The following is a post Christiana wrote on her Substack blog, where she mostly writes about searching for information on her late father. Check it out if you’re interested in family mysteries.
One Month In: Medical Month Wraps, “Just Living” Begins
Some nights, sitting out on the balcony, I’d find myself imagining a completely different life — what it would have been like to live in a high-rise apartment in New York City, with a fire escape and a little park below that my window looked over. Humidity thick before a thunderstorm rolled in, clouds raving overhead, a deep bass of distant thunder underneath it all.
As I sat out here enjoying the evening’s show, I was thinking about the end of this chapter. Forty-eight hours to checkout. New state, new altitude, new everything — or so I thought.
I am BUZZING. We’re trading sea level for roughly 5,900 feet and trading Puerto Vallarta’s relentless humidity for temps that’ll run about 20 degrees cooler on average. My nervous system is already doing a happy dance just thinking about it.
But — and you know there’s always a but — I’m also a little wistful. We never made it to Jardín Botánico de Vallarta. I never got down to the Malecón to see whatever new murals or statues have gone up since I last looked. Some things just don’t fit into a month, even a whole month.
How We Got Here
Quick rewind, for anyone new to this story: during COVID, Mark and I tore up our original retirement plan. We’d been saving for a catamaran and a “someday.” We scrapped that and bought Mach 5, a monohull, instead — sooner over bigger. We sailed her down from the Delta in the San Francisco Bay Area to the Sea of Cortez, then spent a whole season cruising those waters. Mach 5 is currently on the hard, getting work done, and sitting out hurricane season.
Last year, for hurricane season, we tried something different: work camping in the Pike National Forest. Living for free on the South Platte River was genuinely beautiful. We also learned that most campers are gracious, community-minded people — and that a few are not, and dude, can those few wreck the vibe of an entire campground.
This year’s hurricane-season experiment: slow retirement travel in Mexico. We have temporary residency now, which means no visa clock ticking in the background. That is what made this whole summer possible.
What This Month Was Actually About
I’ve been calling it “medical month” in my head, and that’s not an exaggeration. We came to Puerto Vallarta to get a stack of medical and dental work done, and we accomplished a crazy amount of it.
It hasn’t been a clean exit. Mark has an ear infection that isn’t clearing up — possibly spreading to the other ear. I still needed one more medical test before we could responsibly leave. We weren’t going anywhere.
Monday night, with departure supposedly happening Tuesday, I was rebooking everything. A different VRBO had just opened up in the same building — different view, same endless pool, same great location. The management team worked with us to move our perishables over early so nothing would be wasted in the handoff. Then we went to the mall to kill a few hours while the transition happened.
Flights to León: canceled. Bus tickets for Friday: booked. Original hotel in León: canceled. New hotel near Centro for the weekend: booked.
When Mark suggested he’d bus to León separately and I should just take the flight alone — no way, José. We adventure together. That’s not negotiable, infections or no infections.
Two project managers being forced to “go with the flow” is its own kind of comedy. We are not naturally wired for this. It’s not easy. But here we are, doing it anyway. Flexibility isn’t just a nice-to-have in this lifestyle — it’s the whole game. We’ve been preparing for this while sailing for years now. It’s still a challenge to flex, sometimes.
How do we manage this?
Since this is my first post about our expat life, I want to share a bit about our budget. We are following tips from Grounded Life Retirement Travel. Based on their recommendations, this summer our monthly spending target for housing is $2,000/month regardless of how many places we stay in. We use Monarch Money to track accounts and transactions, and I keep a separate spreadsheet for big-picture summer expenses.
June was a success for that target! Genuinely under $2k for the month.
Where we blew it: groceries and dining out. Some of that was self-inflicted — we’d buy specific comfort foods for what we assumed would be a rough day after a procedure, and then the day wouldn’t be so bad, so we’d go out to eat anyway, leaving the comfort food to go to waste in the fridge. Lesson noted. Tightening that up going forward.
A few other things I’d tell anyone considering this:
- Check the average temps wherever you’re headed. Air conditioning might not be optional. Ours was a lifesaver this month, full stop.
- Pack good knives if you can. We didn’t bring our Wüsthofs, assuming the VRBO kitchen would have something usable. The kitchen itself was fantastic — ten times the size of anything we’ve had in years — but the knives could barely cut bread.
- Find a fruteria and become a regular.
- Order groceries through Uber Eats on the days you need it (the same driver who delivers also shops for you — I didn’t know that until this month). It’s not expensive, it saves you on recovery days, and it puts a local to work.
What Made It Good
It wasn’t all appointments and budget math. This was our first month in the Versailles neighborhood, and the food scene alone was worth the trip — three Greek restaurants within a single block, homemade gelato on practically every corner, French pastries at Oh! Croissant, woodfired pizza, sushi, Japanese pancakes at Fluffy’s, plus the usual taco stands holding it all together.
We went to Opa! Greek often enough that our waitress learned all four of our orders by heart. The building guard got extra fresh produce from us whenever we had more than we needed. The maintenance man practices his English on us, and in return, compliments our Spanish — both of us muddling through, both of us grateful for the effort on the other side.
We had family visit for a stretch, and we celebrated a 15th birthday a little early, with music playing and Mark’s margaritas doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.
And the pool. THE POOL. An endless pool with views that made every single one of our many walks-in-the-heat-and-humidity worth it, because we knew exactly what was waiting for us when we got back.
Turns out, after a month of those balcony evenings, I really like high-rise, luxury apartment living. Who knew?
Things You Only Notice After a Month
This is the part nobody tells you about slow travel — the small, slightly strange things you start tracking once you’ve been somewhere long enough to actually notice patterns.
We watched the iguanas move out. One day they were just… gone. Where do iguanas go when they leave a place? I genuinely don’t know. I just know we were here long enough to clock their absence.
There’s a man living on the empty lot near us — in the U.S., we’d probably call him unhoused, maybe assume he’s squatting. We watched him long enough to start worrying when he disappeared for four or five days. He spends his time harvesting rebar off the property. He sleeps in something more shed than home — a small trailer missing its doors and windows.
I made up a whole backstory for him in my head, because that’s apparently what a month of careful, casual observation does to you. Here’s my theory: he’s not squatting at all. He’s the landowner. In Mexico, the order of operations often works in reverse from what Americans expect — you buy the land first, then live on it however you can while you work toward building. I think harvesting rebar is just one of his hustles while he gets there. I have no proof. I just have a month’s worth of watching, and a story that feels true.
What This Confirms
A month in, the big question I keep asking myself is: could we actually live like this, long-term? Not just survive it, but enjoy it?
And the answer, even with an ear infection and loads of medical appointments and a switched-up travel day, is yes. This is a way of life we could lead. We just lived a month of real, resident-level life in one neighborhood — not a highlight reel, not a vacation, but groceries and gelato and going with the flow.
What’s Next
From here: a weekend in León, which is really just a spotting point, a place to pause between bigger stays. Then on to , San Miguel de Allende — a huge expat town, which will be a different kind of experience for us entirely.
And then? Nothing. From early August until September 13th, we have no city chosen, no lodging booked, nothing reserved. That’s either terrifying or thrilling depending on the day you ask me. Finally, to Mexico City, which I cannot wait to explore!
If you’re sitting on the fence about whether a life like this is even possible — whether you could trade the conventional retirement script for something slower and stranger and more uncertain — I’d just say: it’s possible. It’s not always smooth. But a month in, we’re under budget, we’ve made real connections in a neighborhood we’d never been to before, and we’re about to trade sea level for mountain air.
Get out there and do it. See what your version looks like.
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