Moving to Baja Full/Part Time Should we? How to Do It? Moving Furniture, etc...


Old 02-19-11, 06:24 PM   #61
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by BajaGringo
I hear you Patch. Something tells me that much of it comes from folks who simply want to feel better about their own situation by pointing out how much worse they perceive it to be in other places.
It may not even be that conscious. People who don't travel are programmed to believe that what happens in a foreign country is scarier than what happens at home. I lived in Egypt at the time of 9/11 and had folks from the US writing … in all seriousness … "Are you okay over there? Aren't you scared?"

So I hear you too, Soulpatch. After 30+ years of being an expat, I can say that your close friends and relatives will get over it. For everybody else, BG's approach works pretty well. Sending them a map can be effective, too.
Old 02-19-11, 11:19 PM   #62
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

One of my "well meaning" friends asked me how I could even consider retiring in Mexico, much less Baja because of all the violence and murders. He followed up with "They even kill cops a lot down there". I said that maybe he had forgotten that about this time last year 6 area police officers were assassinated in less than 2 months. Not killed in the line of duty, but picked out simply because they were police officers and assassinated.

He didn't have much of a response.

One thing I am certainly convinced of, the more people that stay away because they are afraid is not going to make things better for anyone, and will continue to make life more difficult for the hardworking locals. That's the true crime.

I figure if I survived several trips to Sao Paolo and a few visits to Rio, I've made it through places that can make Mexico look like Singapore. They just don't get the press. I was on the way to the airport in Sao Paolo one day when the taxi driver told me we had to take a long detour around the main soccer stadium as there was a riot and the area was too dangerous. I found out later that over 300 people were seriously injured and 27 were killed, including 4 policemen. All over a soccer game.

Violence is everywhere but common sense and awareness will usually keep you away from it....and I'll never turn down a bit of good luck.
Old 02-20-11, 07:55 PM   #63
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TravelPro787
One thing I am certainly convinced of, the more people that stay away because they are afraid

Violence is everywhere but common sense and awareness will usually keep you away from it....and I'll never turn down a bit of good luck.


One thing I've discovered about living in Mexico is that we don't, and probably won't, see old friends/Co-workers from the U.S.. They're too afraid to visit us (then... who knows, maybe they were glad to get rid of me ). In a little over a year of living here, the only friends who've visited were racing in the Baja Mil.

My mother in law is more adventurous. She did spend a month with us. When she left, I was reminded that Violence IS Everywhere. She left my laptop news link open to Cincinnati Ohio (where she's from). OMG...I couldn't believe the amount of violent crime reported there each day. If the only experience I had with Cincinnati was from the news reports, I'd be a nervous wreck when we go to visit her.
Old 02-21-11, 09:17 AM   #64
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

We have some friends who have expressed similar fears but thankfully most of our friends and family come down to see us. Those who came down here in spite of their fears all left feeling much different and were already making plans to come back.

Some people just seem to prefer a life incarcerated by their fears - sad but true...
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Old 02-21-11, 10:06 AM   #65
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

As we talk with friends about our dream of living in Baja, many express concern about the drug violence. I ask them if they wouldn't consider living in Santa Barbara because of the violence in Detroit.

Few people have any idea of the geographic separation between where we want to build and where bad things are happening. We're comfortable here at home knowing the areas as we do, being a few blocks from the "dangerous" neighborhoods. In Baja we're hundreds of miles away.
Old 02-21-11, 07:34 PM   #66
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

With the crazy world events going on around us and the house of cards that we call the US economy about to fall, this may just prove to be a very safe place to live by comparison in the months to come...

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Old 02-21-11, 10:47 PM   #67
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

My sentiments exactly BG.

If we don't get the deficit under control, changing the world currency for oil trades away from the dollar will change things forever. And there is more than a little rumble about that happening.

It would cause a great many problems here in the US and Mexico just might be the safer place. Who knows?
Old 02-22-11, 09:40 AM   #68
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

I actually had a response to this written on Saturday AM, but lost my connection when I tried to post it & have had a connection for -1 hour out of the past 72! Let's see how good my reconstructive abilities are..... (Marty & BG, if you don't want me posting here, just tell me, rather than sending bad vibes back to my PC connection!)

I'd be willing to bet that the fear-mongers are people who have never been to Baja! They're the ones who believe everything they see, hear & read in the media applies to every square inch of Mexico....they don't understand that the worst problems are in border towns....nor do they understand that border towns do not run the entire length of the Baja Peninsula!

I feel bad for the damage the drop in tourism has had on the local economy the length of the peninsula, but on the up side, that just leaves more fish tacos for those of us who have the big brass....'errr....guts to come down here! Baja's not for the faint of heart, it's not for panty-wastes, it's not for everyone!! I think people either love it or hate it, I haven't met any middle-of-the-roaders who were blase about it. It takes a hardy pioneer spirit to come down here & grab your own hunk of paradise. Soulpatch, feel free to tell those panty-waste friends & co-workers that you know (well, you will soon know!) a GIRL who's been here since 1999 & wouldn't move back to the states for love nor money. I've never felt fear for my personal safety in all that time & my quality of life is actually better than it was in the states. I actually know several GIRLS who have made La Paz their permanent home. If I didn't honestly feel that La Paz would be a safe environment for your family, I'd be the first person jumping up on my to tell you so!

Besides all that, you know in advance you don't need to worry about going to the expense of having a guest room in your casa!!

Now it's not letting me preview, so I'll just attempt to post! Marty please remove the dried super glue from the port you screen all my posts in!
Old 02-22-11, 10:03 AM   #69
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

With our states going belly up and the federal government running a 1.5+ trillion dollar deficit, piling onto a national debt already 10 times that much, there really is no hope. To get the deficit really under control will end up putting millions of government employees out on the street to add to the current record numbers of unemployed. Getting the deficit under control will require huge cutbacks in services and programs that will be needed more than ever when millions more of new faces get their pink slips and others face cutbacks in their retirements and benefits. It took us decades of out of control growth in government to get us to where we are and it is the coming global economy that has burst the bubble, bringing us down to a global reality.

I truly do see it getting very, very ugly and cannot even imagine any way possible to avoid what most thought was previously unthinkable.

We are simply witnessing the historical end of another empire.

Lots of folks seem to get angry at the mere mention of that but I have been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for somebody / anybody to offer any feasible plan to how that can possibly be avoided. Twenty years ago, maybe. In today's global economy I think it is nearly impossible...

.
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Old 02-22-11, 11:05 AM   #70
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Yeah,
It is getting very ugly out there despite the cheer-leading going on in the press.
I just hope my pension outlasts me.

I have been thinking about the whole friends/family thing and it doesn't concern me much. Most the people who I work with, who are in general decent people, I don't associate with much anyway...a few that are like-minded and absolutely love baja I will probably spend just as much time with them that I do now....maybe even more as they get close to retirement age.
My family is so far flung that it, other than my MIL who is close, it doesn't effect me. My MIL flies to Singapore fairly regularly to visit her other daughter so La Paz is a walk in the park.

It is refreshing to meet people who light up and love our plan. Those folks are certainly in the minority, though.......which leads back to we are a nation of sheeple..................
pathetic, isn't it?
I think that is why we often feel more at home with the "baja adventurers" than we do with our NOB brethren....there is a common, non-chicken ( I was thinking of another word that more effectively describes what I am trying to convey that starts with p and ends in y but I don't want to offend anyone) approach to life that we value.
Old 02-22-11, 12:02 PM   #71
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?



Well said...
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Old 02-22-11, 06:46 PM   #72
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Count me as one of the lucky ones. My family can hardly wait for me to get moved so they can come visit. Might be the fact that my son and oldest daughter live in Michigan and my youngest daughter in Portland is so anxious for me to get there she volunteered to drive the rental truck. Might be the "I need to thaw my ass out" syndrome.

As for my working environment, that's easy. All of my employees are Mexican and the only thing they want to know is when I am going to open a business in Baja and bring them all home. I keep telling them they all wore me out and I have to retire in Mexico because I paid them all too much money the last ten years. They laugh and tell me to make sure I have good guest accommodations so they can at least visit. Not one of them has asked if I was concerned about safety because they know that most of the people in Mexico are like them. Good, decent, family people who don't think anything about working many hours/jobs, etc. in order to provide for their families. I will really miss them, and will always remember their unknowing influence on my decision to retire in Baja.

As for the "well meaning" crowd, someone said that most of them had probably never even been to Mexico. My favorite idiot was the one who said, " I thought you said you were moving to Mexico. Baja California is part of California so you'll still be in the states"

This guy is a college graduate......public education at it's finest.
Old 02-22-11, 08:46 PM   #73
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TravelPro787
My favorite idiot was the one who said, " I thought you said you were moving to Mexico. Baja California is part of California so you'll still be in the states"
I had a similar conversation (with a teacher, no less). When I explained about the Baja California peninsula being in Mexico, she said,"Well then, why do they call it California?" The mind reels ...
Old 02-22-11, 10:25 PM   #74
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

It's really good to see dream's still come true...

"Pushing on" is what some of our forefathers did ... warts and all ...
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Old 02-23-11, 11:32 AM   #75
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

I just read an article on the BBC on-line news line that set Mexico's 2010 growth rate at 5.5%. When we look at that in context of the point BG was making out the US economy, we are far closer to food riots and anarchy in Portland or Cleveland than we are in Ensenada.

All it will take to tip the US into chaos is a solar flare knocking out our computer-controlled grid, or another terrorist strike inside our borders. Few people appreciate how delicate our communications or food and energy distribution networks are, and what the immediate and long lasting impacts would be if they collapsed for more than a couple of days.

Give me a home in a valley full of gardens and orchards, moderate year round temperatures, solar panels to keep the freezer going, and a sweet right hand point break in the front yard, and I'll be in fine shape to ride out armageddon!
Old 02-23-11, 12:55 PM   #76
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Regarding misconceptions some(a lot of) people have about Mexico........DW and I just returned from a 9 day cruise to our beloved Mexico. While on the ship.... we met several people who felt a little uneasy about going ashore in some of the ports.. Two couples planned to stay onboard while in Mazatlan and Ensenada(didn't want to get mugged or shot). Another woman asked me if the ship had sufficient armed security onboard....just in case the ship"was stormed by drug gangs"(her exact words).Another couple described Mexicans as "uneducated criminals" who will do whatever possible to steal from you. I told these fine people that I've been visiting Mexico since 1984.....and have never met more honest, hardworking and giving people...anywhere. I think they must have pooped their pants...because...they sure left in a HURRY!

When first timers to Mexico asked me if I think they will enjoy visiting there... I tell them: . You can"t wait to go back...or you never wanna go back!!.
Old 02-24-11, 10:01 AM   #77
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

It is amazing to me how many hijackings this thread has had! Just all over the place. Interesting to read it all and take it all in. Wow!
Old 02-24-11, 05:13 PM   #78
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Nobody ever accused this group of staying on topic...at least not for more that 3 or 4 posts. But it does make it interesting most of the time.
Old 02-24-11, 08:07 PM   #79
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

there was a topic?
Old 02-24-11, 11:12 PM   #80
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Default Re: More or Less Likely to Retire in Baja / Mexico Now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Islander
there was a topic?
Hilarious! Indeed.





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