Moving to Cancun

Hi ElORH!

Welcome to Expat.com
I hope other members will be able to advise you soon

Regards
Armand

Thank you for the welcome!!

Cheers!

Hi there.  we moved here from San Diego, Ca and we love it.  By Mexico standards the cost of living is high, but being from California it has been quite a bit cheaper than what we are used to.

   Cancun seems to be divided into 2 parts in terms of cost of living.  The hotel zone where the beaches, resorts and clubs are have some really nice resident housing but it seems to be about the same price as what we left in California.  $1500.00 USD seems to be the average, but I am sure others may know what I do not.

   Downtown or Cancun proper is half that literally.  We chose to live in Downtown because everything is centralized.  We can walk anywhere we need to be in about 15 minutes(schools, church, shopping etc)  Where by living in the hotel zone you would have to drive in and out 15 minutes each way for all the schools, most of the shopping, etc.   We also like downtown, so we are not constantly surrounded by the tourist.  LOL

I am not sure about the job situation here.   I work from home so that is a non issue for me.  In terms of lifestyle.  We find it to be a much slower pace of life than California.  I believe there are about 500k people who live here and it is about the size of San Francisco or Boston.( sorry my only references)  Definitely  has a small town feel.  I think Cancun is to DF what Florida in the USA is to New York.  It is Definitely  not a metropolitan area.  Very laxed but has most of the shopping and dining that a city has, but lacking in the night life, museum, art and culture.  We are a vacation destination but we love it.

All the best,

Craig

Hello Craig!!!

Thank you for the info!!! I can have a better idea of what life could be like around there!! The housing seems quite good then!! As Europe is, as California, way more expensive!! It sounds awesome!! Do you have kids?? are there good schools there?? International at all??
Well, Cancun here we come!

Cheers!!
Elo

Yes we have 3 kids: 18,13 and 12.   My 18 yr old just graduated from prepatoria and is headed off to University next week back in the states.  My other two are in Seciondaria.  There are a lot of great schools here.  My only point of reference is California.  We find the schools to be a year ahead academically of our old private schools in California.

   The two most popular ones seem to be La Salle which goes from k-12 between two different campuses.   We liked this particular school. It seems to be known internationally and my 18 yr old said it is based on a European system vs. Mexican.  They are bilingual so they teach classes in English and Spanish.  Their English program, like a lot of the schools here is about 2 years behind of the schools in the US, but everything else is fantastic.

  The other school is the American school, which is pretty popular with expat families.  We checked it out.  the English is better there, but everything was not up to the same level as La Salle.  We kind of figured that we didnt move here because of the English education anyway so we went with La Salle.

   La Salle I think is around 375-400 USD for most grade levels per month.    That seems to be the average for most schools.    There are some international students at La Salle but defiantly seem to be more international kids at the American school.  I think socially the American school would have been a better fit for our kids, but academically we felt more comfortable with La Salle.

   Hope this helps!

Craig

Hey ELORH,

I'm not an expat but I've lived in the States and housing is a lot cheaper here. The city is growing rapidly and according to the 2010 census there are about 1.2 million people living here.DF and the metropolitan area has around 26 million.

Cancun has a cosmopolitan population. You'll find people here from all over the world who decided to make Cancun their home.  Most Mexicans living here are from other states like Tabasco, Mexico, Hidalgo, Chiapas etc.

There are many international schools such as American School, Colegio Britanico, Lowry School, Leonardo DaVinci School, Colegio Alexandre among others. There are many pretigious universities as well.

Why go on vacation to paradise when you can live in it, right?

Saludos desde Cancun!!

Totally agree Manny!!!

[Moderated: Violation of forum code of conduct]