The Pros and Cons of living in San Miguel de Allende

The Pros and Cons of living in San Miguel de Allende.

A good friend has lived in San Miguel de Allende for 10 years now. But Cindy’s gotten restless and a bit unhappy in SMA and has talked of moving somewhere else in Mexico.

So when I recently came to visit the first thing we did was the ¨logical¨ thing: doing a list of the Pros and Cons of living in San Miguel de Allende.

The thing about Pros and Cons is that they’re often personal. If I say ¨San Miguel de Allende has a lot of expats¨ that can be a positive or a negative depending on where you stand.

Having said that, here are the pros and cons of San Miguel from someone who’s lived there for 10 years.

The Pros of living in San Miguel de Allende

1. It’s a pretty, clean, and ¨sanitized¨ town

There’s no doubt it’s one of the prettiest towns in Mexico between the colonial architecture, cobblestoned streets, colourful buildings and the views you see from many of city’s vantage points. It’s a very pretty place.

San Miguel is clean. Very little garbage on the streets (in the center at least. Not everywhere), very little graffiti, not so much dog poop. ¨Clean¨ is of course relative…but compared to most Mexican towns San Miguel is very clean.

I say ¨sanitized¨. I’ve always said it; San Miguel is ¨Mexico-lite¨ featuring many of the best aspects of living in Mexico without some of the less-desirable aspects of Mexico. Just last week Cindy visited Guadalajara to see a friend. The city has some interesting sites and some incredibly rich neighbourhoods (like Zapopan). But it also features some of those negative aspects of Mexico: ugly streets in depressing neighborhoods littered with stray dogs, garbage strewn everywhere, the homeless sleeping on the ground. She’s the first to admit that you don’t see that in San Miguel. It’s a ¨sanitized¨ version of Mexico.

2. A very manageable town

Cindi will always say that San Miguel is ¨manageable¨, meaning she can get somewhere across town in little time and without too much bother: just a quick taxi ride takes her to her dentist, doctor, bank or to the supermarket or to Liverpool.

Even within the historic center everything is close. She can go to the market for some fresh vegetables, stop at the butcher, go to the library or to Bellas Artes. In the days when she could get around walking (more on that later) she could do everything she needed to get done on foot. So it’s a manageable town.

3. Resources for Expats

When she first came to Mexico, Cindi used a ¨facilitator¨ to help her apply for residency. ¨Facilitators¨ help you with many aspects of Mexican paperwork and can help you set up bank accounts, help you with medical stuff, assist you in getting a driver’s license etc…Since there are so many expats in San Miguel there are also a lot of facilitators. They make it very easy to get your feet on the ground in Mexico.

Which brings me to the next point…

4. Language

Honestly, you can get by without speaking Spanish in San Miguel de Allende. Cindi does, but she has a lot of expat friends who don’t. Go to a bank, restaurant, supermarket etc and you’ll always have staff who speak English – just because this is San Miguel de Allende and because a significant percentage of their customers are foreigners.

That, and the facilitators I mention above, mean that San Miguel is really quite an easy place to get by in English. For a foreigner who’s just moved from the US or Canada, that´s really something that makes life easier.

5. Having a ¨community¨

If you want to be in a place where you can meet other foreigners, it doesn’t get any easier than San Miguel. Between expat Facebook groups, neighbourhood cafes, the (fantastic) library, and art and yoga classes targeted at expats, it’s very easy to meet other foreigners. On Cindi’s street more than half of the homes are occupied by foreigners. If she’s in need for conversation, all she has to do is go down the street to her coffee shop and there’s invariably going to be a foreigner neighbour that she can have a chat with if she wishes.

6. Nice restaurants, bars, cafés, supermarkets

A lot of very nice options for food and drink in San Miguel. Expats here (and the Mexicans who come here, because SMA is also popular with local tourists) have a bit more money to throw around and the restaurant scene has thrived as a result. You don’t go lacking in San Miguel, you can find anything from local food at the market to vegan options at specialty markets (like Mercado Sano) to a really high-end restaurant scene at par with anywhere in the world.

All the above make San Miguel a very, very comfortable place to live for a lot of foreigners. In a way, San Miguel is the best of both worlds: Mexican but with all the comforts of wherever you come from.

The Cons of living in San Miguel de Allende

1. The Sidewalks

The sidewalks in San Miguel top the list of negatives for Cindy. Over the years they’ve ruined her back to the point where she’s got spinal problems.

Every expat will complain about the sidewalks in San Miguel. The sidewalks are high, uneven and narrow. They may have bolts or handles protruding on certain sidewalk panels, trees in the middle of a narrow sidewalk, wires bolted into others leading to electrical poles. Because sidewalks are narrow, no two people can walk comfortably side by side. You have to do the ¨walk dance¨, getting off the sidewalk for others, getting back on to avoid a bus…You don’t get anywhere fast on foot in San Miguel.

You have to be vigilant walking on the sidewalks, you have to look where you’re stepping. I’ve seen so many accidents over the years, people stubbing their feet on some obstruction, falling into a car or a wall.

The thing is that the above describes almost every street and every sidewalk in San Miguel. And if you’re an older person who gets by on foot, the sidewalks are actually dangerous to your health.

With Cindy getting older and her health declining, the sidewalks have been the number 1 reason to want to get out of San Miguel. The only way around them is to not walk. But then you just become a prisoner of your own home.

2. Cost

San Miguel has gotten very expensive over the years. Cindy rented her pretty (but simple) townhouse 10 years ago when prices were reasonable. And, luckily for her, her landlord hasn’t been bothered to change the rent.

That may change soon and Cindy is concerned that she’ll have to pay market value to stay in SMA, and that that might be about $1,200 US for something comparable to what she has now. Rent is maybe not at the top of her list as far as Cons but just one factor that she’s weighing with everything else.

As far as costs: It’s not just the rent. Everything is more expensive in San Miguel. Taxis, food, medical services…everything is more expensive.

3. Medical Facilities

There are 2 issues around medical facilities in San Miguel.

The first one is cost which I’ve referred to above. For example: Cindy has a nutritionist that she pays 1600 pesos/consultation, a GP that costs 1300 pesos/consultation, a physical therapist (for her back) that costs 1000 pesos/consult. In many cases these specialists are foreigners who come to San Miguel to practice and who’s clients are expats. While the above prices may seem reasonable or cheap by US standards, they’re expensive for Mexican standards.

The 2nd issue is availability. San Miguel is lacking in certain specialities. For example, Cindi recently had to go to Celaya to get an MRI. Her friend Susan needed a pacemaker and also to go to Celaya to get surgery done. Specialists often do come to San Miguel once or twice a week for consultations – but for follow up work and surgeries patients have to go to hospitals where the specialists work (usually Celaya, Queretaro or León).

With Cindi getting older, the cost and lack of specialist medical facilities in San Miguel have become more of an issue.

Note: many Americans are covered by their health insurance back home and will fly back for more serious procedures. As they get older, many living in San Miguel leave permanently as health care becomes more of an issue.

4. Expats and Language

I’ve mentioned the abundance of expats and the language factor above. The two can be a positive depending on where you stand. But they can also be a negative.

Living in a place filled with foreigners can get uninspiring after a while. As much as one may feel comfort in being with other foreigners, isn’t that one of the reasons we leave our home country?

As far as language goes, a place where you get by in English is helpful. But again, is this the ¨real¨ Mexico? While Cindi has travelled all over Mexico, she often feels that she’s ¨cheating¨ herself living in SMA. It’s too easy and she often feels she should challenge herself to living somewhere more representative of Mexico.

5. Miscellaneous other

There are a few other things that might be considered a ¨Con¨ in San Miguel de Allende. There’s no sports center. Cindy went to a local community center for swimming but the facilities weren’t great. She would love to be in a place with a functioning year-long sports complex. The nearest airport (León) is more than 2 hours away.

Again, where you stand on San Miguel de Allende depends on what you value most. If you value living in a beautiful town where life is easy for a foreigner, then San Miguel is great. It has all the comforts of home with the best qualities of Mexico.

On the other hand, if you’ve been in San Miguel for 10 years you may start to dwell on its shortcomings. You might focus more on practical aspects of life such as sidewalks and health care. And you might get bored with SMA (really, it’s not a big place) and want to look at alternatives.

Doing this Pros and Cons list for Cindi crystallized that she’s ready to move on from San Miguel de Allende. She’s looking to move on to somewhere else in Mexico. I’ll be writing more on that subject over the next little while…

The Pros of living in San Miguel de Allende