Moving to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico
Over the past year I’ve had a lot of people tell me to go San Miguel de Allende, an amazing town in central Mexico.
The first time I heard about San Miguel, was when I was living in Ubud in Bali in 2013 from my fellow travel blogger and friend Valen.
Then more recently, I’ve had a bunch of friends in NYC were telling me to go to San Miguel, including my friend Liah Alonso, an amazing singer/songwriter. It was when Liah invited me to a NYC party called “Gratitude” (a Burning Man de-compression party), I met Claudine, who yet again told me to go San Miguel.
And Claudine said that when I go to San Miguel, I must look up Klaudia, a woman who knows everybody, and everything about the city. (But Claudine never gave me Klaudia’s number!)
Now, when I get that many recommendations to go to a new place, I pay attention.
San Miguel is meant to be one the most liveable (check out that link to confirm that) and beautiful places in the world. An artistic cultural hub of Mexico, where more than 10% of the population are expats (like me), looking for new ways to live. People burnt out by their consumerist Western lifestyle, who no longer want to be plugged into the daily grind of paying bills, endless commuting and the stresses of just getting by, all to be repeated next week.
So, when I got to Mexico City about 4 weeks ago, that was my plan. Go to San Miguel. But when life started to open up for me in Mexico City, I began to realise that San Miguel could wait. I found Pico’s awesome house on AirBnB. He lives in Chapultepec, one of the nicest areas in Mexico City. Each day I would hear the beats of the new album he’s composing, coming from his music studio in the back garden.
But when Liah contacted me again from New York City, asking me to come to San Miguel this week, to help her make her new TV show “Around the World in 80 Songs” I couldn’t resist!
A bit like a secret mission, I got the instructions to go meet Erin, the film editor, at the airport, and from there take a shuttle bus for 3 hours all the way to San Miguel. I didn’t know anything else. No idea about where I was staying, what we’ll be doing, or anything else. Just go to the airport, and take it from there.
So, of course I did! Erin recognised me from my Facebook profile, complete with the yellow hat. And together we journeyed across Mexico with a bunch of other Expats freshly arrived from the freezing cold of the US and Canada. For most, this was their yearly trek. Escaping the winter for 4-6 months, and living the good life in San Miguel for less than half the cost of living in the West. Because when you swap dollars for pesos, your dollars go a LOT further.
That’s why I prefer to earn money from Western countries, but live in so called “developing” countries. It just makes economic sense to me. And I’m going to be talking more about how to do that in the future.
That first night when we arrived in San Miguel, Liah comes in smiling, a bit tired from a long days’ film shooting around the city and creating new songs with musicians. She’s still fully pumped and excited about our week ahead, and all the activities we’ll be doing, thanks to our fantastic new guide… none other than Klaudia!
I never reached out to contact Klaudia after Claudine told me to, but I knew I had to meet her. And here she was, half a world away from where I’d been living in NYC, and I didn’t even have to try to find her.
Later as we all discussed plans to help make Liah’s show even more awesome by including more musicians to work with throughout the week in San Miguel, and Mexico City, I mention my new room mate, Pico from Mexico City. Well… of course Liah knows Pico and had been reaching out to him to work on a collaborative project.
And I met all these people “randomly”.
Once again I marvel at what happens when I let go, and just pay attention to the patterns of what to do next.
I don’t know how long I’ll stay in San Miguel, or Mexico City, or even Mexico. I’m working on exciting my new branding and Internet marketing projects. Making great contacts, and enjoying the warm weather and Mexican food!
I figure, I really don’t need to know. Trusting is really working. And yes, it will become very clear what I need to do next without even trying.
The tip for today… keep trusting, and listen for the patterns, it will make life a lot more fun.
