San Miguel de Allende activities have grown in diversity and choices in recent years. Scouring the town for all it had was really always enough to keep you entertained for at least three trips to San Miguel mx and of course you were always ready to do again what you did the past visit as it was so much fun and so very different from home. Continue reading San Miguel de Allende Activities – The Hot Spring Pools

A Tropical Rainstorm in San Miguel de Allende, Gto, Mexico is something to be experienced. Water rushes almost knee deep on some streets but magically the sidewalks are never underwater. People complain, “Why are the sidewalks so high?” Well be here in a rain storm and you will only be amazed at the excellent ancient engineering of the water flow through this town. Built into the side of the hill, the water runoff is so perfectly deviated that within 45 minutes of the end of the afternoon storm the town is fresh and dry again. Is it just a coincidence that the flash rainstorm seems to come during siesta hour. Could it be more perfect? Continue reading San Miguel de Allende Weather

No one is too old nor too young to enjoy a Mexico vacation. Mexico vacations are ideal for solo travelers, honeymooners, married couples, and families. While the world is full of romantic destinations, Mexico has much to recommend it as the place where you and your special someone should spend your next vacation. Continue reading Mexico Vacations For Lovers

For years, everyone I know has been raving about this place. Home to a large Texan, American and Canadian retirement community, San Miguel de Allende really has not been a big hit for me — until now. Continue reading San Miguel de Allende Hot Spots

Classes in San Miguel de Allende, come in many forms, you may find music classes, photography, African dance, painting, jewelry, art therapy, tai chi, cooking, yoga, drumming, and any other odd thing. The classes in San Miguel de Allende testify to the variety of people who live here and make their life here. The weather and the people allow all of these activities to go on year round. Continue reading Classes in San Miguel de Allende are an Experience Worth Having

San Miguel de Allende is a charming town northwest of Mexico City. It seduces visitors with its Spanish Colonial city center, cafes and restaurants. It helps that it is driving distance from Texas, but one of the major allures is that the cost of living is much lower. For example, a gardener charges around $2 an hour, a house cleaner that cooks and cleans is around $80 a week (in the states, this would cost a minimum of $80 a day). More than 10% of the town’s residents hail from the United States or Canada. As millions Americans face retirement in an economy that has ravaged their savings, places like San Miguel de Allende have an extra appeal. Another area where savings are to be had is in the real estate market. In Florida, property tax on a $500,000 home is around $10,000 a year and you’d have to add another $10,000 or more for hurricane insurance. The property taxes on a nice house in Mexico range from just a couple hundred dollars a year to a thousand. Most of the homes in San Miguel don’t require home owners insurance because houses are stone and stucco so they don’t run a high fire risk.

Despite the recession or maybe because of it, many Americans are still coming to San Miguel. On the edge of town you can find condos for around $250,000, you’ll find starter homes on a golf course for $200,000. It also may surprise you to find Starbucks, Home Depot, Office Depot, Costco, Blockbuster and of course a McDonald’s, however if you are in Mexico, I would suggest the Posole instead of burgers!

Jack Watson, President Carter’s former Chief of Staff, is now a San Miguel resident. He was recently asked, “As this town grows and becomes more American, is there a danger that is it going to lose its flavor?”

He responds, “Absolutely, I’m concerned about the influx of lots of people because one of the really special things about this place is the nature of the place, so if it is overwhelmed by people coming from the United States or from where ever, you’ve got lots of problems.” For more information on this and other articles come to www.latinworld.com

One Journalist’s View

By Linda Ellerbee

Sometimes I’ve been called a maverick because I don’t always agree with my colleagues, but then, only dead fish swim with the stream all the time. The stream here is Mexico .

You would have to be living on another planet to avoid hearing how dangerous Mexico has become, and, yes, it’s true drug wars have escalated violence in Mexico , causing collateral damage, a phrase I hate. Collateral damage is a cheap way of saying that innocent people, some of them tourists, have been robbed, hurt or killed.

But that’s not the whole story. Neither is this. This is my story.

I’m a journalist who lives in New York City , but has spent considerable time in Mexico, specifically Puerto Vallarta , for the last four years. I’m in Vallarta now. And despite what I’m getting from the U.S. media, the 24-hour news networks in particular, I feel as safe here as I do at home in New York , possibly safer. I walk the streets of my Vallarta neighborhood alone day or night. And I don’t live in a gated community, or any other All-Gringo neighborhood. I live in Mexico . Among Mexicans. I go where I want (which does not happen to include bars where prostitution and drugs are the basic products), and take no more precautions than I would at home in New York ; which is to say I don’t wave money around, I don’t act the Ugly American, I do keep my eyes open, I’m aware of my surroundings, and I try not to behave like a fool.

I’ve not always been successful at that last one. One evening a friend left the house I was renting in Vallarta at that time, and, unbeknownst to me, did not slam the automatically-locking door on her way out. Sure enough, less than an hour later a stranger did come into my house. A burglar? Robber? Kidnapper? Killer? Drug lord?

No, it was a local police officer, the “beat cop” for our neighborhood, who, on seeing my unlatched door, entered to make sure everything (including me) was okay. He insisted on walking with me around the house, opening closets, looking behind doors and, yes, even under beds, to be certain no one else had wandered in, and that nothing was missing. He was polite, smart and kind, but before he left, he lectured me on having not checked to see that my friend had locked the door behind her. In other words, he told me to use my common sense.

Do bad things happen here? Of course they do. Bad things happen everywhere, but the murder rate here is much lower than, say, New Orleans , and if there are bars on many of the ground floor windows of houses here, well, the same is true where I live, in Greenwich Village, which is considered a swell neighborhood — house prices start at about $4 million (including the bars on the ground floor windows).

There are good reasons thousands of people from the United States are moving to Mexico every month, and it’s not just the lower cost of living, a hefty tax break and less snow to shovel. Mexico is a beautiful country, a special place. The climate varies, but is
plentifully mild, the culture is ancient and revered, the young are loved unconditionally, the old are respected, and I have yet to hear anyone mention Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Madonna’s attempt to adopt a second African child, even though, with such a late start, she cannot possibly begin to keep up with Angelina Jolie.

And then there are the people. Generalization is risky, but— in general — Mexicans are warm, friendly, generous and welcoming. If you smile at them, they smile back. If you greet a passing stranger on the street, they greet you back. If you try to speak even a little Spanish, they tend to treat you as though you were fluent. Or at least not an idiot. I have had taxi drivers track me down after leaving my wallet or cell phone in their cab. I have had someone run out of a store to catch me because I have overpaid by twenty cents. I have been introduced to and come to love a people who celebrate a day dedicated to the dead as a recognition of the cycles of birth and death and birth — and the 15th birthday of a girl, an important rite in becoming a woman — with the same joy.

Too much of the noise you’re hearing about how dangerous it is to come to Mexico is just that — noise. But the media love noise, and too many journalists currently making it don’t live here. Some have never even been here. They just like to be photographed at night, standing near a spotlighted border crossing, pointing across the line to some imaginary country from hell. It looks good on TV.

Another thing. The U.S. media tend to lump all of Mexico into one big bad bowl. Talking about drug violence in Mexico without naming a state or city where this is taking place is rather like looking at the horror of Katrina and saying, “Damn. Did you know the U.S. is under water?” or reporting on the shootings at Columbine or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City by saying that kids all over the U.S. are shooting their classmates and all the grownups are blowing up buildings. The recent rise in violence in Mexico has mostly occurred in a few states, and especially along the border. It is real, but it does not describe an entire country.

It would be nice if we could put what’s going on in Mexico in perspective, geographically and emotionally. It would be nice if we could remember that, as has been noted more than once, these drug wars wouldn’t be going on if people in the United States didn’t want the drugs, or if other people in the United States weren’t selling Mexican drug lords the guns. Most of all, it would be nice if more people in the United States actually came to this part of America ( Mexico is also America , you will recall) to see for themselves what a fine place Mexico really is, and how good a vacation (or a life) here can be.

So come on down and get to know your southern neighbors. I think you’ll like it here. Especially the people.