My husband, Jorge, and I started talking about moving to Mexico practically from the day we met. For twelve years, it was this fantasy we created only in our minds. I think it took us that long to build a partnership that felt safe enough to do something like sell our house and all our belongings, say goodbye to family and friends, and move to a completely foreign land. But that’s a story for another day. It also took us that long to be in a position to live and work from outside the US.
I remember when we made the decision. And like with all things in my life, when I make a decision, I start making moves immediately. I had never been so certain of anything in my whole life, except for marrying Jorge and having a baby. In February 2025, we decided it was time. On September 14th of that same year, we boarded a plane destined for Merida, Yucatan.
You know that feeling you get at least a couple of times a year that feels like you need to change everything about yourself and your life? It’s a sudden dissatisfaction with everything around you. Well, the good news is you probably just need a vacation (or maybe a nap). When you come back home, it’s like you’re new again, ready to conquer the world. Well, that’s not how it went for us.
We started feeling discontent with the general state of things years ago, but it came to a head in late 2024. By February 2025, when we made the decision to move, we knew something had to change. And not in the “I need a piña colada and a pool day” kind of way. Something needed to change fundamentally.
The funniest part about all of this? In August of 2024, we purchased our dream home—lovingly deemed “the farm”—in the tiny town of Prineville, Oregon. It was a 1920s homestead on two acres with the most beautifully landscaped yard. There was already a chicken coop, a custom-built barn, a tree swing, and a riding lawn mower to boot.
This house represented so many things for us: accomplishment, completeness, and permanence, to name a few. This house was a LOT of work, but it held so many possibilities for us as our “forever home.” With it, we also found a new community of beautiful people, and a school our daughter was thriving in. Even better, we were five minutes away from my mom and step-dad.
It’s funny, because in hindsight, I see immediately how out of alignment the whole thing was. Purchasing the farm was hard. We had purchased four homes prior to this one, and none of them required half the effort this one did. It was also extremely hard—and, quite frankly, a total pain—to maintain the farm. Spoiler alert: old houses have a lot of problems.
There was something else, though, lurking just below the surface. The political climate in the US was getting really intense. The sentiment toward brown people was shifting fast. Violence in schools was getting too close to home, with several threats in various schools throughout our little town of 12,000 people.
We were also dissatisfied with the little things. Grocery shopping was a pain, needing to visit several shops to get everything we needed. Making the 50-minute drive into Bend several times a week to see friends, tend to our rentals, or go to an event was getting tiresome. Limited opportunities in Prineville that aligned with our interests were a bummer.
Reading back through that, it’s like, oh, poor us. Had everything we wanted and still weren’t happy. Trust me, I know. But when I tell you we were so out of alignment, that’s what I mean. Nothing could have satisfied us. And let me tell you, the SECOND we decided to move to Mexico, things started falling into place with such ease. I mean, like crazy alignment happened and things just clicked.
And that was that. Sure, it was a ton of work, and no, it wasn’t ideal to be moving again right after thinking we had found a place to settle permanently. But the work didn’t feel hard. Selling, donating, and giving away our personal belongings was physically and mentally the hardest part, simply because we had accumulated so much crap. The rest was a breeze. We sold the house to the most perfect couple, got rid of the cars, re-homed our chickens, and spent our final months in the US spending lots of quality time with family and friends—and doing the things we loved most in Bend, the town we moved to five years prior with a dream and my cardigan 😉.
So for us, we didn’t just need a vacation. We needed a fundamental shift. We didn’t (and still don’t) have all the details worked out, but we knew where we were headed and that we would figure things out along the way. And you know what? It’s the best decision we’ve ever made.
So which one are you? Do you just need a vacation, or do you need a change of scenery in a permanent sense? If you’re not sure, do I have the thing for you. I reflected on all the ways our move has changed our lives and created this nifty 20 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Moving to a New Country questionnaire. Check it out here!
Comfortably Uncertain 