Mexico Travel Budget

Before I get too far into the planning and packing details of my trip, I need to make sure I have enough cash by the time I leave for my Mexico adventure to sustain me for about one year. I don't have a final budget yet, but I came up with a rough estimate that will guide me in terms of what I need to save and what I can spend on my trip.

First and foremost, I need to figure out how I am going to pay my monthly bills back at home. My creative plan was to create a separate checking account and postmark checks or schedule auto-payments for the next 12 months. Writing the checks is the easy part... there needs to be money in the bank when they are cashed. With two credit cards, two student loans, one personal loan, and health insurance, I will be making $510 in monthly payments. Add that all up and I need to store away $6,120 in an account that I won't be able to touch from Mexico.

Other savings I need to plan on before I leave include:

• Pay off one entire credit card balance
• Living expenses until departure: $200/wk for ~8 weeks = $1,600
• 3 Months worth of rent for when I settle down in Cabo San Lucas: $500/month = $1,500
• 30 days worth of travelling expenses: $56/day including flight (to DF) and ferry (to Cabo) = $1,661
• Plane, food, lodging, transportation, ferry ride to Cabo, museums, personal items, alcohol, etc.

Grand Total of cash I need between now and departure date = $13,906

Now you are probably asking where I will come up with that money... what do you think I do in Tijuana all the time? Just joking, I do have a plan for that as well.

• Low estimate of income from now until departure = $4,800
• Income from timeshare rental before departure = $2,000
• Current Checking and Savings ~ $3,750
• Tax Return = $1,000 (hopefully!)
• Sale of Toyota 4Runner = $2,500
• Online sales of clutter = $300
• Grand total of cash I plan to have before departure = $14,350

Balance: $14,350 - $13,906 = $444 Extra cash that could go towards all the gifts for my family and girlfriend that I didn't include in planned expenses!

These are all simply rough estimates and I could use any advice you have. Are there unforeseen expenses I'm not including? I'm sure the closer I get to departure, the more expenses will begin to add up. Do you have any experience with a daily travel budget, especially in Mexico?

Choosing a Physician

A lot of people in the US think that it is normal for every person to have a doctor. Well I am far from that norm. I grew up under the care of a great chiropractor named Dr. Lynn. Keyword = Chiropractor! I never had what you would call a "real" doctor and the only time I went to one was when I broke a bone or the first couple concussions. The routine is the same for every concussion and since I have had 9, no need to pay that ridiculous co-pay for them to tell you not to go to sleep.

There were reasons I didn't go to doctors. I think many of the insurance companies and the doctors who abuse them are fraudulent. I don't trust a lot of the doctors answers because it feels like I am chatting to a customer service agent outsourced to India and it is on an auto-response. The same few answers are used for every problem. I never once had a positive "real" doctor experience. My chiropractor did just fine, until he passed away 2 years ago. Ever since then my body has been out of wack and I haven't been to any type of medical center.

Now I am venturing off to Mexico for an extended period of time and realize I should probably get checked out before I go. My goal for today was to set an appointment up, but then I realized how important it is for me to choose the right person. So I dug a little deeper. I came up with a list of 9 doctors who fit my criteria and all have received good reviews from other patients online. Here are my criteria:

• Location: They need to be close to where I work now which limits the choices to North County San Diego Coastal.
• Gender: I feel much more comfortable with a female doctor, they just seem much more caring. Cuts the available doctors in half
• Practice: I just needed someone classified under "Family Practice". I have multiple issues, no need to pick a specialist for each.
• M.D. or D.O.: I didn't know what a DO was until I looked it up and realized I would prefer one. It stands for "doctor of osteopathic medicine" and basically says they take a more holistic approach. I didn't eliminate all MD's, I kept the good one's as options.
• Age: Only one of my choices is over 50. I prefer younger simply because it makes me think they more inclined to practice with newer technologies. Could be completely false, but it makes me happy to think they do.
• Language: This is where I might offend some people. I wanted a doctor whose native language was English. I don't want any confusion when the doctor is delivering bad news.

The next step is to call and see if they are taking new patients, how long the wait is to set up an appointment, and make sure the office staff is friendly because I hate the awkward 30-40 minute waits in the lobby or by yourself in a room. If you have any other advice, let me know because this is my first doctor!

Tasks Completed So Far

In the early stages of my adventure planning, I have several goals. Most of my tasks will fall under two larger categories.

1. Unclutter my life: Thanks to all the great motivation from Unclutter.com, I finally got the guts to gut my life. From furniture to DVDs (not my favorites though), I am starting to live with less.
2. Kill my debt: Through college loans, credit card debt, and personal loans, I racked up a lot of debt the past 4 years. I kept putting off really cutting it down until now. I have been following Man vs. Debt and will use a lot of their advice in the next couple of months.

So here are a few actions I took already towards uncluttering my life and getting rid of debt.

• Temporarily move back in with the parents for 3 months until I depart to Mexico. This not only will save me $500/month in rent, but I am able to store my remaining belongings for free.
• Garage Sale! Although it wasn't my most successful garage sale, I ended up selling several higher priced items which made me feel comfortable donating the rest to Goodwill.
• Craigslist Postings: I posted the physically larger items for sale on Craigslist and before you know it had made a few hundred bucks. Most importantly, I wouldn't have to move big items such as an olympic weight bench.
• eBay postings: I have only listed a few items so far on eBay/half.com but have already pulled in over $200. I still have at least two boxes of stuff to sell that will go in the next stage of my uncluttering plan.

Besides the tasks that fall under the two main goals, I have done several other things that I consider important in my preparation. First, I told everyone close to me about my goals. This is one way that helps me stay true to my word. It is much more difficult to procrastinate or push your goals off to the side when everyone else knows about them.

Another important task was deciding on what gear I would be bringing with me. I haven't actually finalized a list, but since Christmas just passed I needed to create a wishlist for my family so they wouldn't be buying me more items to sell on eBay. Some example items include: therm-a-rest prolite mattress, Petzl Tikka Plus 2 headlamp and durable small flashlight, light my fire spork, pack towel, Futura 28 daypack, North Face Convertible Pants, and a couple other small items. I already owned some other necessary items but I will have a packing list post later. But as of now, I feel like I now own almost all the items I will be needing on the trip. If you have any pre-packing list suggestions please let me know in the comments. Hopefully during my trip I will review each and every item and let you know their true value.

Mexico Travel Map - Where I'm Going

In order to properly plan for the upcoming adventure, I need to know where I am going. Since several plans have already fallen through on meeting people, I will make my own route and hope to see people along the way. Here is the tentative map of where I want to travel. The one spot that looks like I might not make it to is Acapulco but I will try.



View Mexico Trip in a larger map

Since there a lot of blue balloons on that map and it is hard to distinguish, let me tell you exactly what I am planning.

1. Fly out of Tijuana headed to Mexico City (Toluca Airport) via Volaris airlines. My first one way flight ever.
2. After spending several days in Mexico City, I will be needing a little beach in my life. I will head out to Veracruz which will be my first and only gulf trip this year.
3. From Veracruz I will head to Oaxaca then hop on over to Puerto Escondido on the coast. Someone better have some fins for me because I will need to go surfing.
4. Hopefully after Puerto Escondido I can make it up to Acapulco, but only time will tell.
5. From Acapulco, then the road will take me back up to Mexico City for just a couple days before I make my way west.
6. Now if my timing is right, the Monarch butterfly should be in the middle of waking up and flying north for their annual migration. This spot is at Angangueo, Michoacan. I will only need a couple days but I really look forward to it.
7. Next stop will be another where I plan to spend a couple extra days, Guadalajara.
8. From Guadalajara, I will keep going west with one very important pitstop... Tequila, Jalisco. This mystery destination has my name written all over it, they better be ready.
9. After I have a few bottles in tow, I will head to Puerto Vallarta and make some margaritas on the beach. I will check out the timeshare scene but from what I heard, I will need to keep moving.
10. Last but not least, I will end up in Mazatlan to visiti my grandpa. I saw him 5 years ago during spring break and I have always wanted to go back, now I can.

Once in Mazatlan, it will be a tug-of-war between there and Cabo San Lucas as to where I settle and begin making a living. I love both cities but think that I will have a greater chance of making an income in Cabo.

I am a rookie when it comes to travelling through southern Mexico, so if you have any suggestions please throw them my way. I can easily switch out one spot for another or extend my trip a couple extra days to see something you recommend.

2010 A New Journey

A new year has come and although I have been planning some big changes in my life for some time now, they are going to take place in 2010. I have been meaning to write this blog post for several days now and despite all of the thought that I put into it over the days, I still do not know how to approach writing it. One things for sure, I want to keep my ramblings limited so I am going to force myself to use some bullet points.

First, I've had a new years resolution for about 6 months now, it is to move to Mexico and practice Spanish. I have a lot of other goals/plans for 2010, but that is the big one that will turn my life around. You can call it a tipping point, aha moment, "I see the light" type of thing. There are several motivations behind this drastic change from my 9-5 job and the California dream that I have now. Here they are in compact bullet form:

• I despise the 9-5 life
• Sitting behind a desk without much human interaction or intellectual stimulation is definitely not for me. Some people like it, but I don't!
• The career I jumped into after college was a safe choice, not what I really wanted. Time to get out of it.
• I told myself when I was 18 that I would never be stuck working "for" someone else again. It must always be for myself or in an equal partnership. I lost site of that but now I remember why it was so important to me at the time.
• My Spanish is getting worse, not better
• My travel is limited to weekend jaunts to Tijuana or San Francisco which I love both of those places but I can only eat so many Taco Gloria 3x$1 tacos (actually I can eat quite a lot of them and will always return there).
• I'm not really saving anything substantial financially
• My 4Runner continuously is having problems
• I've lost the ability to be efficient with my time and complete goals on time. I am a mess!

There are probably more reasons why I have to get out of whatever this mess is that I am in but this will suffice. Now, here is the short story of my plan. I am going to travel around Mexico for about a month then settle in either Mazatlan or Cabo San Lucas. I have a sales background, some family and work connections, and plan on selling some timeshares to financially support myself. After several months, I plan on doing more travelling but that is undefined at the moment (just rough sketches). Here is why I want to do this (in bullets of course)

• To practice Spanish
• To establish new friendships in other parts of Mexico
• To learn about Mexico in its entirety, not simply Baja
• To test my limits and increase my cultural intelligence
• To establish a framework for a future business I have planned
• To control my life and my future
• To build my travel blog!

Once again, I will probably think of more reasons why I'm turning 180 degrees but you get the picture. I have a date in mind of when this adventure will begin but as for now that is under wraps. It isn't too far away though and I have a lot of preparation to do. So for the next few months this blog will catalog the actions taken to prepare and take a leap of faith into a new life. This is all new to me, so please lend advice if you have it or moral support when I need it. Hopefully I will be able to journal at least one action per day that I am taking towards accomplishing my new goals. As for today, my action item was to tell the world about my ideas so that when I am struggling there will be extra motivation because I am no longer accountable to just myself, but the entire world.