# Affordable beach towns



## 1happykamper (Nov 5, 2012)

I searched for current info.. Found nothing. Honest! Ja

I was living in Mexico 2012 to 2015.. mainly in San Miguel de Allende. Its changed there. A lot! 

I've been enjoying Indonesia and Thailand since 2015...but obviously missing México because I've travelled back there... a lot! 

So... This "missing" México is getting stronger and so I've been researching the idea of a warm /hot beach there. But the rental prices! Oh my god... Puerto Vallarta... A studio.. Which is all I really need.. A nicely furnished place is 15.000 mxn! This is a long stay price.. 6 or 12 months! I've gotten this info from recent YouTube videos and looking at various Facebook groups.

Are there any more affordable beach cities.. Cancun, I think! Is off the list because of the crime there. Thanks in advance. Saludos.


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## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

The days of cheap living in Mexico are pretty much a thing of the past unless you want to be somewhere remote, not near a beach, away from other expats. In other words, live like a lower class Mexican.
It's not just that tourism is thriving, pushing prices up- there is a growing Mexican middle class who can afford beach vacations, some even having a second home to rent out when they aren't using it, and the cost of gas, electricity, food, and everything else has gone up.
Of course, boots on the ground is always the best way to find a decent affordable place to live- I think that's true anywhere. Good deals go by word of mouth and get passed from someone who ¡s moving out to someone else they know. Places simply advertised for rent are always going to be more expensive than what you can find through the grapevine.


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## JRinPV (Jul 2, 2012)

There are still affordable places in Puerto Vallarta, just stay away from the beach. Try posting on a faceBook group like Vallarta Advisor. The following colonias 5 de Diciembre, El caloso, Las Canoas, Buenos Aires and even Paso Ancho - a 15min bus drive away.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Do you want to live in one of the popular large resort towns like Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Cancun etc? I would guess that you can find places in small former fishing villages that that are a lot more economical, but I have no first hand experience. There are lots of smaller towns with a beach.


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## Jreboll (Nov 23, 2013)

If you go to specific forums for those states you can get more information. I have heard mention of cheap towns on Michoacan forums.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Prowling the chat boards is no substitute for actually prowling several small coastal towns in person. I suggest looking at each town online, then planning a trip with a night or more in any that look like possibilities. As others have suggested, boots on the ground is the only way to find the best opportunities. Places advertised online will be intended for the tourist trade, and will be much more expensive. What you seek may not be advertised at all; or with just a "se renta" sign in a window. Pick a likely neighborhood and start walking & talking.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

yep I guess you can get real cheap places on the Michoacan coast or Guerrero for that matter..


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## 1happykamper (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks for your replies. I have actually travelled to lots of beach towns in MX but most of the time I was not interested in housing costs. Sayulita was way to yuppie and .. well..yuppie. Can I still use this word in 2019? San Blas..I have never been..but Google street views on Maps look fabulous... No idea of rental costs and availability. I bit inland is Nayarit..which again, via Google maps looks nice too. 

Yes, of course, boots on the ground always works best. I am trying to narrow down my search to one single coastal area..Nayarit, Oaxaca, or east Yucatan peninsular.


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## 1happykamper (Nov 5, 2012)

citlali said:


> yep I guess you can get real cheap places on the Michoacan coast or Guerrero for that matter..


I usually don't play the MX crime card into a discussion.. but.. isn't this coastal area incredibly dangerous?


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

1happykamper said:


> Thanks for your replies. I have actually travelled to lots of beach towns in MX but most of the time I was not interested in housing costs. Sayulita was way to yuppie and .. well..yuppie. Can I still use this word in 2019? San Blas..I have never been..but Google street views on Maps look fabulous... No idea of rental costs and availability. I bit inland is Nayarit..which again, via Google maps looks nice too.
> 
> Yes, of course, boots on the ground always works best. I am trying to narrow down my search to one single coastal area..Nayarit, Oaxaca, or east Yucatan peninsular.


 The mosquitoes on the beach at night in San Blas were unbearable the two nights I have spent on the beach there. Chacala is a small village not too far from there that has a rapidly growing foreign population. La Manzanilla (different from Manzanillo), Barra de Navidad, Melaque are all popular with foreigners. Less visited might be Bahia de Tortuga in Baja, Abre Ojos also in Baja and really tiny and far from anything. Then there are Boca de Tomatlan, Mismaloya, Ixtapa, Chemela on the Jalisco coast. 

Those are just a few I am familiar with at some level. There must be hundreds more.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

surabi said:


> The days of cheap living in Mexico are pretty much a thing of the past unless you want to be somewhere remote, not near a beach, away from other expats. In other words, live like a lower class Mexican.
> It's not just that tourism is thriving, pushing prices up- there is a growing Mexican middle class who can afford beach vacations, some even having a second home to rent out when they aren't using it, and the cost of gas, electricity, food, and everything else has gone up.
> Of course, boots on the ground is always the best way to find a decent affordable place to live- I think that's true anywhere. Good deals go by word of mouth and get passed from someone who ¡s moving out to someone else they know. Places simply advertised for rent are always going to be more expensive than what you can find through the grapevine.


The cost of living where I live is low and I live really well, not like a "lower class Mexican" whatever that means. However, I don't know about "expat" locations or even why they would be considered over other areas?

I don't live near a beach, but I do live far away from foreigners (I don't like the word _expats_, too much baggage, I respect my locale by using the same word people here use, _extranjero_). My area is not remote, it is the home town of many famous priistas, including Peña Nieto.


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## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

xolo said:


> The cost of living where I live is low and I live really well, not like a "lower class Mexican" whatever that means. However, I don't know about "expat" locations or even why they would be considered over other areas?
> 
> I don't live near a beach, but I do live far away from foreigners (I don't like the word _expats_, too much baggage, I respect my locale by using the same word people here use, _extranjero_). My area is not remote, it is the home town of many famous priistas, including Peña Nieto.


I actually hate the term expat myself, I just used it becuse it seems to be so prevalent. To me it conjurs up visions of pensioners who never bother to learn more Spanish than they need to tell the maid or gardener what to do, spend their days eating out and going to the doctor and taking Fifi to the groomers. That may be unfair, but it's what the term conjurs up to me.
I also shouldn't have said "lower class Mexicans". What I really meant is that foreigners won't normally find many of the things they would appreciate in a cheaper locale- that it will be more Mexican, like there may not be a huge variety of restaurants serving all different types of cuisine, coffee shops, English language organizations and bookstores, or a choice of imported foods.
I was thinking more along the lines of the cheapest places to live in Mexico being small Mexican inland towns, like farming communities with not much to offer for a foreigner unless they speak fluent Spanish, have no interest in hanging out with other foreigners, and whose main concerns are affordable living and decent weather. Which would be more populated with working class Mexicans, as opposed to larger, vibrant cities like Colima, Cuernavaca, etc. where the populace is more educated and there are higher paying jobs for those with university degrees.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

So , Xolo you moved from Colia to Atlacomulco! Big change of climate! Yes I was amazaed how mny governors came out of Atlacomulco.. We used to stay there a lot when the Arco norte was in construction.. we thought people there were pretty friendly and we had some funny experiences there..


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

surabi said:


> I actually hate the term expat myself, I just used it becuse it seems to be so prevalent. To me it conjurs up visions of pensioners who never bother to learn more Spanish than they need to tell the maid or gardener what to do, spend their days eating out and going to the doctor and taking Fifi to the groomers. That may be unfair, but it's what the term conjurs up to me. ...


 I also dislike the term 'expat', but maybe for different reasons.

My objection is the racial and economic overtones of the term. To quote from the Wikipedia page for the word 'expatriate':
"For example, a British national working in Spain or Portugal is commonly referred to as an 'expatriate', whereas a Spanish or Portuguese national working in Britain is referred to as an 'immigrant', thus indicating Anglocentrism."

We see the same thing here. A US-born person living in Mexico is an 'expat', but a Mexican-born person in the US is an 'immigrant'.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

the word is a left over from the good old days when the Brits lived all over the world as colonists.. I do not care for that word either...gringos and expats , my least favorite couple of words that you hear a whole lot down here.. Funny I never heard the word in the US wher they are plenty of foreigners, including myself living there.. down here that is all you hear..


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## Jreboll (Nov 23, 2013)

In the US where one has to be politically correct and avoid labeling someone that is to be expected. In Mexico labeling someone doesn’t have negative consequences so it is more often used.


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## xolo (May 25, 2014)

I've spent the last 7 years reading sociolinguistics, especially in regard to colonialism in Mexico, and more especially the Revolutionary Rural Schools. Once you see things, you can't unsee them, as the saying goes. But, I'm not the nerdiest. I met a post-doc who had spent 10 years on her anthropology dissertation about the codecs in Mexico. The codecs, as some of you know, are pictograms from prehispanic times. There's only about 10 in existence because the priests destroyed all of them except for a few that were sent to the king of Spain.

I love the climate here.


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## surabi (Jan 1, 2017)

Jreboll said:


> In the US where one has to be politically correct and avoid labeling someone that is to be expected. In Mexico labeling someone doesn’t have negative consequences so it is more often used.


 It's one of the things I like about Mexico- the lack of political correctness, which as far as I'm concerned, is way over the top in the US and Canada. If you're fat, they call you Gordo, if you're skinny, Flaco, no one pretends not to notice that you're 100 pounds overweight. And it mostly seems to be done with affection and no one appears to take offense. My plumber's nickname is Gordo- I asked him why, since he isn't fat. He said "Oh, but I used to be fat- I lost 60 pounds on doctor's orders." But they still call him Gordo, and as far as I can tell, he doesn't seem to have any issue with it. 
And I don't mind the term ****** at all, because when Mexicans find out I'm Canadian, they say, "Oh, then, you're not a gringa- that term only applies to Americans"


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Gordo is also the equivalent of honey so you do not have to be fat or have lost weight to be called gordo.

Technically you are right the term ****** applies to Americans but since no one is asking for your passport it applies to all white foreigners.


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## Bobbyb (Mar 9, 2014)

San Blas can be horrible. Not a sleepy beach town. The mosquitoes are unbearable. Michoacan and Guerreo are 2 of the most dangerous places in Mexico. be ware that in a decent beach town the weekends and Semana Santa are like Daytona Beach. Noisy and full of jet skis and off road units. Tranquil Mexico is a thing of the past.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

There are no sleepy beaches over the holidays but plenty of them during off season.San Agustin in Oaxaca is a sleepy place , so is Playa Ventura in Guerrero you will have peace and quiet, maybe too much of it.. Guerrero maybe dangerous but there are lots of nice quiet beaches there.. Chiapas beaches are also deserted most of the time..


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## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

We have stayed in, or visited many of the Pacific coast areas that would qualify as "beach towns", from Puerto Peñasco and San Carlos in Sonora to Huatulco in Oaxaca, and most points in between, as well as most similar towns on both coasts in Baja Norte and Baja Sur. Less so on the Gulf and Caribbean side; just Ciudad Victoria, Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, etc. 
Over the years, we've found the place that feels best is Zihuatanejo, in Guerrero. There, and in nearby Ixtapa, (only 6-8 km to the north, 15 minutes/10 pesos by combi), you basically have it all: beautiful beaches, a small, permanent expat community, a small city, (Zihua, pop. 90,000 to 100,000), with all the services anyone requires, good air connections to DF, the USA and Canada, historic colonial cities, (Patzcuaro, Morelia, Uruapan) a short 3 hour bus ride away, etc. Long term accommodation rentals are plentiful and still relatively inexpensive. Because Ixtapa/Zihua are popular tourist venues both for Mexican nationals and foreigners, there is a wide assortment of accommodations and restaurants, serving all income levels. Weekends are busy year-round with Mexican tourists, as are Christmas and Semana Santa weeks and the summer school holidays from mid-July to mid-August, while the "season" for most foreign tourists runs from early November through early April. We've been in Zihua through all the busiest tourist periods except mid-summer, and never felt we would have preferred to be anywhere else.
A 45 minute combi ride south of Zihua is Barra de Potosi, a small community of several hundred right on the ocean that would be perfect for someone seeking more peace and quiet, but close to "civilization" when needed.
As for safety, we doubt that for foreign residents or visitors, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo is any less safe than anywhere else in Mexico. Take from that what you will.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I like the feel at the beach in Troncones as well.Yes the Zihuatanejo is in a beautiful area.


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