Thinking of moving to GTO in December, expat family from Atlanta

[McNally del Campo]

Your questions are very broad and it would be helpful if you did a keyword search on this site. There's a tremendous amount of information to be gained from previous postings. Gentrification is actually a topic that came up recently, as well as rentals.

I'm curious as to why you're not asking these questions to your mom or the rest of your family in Guadalajara. I'm assuming if you moved down to Mexico, they would be your best way to anchor yourself and get a start.

I don't have much useful info myself, but I'll share my experience--- I live in Virginia (a very rural grean area) with my wife who is Mexican. We've been looking into moving down to Mexico, specifically Guanajuato. I visited GTO with her several years ago while visting her family and came back again for a week sometime later. We also visit other areas of Mexico while doing yearly trips to her family. It's such an enormous difference compared to where we live now, I'm not sure I could adapt to a move out of the US all at once. On our last trip to GTO, we came during the middle of rainy season, which happened not to rain at all that week. Considering the average rainfall amounts during that month, I assumed the surrounding areas would be green, but it seems the ground is so rocky and soil so poor, the water just sheds right off. It was just as much a desert terrain as it seems it is the rest of the year. Our strategy will be to take extended vacations to areas of Mexico that we like-- a week, then a few weeks, then a few months, until we settle on where to move to.

***I also wanted to add in that for the week we were here last, I don't recall running into anyone else that spoke english, with the exception of a few people we already had plans of meeting up with. I was thinking about that when you mentioned gentrification.

*** Something else to add after talking with my wife---- she says to be aware that kindergarten starts at age 3 and registration begins in February for the upcoming August school year, unless you're enrolling in a private school. For most foreigners in Guanajuato, I don't think this is a concern since they're usually older, so you're in a more unique position. She also says Merida has the best public schools in the country and is alway pushing me to consider Merida more seriously--- I just can't stand the intense heat and humidity.