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

[DonJuane]

Let me throw out another question and that would be why would one choose GTO to move based only on Internet research and pick it over all other Mexico cities? My guess is that the GTO colored home backdrop is used on every travel show and travel brochure that has been published in at least the last decade or longer. For that I would say if one is "all up" for the adventure to moving to Mexico, don't make GTO the final destination before first giving the city a serious look. Instead one should only think about making GTO the final destination after enough experience has been undertaken with several popular cities because any one of them can speak to someone in a way more than another one. To me the concept of picking a city to make a new home without knowing the city inside and out would be a relatively serious mistake. If I were thinking about moving and establishing myself, I'd get an RV or a big truck or something that would haul around my base needs or if not that, then rent furnished and have a plan to spend about 3 months in each of a list of cities I came up with after a good bit of research. And everyone (not just me) says to rent and get a good image of a place before you dial up the movers and buy a home sight unseen.

One will find that after learning the base routine in one city, it's relatively the same everywhere (asking where is the city market, super market, meat market, recharging your cell chip, paying your tele, water and electric, where are drug stores, where do the buses stop and where do they go, etc and all of these things are the same type of things that are done everywhere. This way the exact right city becomes more clear to one without the influence of others who may have investments pushing the general populace toward a particular city, or from those who have rose-colored blinders yet to be struck with the realities of life, or from those who have been jaded to the point of taking what appears either a realist's view of things and accepting and enjoying them for what they are or otherwise, someone strapped with pain and misery. and all of this being derived according to the way you personally interpret it.

There are about 20 cities I'd consider living full time (and making a home) in Mexico. And in contrast one of the first things I believe is a key of finding a place that is destined for gentrification or one that you'll soon lose to tourism is when you have the location advertised with a hundred percent positive descriptions of it. In situations where you have all positive reviews and never anyone permitted to point out a repercussion of living there because such comments are either deleted from the fora or those reporting multiple perspectives are chastised via personal derogatory remarks every time someone points out a shortcoming - to me this indication that the city in question is not an optimum place to live. You don't want to live in a place that is "the best place in the world to live" (aka San Miguel de Allende, via CNN & Conde Nast) because that starts to bring in all the undesirables looking for people who are looking for the best.

So in closing I believe there are multiple ways to look at things and I always tend to present a dissimilar one, meaning when someone writes a full positive review, I feel compelled to write an alternate to point out the shortcomings. When someone writes a full negative review, I try to point out the positive aspects. I am not enjoying being contrary but simply enjoy seeing things from many different sides which means in general that something is alive and thriving. Call it a hobby or habit or short-coming, but at least call. ;-)