# Moving to Puerto Vallarta



## raeernisse

Hello and thanks in advance to those who take the time to reply. We are moving to PV and have some questions we hope people of this forum can help answer. We plan to rent a furnished place for the 1st year so we will bring as little as possible with us. However, as we are making the list of items we plan to bring we are concerned about how to get them there. We had planned to fly to PV with our items, but open to other suggestions about what others have done.

1) Does anyone know if you can take several boxes or trunks via the airline and if there is a limit? I know there would be a charge.

2) Should we decide to rent a small truck - does anyone know of a rental company that will let us rent one in the states and leave in Mexico?

3) Has anyone used a moving company, and if so, can you give us and idea of costs?

4) Is it possible to ship our items ourselves?

We appreciate any help.

Thanks

RAE


----------



## mxfan

*My thoughts from a soapbox.*

I made that change too, 4 years ago and I will offer this advice to you. Stop thinking how you will continue the US lifestyle in MX and start thinking about absorbing Mexico's lifesyle. Don't worry about which airline, renting a truck, buying this or renting that, or finding the "best" neighborhood based on what an agent or American tells you. 

Pack your duffles, go to a border city in MX, get your visas, go to the central bus station, take a nice bus to PV, get off at the stops to buy tacos and experience MX. Enjoy the start of your new life in MX not like an American but as a visitor to the Mexican culture. I see some travelers with 3 or 4 really large duffles traveling on buses. See for yourself. Oh, and a reality check; when you get off the bus to buy a taco, don't leave anything unattended or it will disappear sooner or later. That is part of the culture too. I don't think it's different than any US city.

I am American but I choose to live in MX and I appreciate and respect their country and I am thankful to live here. That doesn't mean I agree with or like everything but I realize I am an accepted visitor here. My motto is; I don't try to change MX and MX doesn't try to change me. I love MX for what it is not what I think it could be. Fact is; most Americans would hate MX because MX isn't the US. 

I hope you enjoy your life change and I believe I make my own luck and I can live with the good and not so good. Just my 2 pesos worth.
Respectfully...


----------



## RVGRINGO

1) You would have to ship them air freight and use a customs broker, etc. Horribly expensive.
2) That is not allowed.
3) Of course. Many thousands of dollars is typical. It is less expensive to replace the stuff in Mexico.
4) Freight forwarding companies should be consulted.

If you are truly moving to Mexico, you might as well just go with suitcases. Once established and having purchased a car in Mexico, you can pick up more personal stuff on visits north, if it is worth keeping. Your opinion on that will change a lot with time.
If you wanted to stage the transfer of stuff, you could use a UHaul from MO to a convenient border city, like Laredo, TX, and drop stuff there in a public storage facility. We did that and picked it up at our convenience; just what will fit in your car + car-top carrier.


----------



## citlali

It is not always to replace your belongings inMexiico. If you have cheap stuff in the States I agree but if you have high quality furniture or sliver , antiques etc , things are more expensive here so it all depends on what you will bring.
I came down with nothing lived here for 3 months in a furnished rental figured out what I needed, saw the local prices and went from there.
I shipped via a freigh line not a mover to the border and had a mover from Ajijic pick up my stuff from the border. I had almost no large pieces, everything from the kitchen, electronics, books and lamps nice lamps are just about inexistant depending on what you like.
Before I left I packed everything in smaller boxes , I packed everything myself and did packing lists in English and Spanish on each box and on excel. Put everything in storagein California. It was then easy to remove the things I would not ship and sell them or give them away and I handed the packing lists to the mover in Ajiic and just shipped by volume via a freight company to their Llaredo warehouse where the mover from Ajijic has space and where he combined the shipment with someone´s else who was coming down so I shipped LTL. (less than a truck load). They cleared customs and delivered to my house. I think I lost one lamp.
It worked well for us but everyoone is different. I paid for the more with less than 10 cases of fine wine I sold on Internet.


----------



## TundraGreen

raeernisse said:


> …
> 2) Should we decide to rent a small truck - does anyone know of a rental company that will let us rent one in the states and leave in Mexico?
> …


Regarding Question #2: You cannot rent one-way, picking the truck up in one city and leaving in another city in another country. You can however, rent a truck, use it, then and return it to the city where you rented it. Some rental companies allow you to cross the border with their vehicles. However, you will need to think about insurance. Even if you select full coverage when you rent the vehicle, you will not be covered by it in another country. This is true even if the company is an international rental company with outlets in both countries.

I moved some stuff to Guadalajara from Colorado last year with a rental van. I rented it in Guadalajara, drove to Colorado, picked up the stuff, and returned. It was much cheaper than any other method that I found. 

I paid for full insurance coverage on the rental in Guadalajara. I did not realize that it would not cover me in the US. Fortunately, I was lucky and nothing happened in the US. If I were to do it again, I would look into getting separate short term coverage for the US part of the trip. I am not sure how you would do that but it might be possible. 

I had no trouble with the border crossing in either direction. No one in the US asked me about the Mexican plated car. And, returning to Mexico, I didn't have to worry about it, because the car had Mexican plates.


----------



## jquest

We moved down here to PV this year from the USA.

We made two separate trips to do this. The first was to come down here in April and start looking for an apartment that met our requirements. We used airbnb to find the first temp apartment that we stayed at while we searched for the one that we are in now.

Most places here in PV come available towards the end of April thru May - essentially that is the end of high season. We leased our place here on a yearly lease - the cost was about 1/3 of the price that you see for a typical high season monthly fee. Even though we still intend to go back to the states for a few months each year during the summer, it is way cheaper to do the annual lease than to try and find a new place each time, plus it lets us leave all our things here so there is nothing to lug back and forth to the US.

We brought things down in suitcases on the plane, but left all our goods in the US in storage (the ones my wife couldn't bear to part with) after divesting ourselves of the rest. When we came back on the 2nd trip we brought some more, but basically just clothes and some toiletries that aren't available here in Mexico kind of things.

It took us about 4 weeks of dedicated hunting with a couple of agencies and finally a local expat realtor down here to find our place. We don't have a car here, we mostly used the busses and taxis - costs us about $50-100 US per month to do that - way cheaper than car payments and insurance, maintenance, gas, etc.


----------



## chicois8

See what you think you need after a year go pick it up and then have a garage sale for the rest of the stuff.........


----------



## TundraGreen

chicois8 said:


> See what you think you need after a year go pick it up and then have a garage sale for the rest of the stuff.........


That is what I did, but it took me 2 years to decide to stay, then 5 years before I got around to picking up the remaining stuff. The only advantage was that over that 5 years, I gradually got rid of more stuff, so what I had to move was pretty minimal, mostly boxes of personal papers and some kitchen tools that I couldn't bear to part with.


----------



## raeernisse

Thanks to all of you for the valuable information. We have so many questions. Please be patient as we pick your brains and learn from you.

1) for those that have been in PV for awhile. What do you do about a drivers license after it expires? What do you use as a permanent address in the states? We will not be keeping a residence in the states. We plan to spend 9-10 months a year in PV and the other 3 months traveling in the states.


----------



## AlanMexicali

I don´t know about in the states of Jalisco or Nayarit but in our state you can get a drivers license by giving a copy of your current valid US state license and your INM visa/card valid for the time you want the drivers license, 1 to 4 years. without taking a written exam or driving test. If your US state license is expired you need to take the written test in Spanish.


----------



## raeernisse

Thanks for the reply. Do you have an idea of how many suitcases we are allowed to take on the plane? I know it will vary from airline to airline and there will be a charge. I think it might best if we just bring the moment is and repurchase the other items. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## TundraGreen

raeernisse said:


> Thanks to all of you for the valuable information. We have so many questions. Please be patient as we pick your brains and learn from you.
> 
> 1) for those that have been in PV for awhile. What do you do about a drivers license after it expires? What do you use as a permanent address in the states? We will not be keeping a residence in the states. We plan to spend 9-10 months a year in PV and the other 3 months traveling in the states.


I got a Jalisco license after my Colorado license was stolen. It was a very painless process. I took a computerized test. It was in Spanish, but it was mostly pictures and multiple choice. Even with very minimal Spanish it would have been easy to follow. There was a 5 minute driving test. I drove one loop around a small parking lot and then parallel parked the car. The whole process took less than half an hour. Later I got a California license. That took much longer. I used a (now former) girl friend's address for the California license. But I don't think I really need a US license. When I visited the US a few weeks ago I rented a car and used my Jalisco license with no problems.


----------



## TundraGreen

raeernisse said:


> Thanks for the reply. Do you have an idea of how many suitcases we are allowed to take on the plane? I know it will vary from airline to airline and there will be a charge. I think it might best if we just bring the moment is and repurchase the other items. Thanks for sharing.


On the suitcases, it definitely depends on the airline and also the flight. There are different policies for domestic versus international flights. Most of them, but not all, still allow you to check at least one bag without extra fees.


----------

