"I Thought You Were Driving!" ~ How a nice suburban family ended up in Playa del Carmen, Mexico~

By Michele Kinnon

Recently, while Rob and I were doing our Spotlight Interview for Playa Maya News, the question came up. A question I have been asked and have answered hundreds of times since we arrived in Playa del Carmen with our children nearly four years ago. "What made you decide to move to Mexico?"

While, from a business standpoint, as real estate developers, the answer is obvious, our personal reasons for moving our family from upstate New York to Playa del Carmen are a bit more involved. Certainly, as many investors successfully do, we could have bought, built and sold our properties remotely, maintaining our home and comfortable lifestyle in the United States. Rather, we saw a tremendous opportunity to make a significant and meaningful change in our lives and the lives of our children.

Interestingly enough, while my husband and I grew up in vastly different households, we ended up with the same love of travel, need for adventure and the tendency to think and live "outside the box". While most marriages are balanced, with one partner being considerably less risk averse than the other, our relationship has no such system of checks and balances. So, in February of 2004, upon our return from our first (and only) family vacation to this area, when I introduced the idea of moving our family to Playa del Carmen, I knew the wheels of change had been set in motion.

Our grand plan to leave dreary upstate New York to live in paradise was not without its skeptics and detractors. "It's nice to dream." I remember my mother- in-law remarking when we broke the news to our extended family. Through the grapevine, I learned that some friends felt that our decision to remove our children from the United States to raise them in a developing nation was akin to child abuse. Surely their lives would be ruined, their futures bleak without all the trappings that we use as a measure of success. As the quintessential victims of hyper-consumerism, Rob and I both knew how much we would have to leave behind, what we would personally sacrifice, if we were to redirect the fate of our children. And so, systematically over the next six months, we began the process of paring down, simplifying our lives by eliminating all but the essentials. We would learn in the years to come that the idea of what constitutes "essential" is both relative and fluid.

We sold the 30 investment properties we had accumulated. We sold our primary residence. We sold one of our two SUVs. We donated 80% of our clothes to our church's thrift shop along with bags of toys and household items, some of which had never been used. We stored precious belongings passed down to me from my parents and grandparents and moved into our summer cottage in Mystic, Connecticut. We pulled Connor out of school and began preparing him for the transition with a rigorous home-school schedule supplemented with intensive Spanish tutoring for several hours every day. Our initial plan included spending our summers and winter holidays in our beloved Mystic home. Our first winter away brought frozen pipes and huge losses causing us to rethink our future plans, sell the house and the other SUV.

The actual physical move to Mexico helped us to streamline even further. Rather than register a "menaje de casa" and attempt to recreate our American lifestyle in our new Mexico home, we used the customary baggage allowance of two checked bags per person as our guideline. Each family member was allowed to bring whatever he or she could fit into two large duffels. Clothes and towels were used to wrap and cushion favorite toys, kitchenware and electronics. The family pets were given one last once over from the vet and one cold morning, December 4, 2004, we embarked on our grand adventure. Please stay tuned for more of the adventure........

Michele Kinnon lives in Playa del Carmen with her husband Rob and their three children. She writes a local interest blog, www.LifesaBeachBlog.com , about living in Playa del Carmen, raising and educating children in Mexico, regional community concerns and issues, and local real estate opportunities. She and her husband are the principal Buyer Brokers for BRIC International, catering to the needs of residential buyers and investors from the United States and Canada. For more information, visit their website www.BuyPlaya.com .

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (3)

...
written by Laura Mapchick, September 29, 2008

This is great! I can't wait for more of your story
Thanks Michele

...
written by Michele in Playa, September 29, 2008

Thanks Laura. I thought it would be nice to here about the more personal and emotional aspects to such a transition. The good , the bad and the ugly.

...
written by The Lande Family, October 07, 2008

Michelle
thank you for your wise words from "the other side". Reading "moving my family to PDC" could not have happen a better time. My family and I are just days away from saying adios to our SF life & Hola to a PDC one. Although our US expierence seems a bit different than your was, the fundamentals, the pricipals are very similar. We too think & live outside the box, & love adventure. I very much look forward to reading more, I enjoy your writing style....

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment