The Truth About Mexico!
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Featured Article #1

Dropped Out.

Jillian: How will it end, I wonder? In order to address this unanswerable question with poetry and symmetry, I look back to the beginning. Rereading the early entries, from the planning stages to our first enthralled weeks in Mexico, through all the trials up to this present moment; as I listen to the waves, I [...]

Malcolm | May 4th, 2009 | Continued

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Featured Article #2

Only in Mexico: Electrified Flyswatter

In Mexico, there is a general assumption that you, as a member of the public, are going to try not to do anything stupid. In particular, you are going to take basic steps to avoid hurting yourself. Our favorite working example of this attitude, and one you are probably tired of hearing us repeat, is [...]

Malcolm | April 2nd, 2009 | Continued

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Featured Article #3

Renovating Our Beach House, Volume 5

Our never-ending quest for a life more awesome recently completed its most important chapter: the renovation of the living room. This was an important step, for one reason only: We will finally be DRY. Look, when you are still in the States, the idea of a beach house sounds like total paradise. And most of [...]

Malcolm | March 9th, 2009 | Continued

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Featured Article #4

Renovating Our Beach House, Volume 4

Like many beach properties in Chelem and Chuburna, our house was pretty basic when we bought it. The “Beach Box” style of construction was, for a time, very popular in this area, and houses were purely functional.  Wealthy Meridanos would use their beach homes for only a month or two per year, and houses were [...]

Malcolm | December 8th, 2008 | Continued

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Featured Article #5

What Happened in Cancun

Just back from our second adventure in Mexico’s capital of ugly shorts and shake marijuana and we are exhausted. Saturday morning we packed up a rental car with my father in law and some egg salad sandwiches and set off across Highway 180. A blown back tire and 319 pesos in tolls later we arrived [...]

Jillian | October 6th, 2008 | Continued

About this Site

We’re Malcolm and Jillian, two young Americans who decided against waiting until retirement to bail out on America, hit the road, and live out our dreams. Our blog has been around for a couple of years now, and a lot has changed. Here’s how we introduced ourselves to the world way back in October 2005, when [...]

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Searching for the American Dream…in Mexico

I just wanted to call everyone’s attention to this little nugget, which appeared in New American Media:
“MERIDA, Mex. – At some point last fall, the one millionth American established residency here in Mexico. That makes Mexico the host nation for the largest American expatriate community in the world. There are now more Americans living in [...]

31Mar2009 | Malcolm | 1 comment | Continued
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Everybody Seems to Wonder What It’s Like Down Here

it’s not as difficult or as easy to live in Mexico as I imagined
I have seen exactly three scorpions in three years
don’t bother eating the Chinese food
you will not immediately lose 30 pounds
I still don’t have a good doctor
insurance is cheap
labor is cheap
quality furniture is not cheap and hard to find
we don’t drink beer all [...]

18Mar2009 | Jillian | 7 comments | Continued
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Bad Expat: Changing My Marketing Strategy

I knew there was a mercado in Chelem but I never went inside until today. Waiting for the combi in the heat of early afternoon in centro you can smell sun-drenched entrails, past-peak produce and the overwhelming scent of ripening flowers. I would watch repelled, the lazy dogs that lay in wait for discarded scraps [...]

17Mar2009 | Jillian | 2 comments | Continued
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Enamigos

America loves a monolithic enemy. What united a disparate and fledgling colony better than big bad daddy Britain? When were we more American than when we were facing off against Russia? Since the Cold War ended (it’s been sooo boring, right?) the focus on The Middle East and Islam has been a fairly successful stand-in. [...]

16Mar2009 | Jillian | 1 comment | Continued
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In Defense of The Tourist

Perhaps I am feeling too charitable, too unironic, too patriotic today but I am going to come out and opine that American citizens, if they are able to take a hard-earned vacation, should absolutely wear ugly shorts, get horribly sunburnt, and enjoy fruity cocktails by the pool. Maybe I am playing the devil’s advocate or finally coming to terms with my [...]

13Mar2009 | Jillian | 9 comments | Continued
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Loading Up the New Living Room

In this post, which I estimate will interest approximately four of our regular readers, one of whom will be my mom, I wanted to take a moment to show off how the living room is shaping up, now that we are loading it up with furniture.
The fact is, shopping for furniture here is TOUGH. We [...]

11Mar2009 | Malcolm | 20 comments | Continued
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Time Passes

The expat is self-involved, due to the nature of his adventure. Life back home is mundane, the same, but here we are out exploring, peering over the edge, rounding the cape to seek new horizons. We are consumed with what we are encountering for the first time, navigating, processing and becoming engaged in unfamiliar surroundings. [...]

11Mar2009 | Jillian | 2 comments | Continued
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Now We’re Cooking Without Gas

Gas on demand is a luxury of the first world. Here in Chelem when the cylinder is empty we employ our wicked expat ingenuity. It’s rough out here, people; we live by our wits. Forced to subsist on brie, bread and chili since Sunday, I am taking back lunch. Today I blend vegetables and recover [...]

10Mar2009 | Jillian | 3 comments | Continued
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Sunday at the Marina with Malcolms


8Mar2009 | Jillian | 0 comments | Continued
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