on most all of your other posts that I read. That was surprising to me. I expected something totally different so that was nice to see. So it appears we disagree mainly on this post. 🙂 Which is ok..

[Anonymous]

early, I was in Brazil 2004, great exchange rate at that time..

I’ll continue to defend my “prove it” posts. The point is the the so called dangers in Mexico are over-hyped by Media, etc, and all of you are irrationally paranoid because of it. There is no new information that I didn’t already know from the URLs that people provided. Nor did they prove that Baja in particular is a dangerous place for American tourists or expats.

Do you agree that if an American tourist was murdered in Baja that it would make the news? Of course it would. then, why can’t you find a single news story of such an event happening? You guys are the ones saying Baja is such a dangerous place so the responsibility is up to you to prove it. I just showed you a case of an Australian tourist being brutally beaten in San Diego. Can you find even one equivalent case of an American tourist being brutally beaten in Baja?

[earlyretirement]

[quote=deadzone]early, I was in Brazil 2004, great exchange rate at that time..

I’ll continue to defend my “prove it” posts. The point is the the so called dangers in Mexico are over-hyped by Media, etc, and all of you are irrationally paranoid because of it. There is no new information that I didn’t already know from the URLs that people provided. Nor did they prove that Baja in particular is a dangerous place for American tourists or expats.

Do you agree that if an American tourist was murdered in Baja that it would make the news? Of course it would. then, why can’t you find a single news story of such an event happening? You guys are the ones saying Baja is such a dangerous place so the responsibility is up to you to prove it. I just showed you a case of an Australian tourist being brutally beaten in San Diego. Can you find even one equivalent case of an American tourist being brutally beaten in Baja?[/quote]

Oh YES! 2004…those were the “glory days” down there. I was down there quite a bit starting in 2002. The exchange rate was really great back then! Things were cheap including real estate. It’s insane now how expensive it has gotten.

I admit that the media can be over-hyped sometimes with many things probably including that. But again, I wouldn’t consider myself in the paranoid camp. I’m not even saying people have a likelihood to get murdered because I agree with you that people aren’t likely to get murdered.

Just a lot of scams like SD Realtor’s friend. Am I saying that these scams weren’t around 10 to 20 years ago? Nope. Not at all. Just like you suggest it was there back then too. But I do think it has gotten worse over the years.

Am I saying Baja is “dangerous”? Nope. But then again “dangerous” is a totally subjective word/term. So you have to keep that in mind. Everyone has their own level of comfort and what they are comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

Things may be have gotten worse for a period of time but overall I just don’t see the evidence, at least as it relates to American tourists and expats. Mostly people were scared away by the reports of gun fights between Narcos. I don’t blame people for being freaked out by that, but those incidents are rare in the grand scheme of things. And if I were a paranoid foreigner, I would think twice about coming to USA after seeing yesterday’s headline of 19 people shot in New Orleans.

In my personal experience, traveling to Tijuana or Baja is a lot more enjoyable today than years ago. Although I only cross maybe 3-4 times a year, I have not had any issues over there in recent memory. For example, like everyone else I used to get the occasional “shake down” from TJ cops while driving, trying to give me a bogus traffic ticket. The last time that happened was at least 8-10 years ago.

Tijuana itself has cleaned up a lot since I first visited over 20 years ago. Avenida Revolucion is no longer filled with sleezy teeny bopper bars. THere are new upscale restaurants and bars hopping up all over the place, including on Revolucion. There is also a championship professional soccer team that won Mexico’s equivalent of the super bowl last season (although they play in a woefully inadequate stadium). The real reason not to go down there is the long lines at customs. Seems worse than even after 9-11. I got a sentri pass a while ago, if I didn’t have the Sentri I would rarely go over there.

[zzz]

[quote=deadzone]All valid points zzz. These are the main reasons that I personally would never choose to live in Mexico, nothing to do with the real or perceived crime rate.

If I had to choose one 3rd world country to live, it would definitely be Thailand. Distant 2nd is Brazil. Alot of bad perceptions towards Brazil too, by the way. But outside of Sao Paula and Rio, I don’t think crime rate is that bad. When I travled to Brazil, I felt a lot more comfortable than Mexico or any other Latin American country I have visited.[/quote]

I know several people who have retired to Thailand, including family. Its quite the life. Personally I love Asia, so I enjoy traveling in that part of the world. I think people need to distinguish between enjoying traveling somewhere, and living there. Its night and day. You get to come home at the end of a vacation – its like a honeymoon. You can LOVE a place when you visit, but you really need to look at the practicalities of day to day living. And do you have enough money to get back and forth to the US if staying in touch with friends and family is important to you?

Money goes a lot further there, and living in beachfront property is completely within reach. Theres a lot of medical tourism in Asia, so the quality of care can be quite high. However, people still come back to the US or Europe for cancer treatment. If you live long enough – cancer will likely be a factor- its a disease of age as our bodies are less able to deal with cell mutation and free radicals.

For people who are still working and looking for growth regions, Asia is such an opportunity for growth – I think people should be learning Chinese and considering living in Asia. Its getting very expensive to live well in many places in Asia however. Or learn Portuguese and move to Brazil – one of the fastest growing countries economically. Despite the growth opps- people from both regions are still trying to come to the US, so it makes you think what we have so good here- we really do take a lot of our civil liberties and daily living conveniences for living. Very dependable trash pickup, mail service, relative lack of corruption, ease of doing biz. If we find dealing with cable providers or phone service difficult here, should try going to some 2nd and 3rd world countries!

[no_such_reality]

[quote=deadzone]
I’ll continue to defend my “prove it” posts. The point is the the so called dangers in Mexico are over-hyped by Media, etc, and all of you are irrationally paranoid because of it.[/quote]

The dangers in the US are overhyped by the media. A recent study shows most people think gun crime in the USA is up, when in reality, it’s down dramatically, 69% since mid-90s.

[earlyretirement]

See I’ve always said that I don’t think the risk of murder is the issue.

It’s just petty attempted shakedowns like this.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/01/tp-jailing-in-mexico-highlights-risks-for-tourists/

There are many American tourists that get hassled for bribes by the cops. And most of them never get (nor want) media attention. They just never go back down again.

I’d be curious how many people get targeted by the police for shakedowns.

[desmond]

[quote=earlyretirement]See I’ve always said that I don’t think the risk of murder is the issue.

It’s just petty attempted shakedowns like this.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/01/tp-jailing-in-mexico-highlights-risks-for-tourists/

There are many American tourists that get hassled for bribes by the cops. And most of them never get (nor want) media attention. They just never go back down again.

I’d be curious how many people get targeted by the police for shakedowns.[/quote]

There was only one person that made “White tourists, staying only a day or two, driving old cars with no criminal record being murdered in Baja” the issue.

[Anonymous]

Seriously??? Petty shakedowns have been associated with Tijuana for decades, nothing new here. From my experience, they are a lot less common in recent years.

Does anybody else have real world experience with this? Would be interesting to know what others are experiencing.

[CA renter]

[quote=earlyretirement]See I’ve always said that I don’t think the risk of murder is the issue.

It’s just petty attempted shakedowns like this.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/01/tp-jailing-in-mexico-highlights-risks-for-tourists/

There are many American tourists that get hassled for bribes by the cops. And most of them never get (nor want) media attention. They just never go back down again.

I’d be curious how many people get targeted by the police for shakedowns.[/quote]

Yikes! With so many potential risks, it’s a wonder there are any American tourists at all in these border areas.

We had a situation there over a decade ago when we were trying to get home from Mexico at night (long story, tried to get into a hotel, but it was full). We got stopped at a road block on a desolate road by a bunch of soldier-looking types with machine guns who searched everything we had for about an hour and a half, and then let us go. They didn’t ask for money, so might have legitimately been looking for drug smugglers. Still, it was enough to keep us from ever going down there again. It’s just not worth it.

There were multiple trips before when I was camping with family and friends down there, even in the 70s and 80s, and our tents were ransacked by Mexican “police” who stole watches, cash, and anything else that might have been considered valuable. Not fun. 🙁

[desmond]

[quote=deadzone]Seriously??? Petty shakedowns have been associated with Tijuana for decades, nothing new here. From my experience, they are a lot less common in recent years.

Does anybody else have real world experience with this? Would be interesting to know what others are experiencing.[/quote]
Here’s a good old story of Baja:

Back in the 80’s I was down in Ensenada camping on the beach at El Faro with a college friend. It was spring break and we were meeting a frat brother with his girlfriend at Hussongs. They got lost and went through Ensenada and headed south were they came upon a check point. Well the idiots were carrying mushrooms so they decided to down them all. Turns out the check point was for agriculture. We finally found them and brought them to the beach campsite. I sat the guy down and gave him his tent so he could put it up. We left him there and went to Hussongs. About 4 hours later we came back and he was sitting in the same spot and had done nothing. They were hallucinating for a day or two……..

[earlyretirement]

[quote=CA renter][quote=earlyretirement]See I’ve always said that I don’t think the risk of murder is the issue.

It’s just petty attempted shakedowns like this.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jun/01/tp-jailing-in-mexico-highlights-risks-for-tourists/

There are many American tourists that get hassled for bribes by the cops. And most of them never get (nor want) media attention. They just never go back down again.

I’d be curious how many people get targeted by the police for shakedowns.[/quote]

Yikes! With so many potential risks, it’s a wonder there are any American tourists at all in these border areas.

We had a situation there over a decade ago when we were trying to get home from Mexico at night (long story, tried to get into a hotel, but it was full). We got stopped at a road block on a desolate road by a bunch of soldier-looking types with machine guns who searched everything we had for about an hour and a half, and then let us go. They didn’t ask for money, so might have legitimately been looking for drug smugglers. Still, it was enough to keep us from ever going down there again. It’s just not worth it.

There were multiple trips before when I was camping with family and friends down there, even in the 70s and 80s, and our tents were ransacked by Mexican “police” who stole watches, cash, and anything else that might have been considered valuable. Not fun. :([/quote]

I’m just glad they had a video showing she got on the bus with no luggage. I wonder what would happen if there was no video? I mean, after all, it would just be her word against theirs and she probably would be sitting inside a jail cell at least a few months.

I originally heard about this story a day or so after it happened. Fortunately her husband was able to get CNN on the story and that put a LOT of pressure on the Mexican police…..

I noticed this from the US State Department: “The U.S. State Department also warns that criminals are increasingly affixing drugs to the bottom of parked cars in Mexico, then removing them after the vehicle enters the U.S.”

What if something like this DID happen to you? I’m curious how anyone would defend against it? After all, it would be your word against the evidence. Sounds like it would be a horrible nightmare. Even if you got off, you probably still would be facing at least some time in jail but more importantly tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills and also possible problems with work, etc.

Has anyone ever known someone or heard of any Americans this happened to? I got curious after seeing that warning.

[quote=deadzone]Seriously??? Petty shakedowns have been associated with Tijuana for decades, nothing new here. From my experience, they are a lot less common in recent years.

Does anybody else have real world experience with this? Would be interesting to know what others are experiencing.[/quote]

Deadzone,

Sure petty shakedowns have always been going on in Mexico. When you say, “from your experience they are a lot less” do you mean personally or some official statistic?

As well, it almost sounds like short of Americans getting murdered, you don’t find any risks of going across the border. I realize your argument is it’s the same Mexico as before and the risks are the same. But sometimes your posts don’t come across that way. I’m just saying…

[Anonymous]

early, arguing with you guys is pointless because your brains are so cluttered with sensationalist fearmongouring stories you can’t think straight.

I never said their are no risks in Mexico. But you guys insist that it is significantly MORE dangerouse than before, and I argue that it is not. You guys have no evididence to prove that it is more dangerous.

Was Baja a “sketchy” place to visit 10 or 20 years ago? I would say yes. But you guys are arguing as if it was some utopian place a few years ago and now all of a suddent it is a war zone. The fact is it is neither. Baja was a crap hole 20 years ago and it still is.

But if you loved to visit Baja 10-20 years ago and all of a sudden you are too “scared” to go down there today, then you are an idiot.

[Anonymous]

I use Murder as an example because that is a crime that most certainly will be reported in the U.S. if it happens to an American tourist. You guys are all claiming that crime statistics are wortless since most crimes don’t get reported over there. That may be true (although you don’t really know that to be fact). Assuming that to be true, then murder is the only type of crime against Americans that we can hope to get accurately reported in the U.S.

Yet once again, nobody has provided evidence of a single American tourist murdered in Baja at any time.

[desmond]

[quote=deadzone]I use Murder as an example because that is a crime that most certainly will be reported in the U.S. if it happens to an American tourist. You guys are all claiming that crime statistics are wortless since most crimes don’t get reported over there. That may be true (although you don’t really know that to be fact). Assuming that to be true, then murder is the only type of crime against Americans that we can hope to get accurately reported in the U.S.

Yet once again, nobody has provided evidence of a single American tourist murdered in Baja at any time.[/quote]

Remember that is must be a “white” person, browns don’t count. Right dz?

[Author]

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