Retiring in Mexico…Thoughts on Todos Santos in Baja

Retiring in Mexico…Thoughts on Todos Santos in Baja By tango456 From: http://babyboomerstogether.com/2011/04/01/retiring-in-mexico-thoughts-on-todos-santos-in-baja/

I love living in California, but sometimes the constant rain in winter means an occasional escape is necessary. A mini-tango festival was being held in Todos Santos in Baja and my girlfriend and I thought it would also offer an opportunity to check out Baja as a possibility to retire or semi-retire. Most vacations now are done with this in mind. Trying to find a place that we think we might want to live for maybe a few months or permanently, and there is a quality of life.

Well, the good news is that Todos Santos is indeed a cool little town. Evidently expatriate artists who wanted to flee the carnival atmosphere of Cabo San Lucas headed to Todos Santos and established themselves there. It’s a beautiful town on the Pacific Ocean and very friendly.

There’s also a lot to do there. You have your pick of yoga classes, Tai Chi, a very respected meditation teacher gives talks on Sundays, there are a countless number of good restaurants, and a welcoming large number of expatriates there. Except for the terrible roads, you feel like you’re in the states.

In fact, Costco is only about 2 hours away in Cabo San Lucas and La Paz is about an hour away. The scenery is beautiful with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the mountains in the background. There are any number of great desert hikes as well.

Sounds great? Unfortunately there is the little practicality of money. We found ourselves spending about the same as we do in the San Francisco Bay Area, not a cheap place by any measure. If you bought property 10-20 years ago, you were fine. If money didn’t mean anything, you could buy something now, but there aren’t any bargain prices.

In fact, real estate is not moving and people are just sitting on their homes waiting to sell. Adding to this is people have to make sure they have someone living in their homes, or just hiring people to do so if they’re not there, because vacant houses are subject to people just inviting themselves to move into an empty house. And good luck getting them out. We heard a number of cautionary tales about this.

While I haven’t been to San Miguel de Allende, it sounds like the same story. Really nice towns now overpopulated by Americans and grossly overinflated real estate prices. Again, if money doesn’t mean a whole lot and you can go anywhere you want, Todos Santos would be a good choice. We thought the expat community was a very good one. By a good one, I’m not talking about a bunch of retired yahoos whose idea of heaven is a gated community and local people who are nothing but servants to cater to their every whim. Think women with big hair, lots of flashy jewelry, and men with big pot bellies who think global warming is a hoax and this is the opposite of what you’ll find in Todos Santos. I’m not talking about a community of Wavy Gravys either, but intelligent and conscious people.

Would we go back? Probably not. We’ve heard good things about La Paz and Loretto. Next time like to check these places out.

If you know something about Mexico, or just anywhere where there is a quality of life, things to do besides just staring at the ocean all day and mixing Margaritas, and is still affordable, please comment. That’s one of the purposes of this blog site. It’s really for people to share their ideas about where to go that still makes sense. It maybe finding some place that’s still undiscovered, and then building a community from scratch of people to create something great. Now that would truly be wonderful.

Posted in: Todos Santos