— Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This city. There's a lot of travelers and visitors that also love it and vote for us as being the number one city. But to give your viewers a little feel for it, we're at sixty four hundred feet in altitude. Again, I'm not even near the beach, so you know, I'm at sixty, four hundred feet. I'm even a thousand feet higher than Denver.

unknown 0:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

So we're high and dry, no humidity, spring, spring-like, you know, climate the whole year round. Uh it never snows. You know, if it's if it's if it gets if we can't get down into the 30s and 40s, you know, in the wintertime, but it'll be 40 degrees warmer in the daytime. So we've got a 40 degree diurnal swing in the wintertime.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

And we still have a 25 degree diurnal swing in the summertime, just because we're so high. So even if it's 85 during the day in the summer, we'll be 60 degrees at night. So super comfortable for sleeping. You know, it's a fantastic, uh, fantastic location. That's why I've been here 17, 17 years. I tell my clients, I'm a rotor,

— Meet Greg & San Miguel de Allende

SPEAKER_00 0:53

by the way, so I'm a real estate broker that owns a Berkshire Hathaway Home Services real estate franchise. They opened the very first office in all of Mexico for that brand. And I tell my clients, you know, they're gonna carry me out in an urn. I don't ever plan to leave. I love this place so much. They're gonna carry me out in an urn.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Welcome to the truly expat travel podcast. I'm your host, Paula, and this is season two. On season one, I talk to expats about their favorite holiday destination. On season two, I'll be doing things very differently. I'll be chatting to expats about where they currently live, why they chose that destination, all those secret hidden gems that only locals know, you know, like favorite restaurants, best neighborhoods, things that do is that don't. Welcome back to the truly expat travel podcast. I'm your host, Paula, and today I've got a really interesting guest, someone who has been in this particular country for a little while, and I'm so excited to hear about it. So, welcome, Greg. Let's hear all about your destination, who you are, and how you got there.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Paula, good to uh good to finally meet you on camera and join your viewers. Hi, viewers. I've been here a little bit longer than a little while. I've been here 17 years, and that location where I am located is Mexico. So a little south of the border, I'm in central Mexico. For those listeners that might be American, I'm sort of like in the Denver of Mexico. So I'm in the very heart of the country. You know, some of my clients that don't know where I'm located will say, Well, do you go to the beach every day? I'm like, no, I'm five hours away from the closest beach. So ha ha it's uh it's a gorgeous. We were just talking before we got on camera that we got named the number one small city in the world again for the seventh year from Kanye Nash Traveler magazine. So seven different years, the readers of Kanye Nash Traveler have named us the number one city in the world. That's just amazing, you know. So it's not only me that loves this city, there's a lot of travelers and visitors that also love it and vote for us as being the number one city. But to give your viewers a little feel for it, we're at 6,400 feet in altitude. Again, I'm not even near the beach, so you know, I'm at 6,400 feet. I'm even a thousand feet higher than

— Why Greg moved to Mexico

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Denver. So we're high and dry, no humidity, spring, spring-like, you know, climate the whole year round, uh, it never snows. You know, if it's if it's if it gets if we can dip down into the 30s and 40s, you know, in the wintertime, but it'll be 40 degrees warmer in the daytime. So we've got a 40 degree diurnal swing in the wintertime. Well, and we still have a 25 degree diurnal swing in the summertime, just because we're so high. So even if it's 85 during the day in the summer, we'll be 60 degrees at night. So super comfortable for sleeping. You know, it's a fantastic, fantastic location. That's why I've been here 17 years. I tell my clients, I'm a realtor, by the way, so I'm a real estate broker that owns a Berkshire Hathaway Home Services real estate franchise. I opened the very first office in all of Mexico for that brand. And I tell my clients, you know, they're gonna carry me out in an urn. I don't ever plan to leave. I love this place so much, so they're gonna carry me out in an urn.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

So what brought you there in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Well, I had wanted to semi-retire. So, you know, Truly Expat being your audience, probably a lot of people are kind of thinking of that a transition maybe a little earlier in life. And I I personally had wanted to I thought I was gonna semi-retire at the age of 50. That was my goal. And I thought I would sort of still be running my old company, so I needed to be close. I needed to be close to the U.S., preferably in a similar time zone, you know, that sort of thing. So Mexico made sense for me. I still had most of my family were still alive back then, not anymore, but most of them were still alive back then. And again, I thought I'd be running my old company. So being in central Mexico, I'm still in the either central or mountain time zone. I'm a two-hour flight from the United States, easier to get back. So Mexico kind of made sense for me. And, you know, cost of living, I'm kind of gonna segue off a little bit, but the four C's that of course attracted me to, well, specifically to San Miguel, more than Mexico in general, or, you know, cost of living, culture, climate, and community. And we'll kind of get into those a little bit later. But, you know, so when I was looking in Mexico and deciding where in Mexico, I couldn't I can't do the humidity. I just, you know, I have never been to Australia. I don't know what the humidity is like there, but you guys have lots of ocean. I just got sure it's got a little bit humid there too, right? Is it a little humid?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

North it is, not where we are.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Oh, good. Well, that's great to hear. Well, I grew up in humidity as a kid and I said I'm never living in that humidity ever again. So I rolled out all the coastal areas. So for those Americans listening to come down to Mexico, you know, they probably go to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta and Cancun, and you know, I knew I couldn't live in those places because I wanted to live here year-round. And those places you have to live under an air conditioner seven months of a year. So it's just too hot to live there all the time. So there's really only two expat destinations in inland, Mexico that are popular. One of them is San Miguel, and I came here first, but I'd already heard about this other town called Ahihik in the Lake Chapala area down near

— What makes San Miguel a destination

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Guadalajara. So I had already been here and I'm very analytical. You know, I'm like, oh, I gotta go check out. I love San Miguel, I think that's where I want to live, but I gotta go check out this other place. I flew down, checked it out, and I knew 20 minutes after getting into the town I would never live there. So it's a no-brainer decision for me. San Miguel is the one that won, and it was, you know, I'm an architect by training, and we have 500 years of preserved history here, preserved architecture. So it's just this stunningly beautiful environment. When you first arrive, I mean, I knew in the first 24 hours that I wanted to live here full time, but beyond that, it also has a great lifestyle. And I'm sure we're gonna get into that. I'm kind of jumping the gun here because I'll wait to ask me. We'll talk more about the lifestyle here in a little bit later.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And so what makes it a destination that people should travel to? Like what's what's exciting there besides the things we've already said?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah, I was gonna say I mentioned a lot of that already. I mean, a lot of people love, you know, so we don't attract a beach culture, you know, the beach the beach goers. So people that are looking for a beach on the week and want to improve their 10 and do go snorkeling and and you know, sailing and stuff like that, they don't come here. This is not their environment. These are for we we attract an older demographic. You know, I I'm at I'm a real estate agent, like I said, and my average demographic is probably about 72. I'm I'm the young one here. I'm only 67, right? And I was I was 50 when I moved here. I thought I was gonna be the youngest guy here by a quarter of a century when I first moved here, but we have begun to skew a little younger in our demographic, so that's a good thing. But you know what, what drives people here is that culture and that that history. We are kind of like the Philadelphia or the Boston of the United States from the historical perspective, because this is where the revolution began. So there's a ton of history here, there's the architecture, there's just a ton of uh interesting, you know, art, history, culture, all of that is really what

— Where to eat & Centro neighbourhood

SPEAKER_00 7:41

draws people here when they're looking for a more interactive and educational experience. You know, dining, we're the we're the restaurant and dining capital of uh Mexico, we're the equestrian capital of Mexico. We are the second largest wine district in all of Mexico, so we're kind of like the Sonoma of you know Mexico. So I mean there's the list could go on. I know we only have an hour or so for our, you know, so I could play Chamber of Commerce here and go on and on about it. I mean, there's you know, people coming to go, oh, you know, is four days enough? I'm like, no, you need to come for at least a week, if not two weeks. So there's tons to do here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

So you touched on the food. So do you have uh a neighborhood that people should venture into? Is there a restaurant that you can recommend?

unknown 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Here's some good insight. Yeah, here's some good insight into our little town. We are only about 175,000 people, so we're a small, uh, a small town. We're like a European village in that we're very dense and compact. So where I live, I'm a 12-minute walk to our town square. And our town square here is called the Hardine. That like Jardin, you know, in French, it's called the Hardine. That's our town, what the Americans would think of as a town square. I'm a 12-minute walk from that town square. So it's a very walkable community, and that that town square is located in what's called Centro, and that kind of makes sense even if your Spanish is bad. You can tell that's the central part of town. Yeah. So Centro, it's always the most popular part of town because that's where 90% of those 650 restaurants are located. And, you know, the museums, the many, the art galleries, you know, those types of things. So Centro, honestly, I mean, you could spend the whole week in Centro and and not venture out much further than that. I mean, they're building a Waldorf Astoria in an adjacent neighborhood of Guadiana. Yeah, we're getting a Waldorf Astoria, believe it or not. We already have a Rosewood, we already have, you know, several other high-ends, we're getting a Four Seasons, we're getting an Alberge, you know, the uh there's about five of the luxury chains that are coming here. So I kind of joke with my clients, we're kind of going through the aspenization process. You know, we're becoming so popular that all the big chains go, oh, we got to be in San Miguel. And us locals love that because there's nobody here Monday. Well, it's I joke, it's not that there's nobody here Monday through Thursday, but you know, it's a much quieter environment, Monday through Thursday. So I can walk into the Four Seasons or the Waldorf Astoria and have a great dinner and they'll go, Oh, you're a local, let's give you

— The dish you must try: Chiles en Nogada

SPEAKER_00 10:06

a 20% discount. You know, and there's nobody there, I don't need a channel. So, you know, we love that. Uh, you know, some people are a little hesitant about that kind of gentrification, but most of us locals love it because it makes a a better lifestyle for us, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

So you were asking about that neighborhood and that centro. That's my short answer. Was Centro is the is where all that is located.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah. Is there a uh particular dish that you should try there? Like is there is it known for a particular kind of food?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Besides, so here's here's another you you'll you'll find, Paul, I guess when you a when you ask me questions that I segue a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

So that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Here's a short little segue. Mexican cuisine was named by UNESCO as the as only the second UNESCO designated cuisine in the world. French cuisine, of course, was the first designation as a UNESCO cuisine. Mexican cuisine is number two because of the history, the Aztec and Mayan history with the spices and the great foods and stuff we have here. I could rattle off a list of a hundred dishes that you need to try. Everybody could think, oh, tacos and burritos. Well, you know, burritos are not even a Mexican tradition. Mexicans don't eat burritos. So tacos, we do eat tacos down here, but you know. So there's a ton of really great dishes to try down here, but one of the ones that's really famous, especially if you come between September 15th, or like the month of September, which is when Mexico's Independence Day is. So for those American listeners, it's like July 4th. Our July 4th in Mexico is on September 15th. So from September 15th through the end of the year, Christmas time, Mexicans will make a dish called Chiles in Nogada. And that's a stuffed green chile, not a spicy one, just a green chile, like a like a bell pepper, but it's a chile. And it's stuffed with a concoction that can vary from restaurant to restaurant, but it's usually like ground beef and raisins and nuts. It's covered in a white sauce, and then it's got pomegranate seeds sprinkled on it. So you can kind of figure out the colors there, right? Red, white, and green. Yeah. Flag colors. So they make that in September for the Independence Day, and of course it's happens to coincide with Christmas colors too. So you can find it a lot at Christmas time here too. So that's a really good dish to try. It's very, very unique. You won't find that in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Okay. Yeah, it definitely won't. You won't find uh anywhere in the world. That seems like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

I suspect you won't find it at Sydney either, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Is there a restaurant that you recommend? Like is there a a little bit of a that's not kind of on every in every magazine kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Oh gosh. You know, there's there's a again, 650 restaurants. When I send my clients a list of my favorites, there's usually at least 30 of them that are on my favorites. But now I have to admit most of them are, you know, on most of the restaurant lists here. We have an Anthony Bourdain of a chef here. He's covered in tats, he's a good buddy of mine, and he's had the number one restaurant here for 18 years, and it's called The Restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

So that's the Mecca for you know foodies. When they come here, they got to go to the restaurant, you know, at least once. We have a phenomenal rooftop terror. So here's another little, I'm gonna segue a little bit more. I moved here 17 years ago. We only had one rooftop restaurant in the entire city. We now have about 35 of them, 35 or 40 rooftop restaurants. Amazing. Yeah, you can see the whole city, you can see our big fancy parochial church, and we have 28 cathedrals in this town, and you can see 26 of them from any given, you know, rooftop terrace. So the number one rooftop Rob report voted the number one rooftop restaurant in the entire world, and it's called Quince here in San Miguel, right in Centro. So both of those are on, you know, popular tourist destinations to go see. But you know, one of my favorite places to tell people, not only from a food uh perspective, but from a day trip. You know, if you're here long enough to kind of take a day trip and you want to catch your breath and sort of chill out for a day, and you know, is is a wonderful kind of a small resort. It's a little boutique resort out in the uh outside of town, about 10 minutes outside of town called Nirvana. You can say, Yes, I went to Nirvana. They have an amazing restaurant. You can get a day pass from them for the equivalent of about 120 bucks, and it's it's a it's a like a three-course lunch, it's a massage, it's a day by the pool, and they have a natural hot springs. We have a lot of natural hot springs in this area where the water comes out of the ground at you know 104, like a like a hot tub temperature. So Nirvana is not going to be on a lot of tour books. So that's a good one,

— Best time to visit

SPEAKER_00 14:31

listeners to add your or viewers to add to your list is you know, do a day trip to Nirvana or even just go for lunch. It's a fantastic place for uh a lunch out in the countryside. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Is there a particular season that's uh the best in your view is the best time to to come?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

No, not really. You know, we're we're spring like temperature here all all year long. So I'll I'll look at it just the opposite. Probably one of the worst months to come is May. Because May is our hottest month here.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Now, I think that's kind of funny when the you know the locals go, Oh my gosh, it's so hot. It might hit 90 degrees for five days of the month of May, but we it'll be 13% humidity. So as long as you're sitting in a shade, you don't even notice it. You know, you're like, feels comfy. That's so May is the only month that's a little bit toasty to come or can be a little bit toasty to come, but the other eleven months of the year are super popular. Obviously, you know, October through, you know, well, October through April is kind of the most popular months because the weather's perfect. December and January, it'll get a little cool, you know, at night. So you need to layer because you know, by by noon on that on that December day that it was freezing last night or 38 degrees, it's gonna be 78 degrees. So, you know, you gotta take a layer and take that sweater

— Tipping culture & cash vs cards

SPEAKER_00 15:44

off about noontime. But yeah, it's a great, great year around uh climate to come anytime.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Do you is it a tipping culture? Like I know that I just came back from the US and it US scares me because I just never know how much to tip and who to tip. But is it a tipping culture in Mexico?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I know, and well, I just got back from Italy, and you know, they don't tip in Italy. I mean, if anything, they'll round up a couple of euros, you know, just to kind of you know, because the waiters get paid a a a viable working wage there. It is a tipping culture here. They do tip. Mexicans traditionally tip 10%. So uh we are being very generous and we tip 15% down here. So, you know, it's not nothing like the United States where you go on the little thing on the credit card says 18, 20, 15. Nobody tips that down here. So it's only 15%.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

That always scares me. Every country I go to, and it's also like I lived in Japan and it's it's actually insulting to tip. So I'm always uh that's one of the first things I need to know, you know, do it does it tip, what's the currency? You know, can you that's another one. Can you use credit cards or is it uh a place where your cash is king?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

It's always good to have a a good chunk of cash on you, you know, 50 bucks or something like that, because some of the little small places may not, I mean really small places may not take a credit card. When I first moved here, that was much more prevalent. Now in 2026, most all of the even the little hole in the wall places will take at least a basic credit card. The only thing you might find a challenge with is some of them don't take American Express.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

But, you know, uh it's always good to have some cash because, you know, some of the little food vendors, like, you know, you can get churros on the from the guy that's selling churros in a stand on the Hardine on the town square or ice cream or obviously they don't take, you know, they don't have a Venmo or a you know, whatever. I mean, you know, you got it you gotta pay them in cash. So it's always good to have cash because cash really kind of is king here. But you know, if it's got a if it's got a a place for you to sit down at a table, they generally take a credit card.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

That's good to know. You know, I think after COVID, a lot of countries are going down that path, right? Because I just uh went to Hong Kong. Well, I've just moved back to Hong Kong back then when I lived there eleven years ago, because you there's not that many places that had especially the little like you said, the little people on the side of the road, they didn't ever have cash, you know what I mean? I mean they didn't ever have cards. Now everything is cardless, like everything, you know?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

So not here.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

It's it's okay. Okay, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

That's wise, that's wise to know because in the in the United States you can walk around all day long without a dime in your pocket and you're you're buying a sticky gum at 7 Eleven, you're using a card, right? Not that way here. So always have, you know, 50 bucks or so. And try to have small change. It's always good to have small change here because you go to the little vendors, you know, if you want to try the taco guy or something like that and give him a 500 peso, which is like 27 bucks, he's gonna go, sorry, I don't have change.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

He'll just he'll forego the sale rather than try to go find change somewhere. He'll just go, sorry, I don't have change, you know, and you got well, okay, I gotta go somewhere else, or you know, so it's always good to have smaller change. Go to a go to a convenience store or a McDonald's, or we only have one McDonald's, so that's not a good example. But go to a go to something like that and you know, buy a stick of gum and get all that small change back, and then you'll have it handy in your pocket.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So when you first moved there, what was the one thing that surprised you about the place?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

You read about the pace of life here before you come. So it's not necessarily a surprise. It's just a you know, the reality is different from what you fantasize, right? So there's a I gotta give this guy, he's a he's a he's a good author. An author named Tony Cohen moved here in the eighties, way, way, way before me. I didn't move here until 2009. He moved here in the 80s from LA. So quite the transition coming from fast-paced LA, even in the 80s, to moving to San Miguel. And he wrote a book called On Mexican Time. So he he's writing about the transition from a fast-paced culture to moving to San Miguel, where you know it's it everything moves at a much slower pace, everybody talks slower, they transact things slower. You know, you're in the restaurant, you've got to ask for the check, it won't come. The waiter doesn't break the bell when he brings the entree. You know, he waits and you could sit there for four hours over your dessert, and he's not gonna bring that so it's it's a whole different culture. Well, most of that sounds really romantic, right? Oh, I love the concept. In fact, I wrote for International Living about the concept of living with, you know, three-hour lunches and museum trips in the afternoon, and you know, and then I started working, so that kind of went down the drain. But it sounds like, especially if you're retired, a real fantasy kind of lifestyle. But the frustration, if you're like me, I still work for a living. So it can be a little frustrating that you know you gotta get stuff chop, chop, chop because you're trying to make a living, and you know, the guy that's waiting on you or serving you is kind of like, oh, no trouble, no worries, you know, taking easy, slow down. So the reality of what sounds like a fantasy, uh, you know, when you're reading about it, could be a little bit of a challenge. And you know, that was part of my challenge, I guess, when I first got here was learning to assimilate. I I'll tear a fun little story with your with your viewers. We have what we call the random Aztec parade factor, right? So I'm driving down the street, you know, on the way to pick up my clients, or I have my clients with me, and I turn the corner, and a little indigenous Indian tribe has gotten a 10-minute permit to shut the street down and have a little dance. And they're doing their little street. And it's like a one-way street. There's no in, there's no out. You just gotta shut the car down and sit there and watch the little parade for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

You know what? I totally understand you. It's I just I spent last year a whole month in Italy and it was very slow. And at first it's so it is, it's so romantic, it's so lovely because your your life is so busy and then um I was there for a particular reason and I couldn't get stuff done because it was so slow, you know. Like yeah, I wanted to you know, I living there is one thing compared to visiting there. You know, visiting there is beautiful and but when you're living there and life has to be a little bit busier than you know, it doesn't have to come when you deliver when you want deliveries to come on Monday and they don't show up and it's okay, they'll come. When? I don't know. Yeah, well okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Down down here at Mexico, they'll tell you that they'll be here manyana. And as you will learn once you've lived here, manana does not mean tomorrow. I mean, you know, manana literally translates the word is means tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

But it doesn't need tomorrow. When a Mexican tells you, oh, I'll come back tomorrow to fix the sink. I'll be here minata. No, it just means not today. It could be two days, it could be two weeks. You just don't, you don't often know. And for a retiree that's there anyway, no big deal. But for somebody like me that's working, I'm like, wait a minute, I've got an appointment. I have So, you know, yeah, it can be a challenge if you're still working.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

And so so if I was to arrive there, what's the best way to get there? You know, we have two airport.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Yeah, we have two airports that are equidistant from the city. One's called Carreto, Q R O is the airport called, and the other one's called Leon, and it's BJX for the airport code. And they're both 75 minutes away. So, you know, none of our airports are that close, but if you fly into Cancun, it takes you two hours to get to your

— How to get to San Miguel

SPEAKER_00 22:44

hotel also. So it's, you know, it's better than Cancun, for instance.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

And then for some people, if you're coming from Europe or South America, some people might want to fly directly into Mexico City, and then you can take a shuttle or a luxury bus to come up from Mexico City, and it's a three and a half to four hour uh ride to come up from Mexico City.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Okay. So with the the airports that are close up, do you can you catch public transport or do you have to get a transfer or taxis? How does it work?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Most you could get an Uber, but you know, they're not so so because I guess of the way the Mexican transportation system works, they don't queue up. In other words, you couldn't call an Uber and expect them to be there in three minutes.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So typically I always tell my clients, book a shuttle in advance. We have kind of a local super shuttle kind of company, but it's not like they have a presence in the airport. You have to book them in advance. And then they'll be waiting for you there at the airport with your your name on a sign, you know, so you just look for your name and you can be brain dead and arriving at midnight and just follow them out to the van and fall asleep. You know, that's what most people will do is get a shuttle. 30 bucks a person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

And you because you said it was a walkable city, does that mean that you don't have to hire a car, or should you hire a car?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

No, I always I always suggest to my clients, do not rent a car because you'll never use it. It'll cost you more to park it than it does to, you know, to to rent a car. You literally can go everywhere that you want. Well, you can go to 90% of what you want to do on foot. And then we have about 200 taxicabs in this little tiny town. It's like it's like Manhattan from that standpoint. And then we have Uber and and Lyft are are both here. So, you know, Uber, now that they've been here for, I don't know, a dozen years, are very reliable. They'll be, you know, I used to, when Uber first came here, I'd wait 20 minutes for an Uber. Now they'll be there in three minutes. So very easy to get around without a car. I would not, I would recommend against renting a car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

That's good to know. Because sometimes people say you have to have a car just because you can't rely on public transport. It's not a walkable city, that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

So for someone visiting for the first time, where would you take them if if they were your friend and you were like, okay, you're coming to visit, where would you take them?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

One of the things that I mean, again, it you know, if this is someone that wants to learn about the architecture, the culture, the history, you know, that

— Getting around (no car needed)

SPEAKER_00 24:59

sort of thing, one of the things that I think is always great to do and is not always on, I think one of your questions said, What's one of the things that don't hit the that doesn't make the tour books? You know, doing a walking tour, and there are agencies here that do walking tours, but one of my favorites is a fundraiser for a nonprofit called Patronato Pro Niños. They provide health care for Mexican kids, free healthcare for all Mexican kids. And they host a walking tour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And it focuses just on Centro, so it's a smaller location. It's you know easy to walk around and see that, but you learn a little about history, architecture, architectural styles, and you know, techniques and things like that, culture. Uh it's just a phenomenal thing to do. You don't really have to book it, you just show up. It's every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday kind of thing. So that's a really great introduction to the city and the history of Mexico, the history of our town in particular.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And, you know, an architect myself, I love to have people learn more about the architecture and you know, we're we're like Spain, you know. I mean, we've got that, you know, that gorgeous architectural history here, so it's really fun to take one of those kind of tours.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Nice. Is there anything else you'd like you'd say if it was uh say it was for three days? What other things do would you take them or places would you take them?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Well, you kind of heard me mention that you know we have a lot of hot springs here. Part of our UNESCO, by the way, I don't think I've mentioned yet, and we're half an hour or so into the into the uh the conversation. We are a UNESCO World Heritage Zone. So I, you know, most of the UNESCO zones in Mexico are piles of rubble out in the middle of the jungle. You know, they're they're old pyramids.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

I actually live, work, and play in a UNESCO World Heritage

— Things to do: 3-day itinerary

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Zone. Isn't that amazing?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Like in in Paris, the only UNESCO zone in all of Paris are the banks of the Sin River.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

So I mean she didn't know that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah, isn't that amazing? I mean, you know, we our our central part of our town, not the entire city, but you know, the central part of our town, my office. I have a franchise office that has a little tiny sign because that's all UNESCO will let me do. I can't have a big neon sign like you know all my all my other uh agencies and are across the world do. So so what I was getting back

— UNESCO status & the Sistine Chapel of Mexico

SPEAKER_00 27:03

to the UNESCO designation. So part of our UNESCO designation was a little city north of well, it's not even a city, a white spot on the road that has the Sistine Chapel of Mexico, and it's called a Totonilco.

unknown 27:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Now you can tour the whole thing in 20 minutes. So that's the kind of thing to go and see. When UNESCO included them in the designation, they were able to refurbish all of the uh the murals in the entire church. So when I first moved here, you couldn't even see them, and now you know they're gorgeous. It really is like a Sistine Chapel kind of thing. But that's a small, quick thing to do, so you tie that in with, for instance, going to the hot springs or go to the vineyards. So we have 20 or 30 vineyards around town also. So you can go take a vineyard tour, do a uh a food-paired wine tasting, you know, that's an incredible way to spend a half a day. That's that's a really a lot of fun to do those kind of things too. Hot air balloons, ATV tours. We even have our own little pyramid here that was uncovered about, I don't know, 12 years ago. So if you want to go see a baby pyramid, you can you can see a baby pyramid. You know, if you've already been Sanitza and and Teotihuacan and places like that, yeah, it's you'll get you go, ah, yeah, and it's you know, but you know, if you've never seen a pyramid, it's kind of cool. It's you know, it's it's a little ways outside of town, and you can see one of our baby pyramids. So there is a plethora of things to do. I mean, honestly, you you you you would you know, like the retired guy says, when I woke up this morning I had n nothing to do, and when I went to bed I was only half finished. Yeah. It's that way living in San Miguel, you know, you people come and go, Oh, there's nothing to do here, and when you leave a week later, you go, Well, I only got halfway through the list, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

So there's plenty to keep you occupied. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

And I I I didn't I was gonna ask you before, but I forgot. Uh festivals. Do you have you have festivals there besides Independence Day? Yeah. Is when when is the best time to come for festivals and what festivals should we be looking for?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

So here's a little interesting statistic, and there's kind of two levels of festivals, you know, what we might call festivals. The Mexicans that live here, the city designates 75 official festivals a year. You know, that might be St. Gregory's Day or something like that. You know, I mean, it's you know, whatever. And then there's another 75 unofficial festivals that a small neighborhood might have, or a couple of neighborhoods, or something like that. So do the math on that. That's 150 days. That's like every other day. There's some sort

— Festivals: Day of the Dead, Katrina Parade & more

SPEAKER_00 29:24

of a small festival here.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Those are Mexican and more indigenous, okay, especially the 75 unofficial ones. You know, there you might not even know about them. You know, I don't even know about 72 of them, probably. Now, for us gringos and for the international population, there's a lot of international festivals. So there's like going on right now is the Wanajuato International Film Festival, which is the largest bilingual film festival in the world. So, you know, films really from all over the world, not just American and Spanish film, I mean Mexican films, you know, but films from all over the world.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

We have the Jazz and Blues Festival. We have the the we we have the Writers Conference Festival every February. Oh. Those are official festivals. And then, you know, one thing that everybody kind of has kind of heard about or sort of know about, Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Yeah. That occurs around Halloween. What most of us gringos think of as Halloween. It's the you know, it's the end of October. And that's a lot of fun to come, partially because if anybody's seen the movie Coco, you know, you learn a little bit more about that, you know, that that tradition. So it's really two different things here in San Miguel. Día de los Muertos is really kind of a sombre but really interesting tradition that Mexicans do, where they go visit their loved ones that have passed on, and they go visit them in the cemetery, and they take them a picnic. The whole family goes, they take a picnic, they hire a mariachi band to play music for grandpa that passed away a decade ago. They've taken his favorite tequila and set it up on the tombstone and the whole thing like that. And it's really it's not that somber, I mean, because they're there to have fun. You know, they're there to celebrate grandpa's life. And it's really a fun thing to witness as an American. That's the official D los Muertos, and one day is for adults and the other day is for kids. They actually have a day for pets. They actually have another day for pets, believe it or not. So and then tied in with that, at the same time of year, here in San Miguel, we have the Katrina parade. And a lot of you have seen where they have their faces all painted up. Oh, yeah. In the old days, you used to paint your face like a cadaver, so it's black and white, and it was kind of a little more somber. And as it has evolved over the last 18 or so years, it's become more colorful and more creative. So that's a really fun thing to do. There's a couple of days worth of parties where people get all dressed up and painted up, and you know, I've won the I've won the costume contest three years for for that. It's just so great. You can imagine me as Edward Scissor Hands, for instance. Yeah. So those are some of the good festivals.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Okay, that's excellent. So so what's your go-to advice for anyone coming to visit in the near future?

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Do some homework, you know, before you come down so you kind of know what to plan for and and leave yourself enough time. I mean, you know, I'm really always astounded by my clients who go, we're coming for three nights. I'm like, have you not researched the city? Three nights is not enough to even scratch the surface. You know, you really need to be here for a week. And that's not, I mean, I don't make money off the tourism industry here. You know, I I just say you if there's so much to do and see here, I love you to see my city. And it it takes a week to kind of get a good feel for that. So do do some homework. And if I can tout myself a little bit, Paula. I mentioned I all of my clients come from the United States and Canada, and they often don't know anything about the town. So my website has to be extremely educational. So I'm not just selling homes on there, I'm telling people about the city, about things to do. I have a news and events resource tab on my menu on my on my website, so you can look at what's going on in the calendar of events. So you can say, oh, the piano bar is playing tonight, oh, there's a jazz quartet over here, oh, there's a live theater. So all of those resources you can find, for instance, on my website, and

— Greg's top advice before you visit

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I'll rattle it off here so people can look up all of those resources. Neighborhoods, culture, history. I've got a press page that probably has 150 articles from the LA Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Travel and Leisure, you know, all those magazines that print something about San Miguel de Allende. I mean, we're in the international press on a daily basis. So I copy those to my website so people can have one single resource to find out a lot about the city. So that website team, listen close and take a note, it's called Dream Pro Homes Luxury. And then

— Greg's website & resources

SPEAKER_00 33:31

once you're on there, you'll see the press page, you'll see the neighborhoods page, you'll see the news and events page. So lots to learn about the city. And then, you know, if you want to help plan a trip, I love to talk to people about planning a trip down here. I can help you find, you know, give you some good inside resources, you know, some good tour guides, some good, you know, rental options. I don't even do rentals. I'm just saying, you know, helping you as a tourist become visit. And what the heck, if you love the city enough and want to buy a home, you can talk to me about that too.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Thank you so much, Greg, for coming on. I really appreciate it. And you've and you've got me in I'm going to investigate whether or not I should be going there in the near future because it sounds really intriguing. I love Mexico anyway. I told you before. I have a soft spot.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

I heard that you do trips with some of your listeners. Yeah. And you know, there's just to give you a comparison, this is something that I think your listeners would love to do. There's another organization called Expasi, and they work with uh people who are moving all over the world, and they are doing a f a film what you call a fam trip, a familiarization trip, coming, bringing a bunch of people here in October this year. So your group would love to do the same thing on four.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Wow, yeah, awesome. Because I've had them on before on the podcast. Yeah. So they're lovely, a lovely couple. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Brad and Jen. You know them.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah, yeah. They're lovely. Yeah, they're really, really lovely. Yeah. So anyone that wants to hear. Ah, they're s they're really lovely. So if anyone wants to hear that episode, go back and um listen to them. They uh they're a really fun couple to listen to and they do a really good job.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I'll help you plan the trip off.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, perfect. Thank you, Greg, for coming on. I really appreciate your time. So thanks again for listening to the Truly Exopat Travel podcast. And until next week, see you then. Thank you for joining me on the Truly Exopat Travel podcast. If you liked this episode and you found it valuable, then why don't you go ahead and like and subscribe so that you don't miss an episode moving forward. I've got some amazing guests and some fantastic destinations coming up. But if this is the episode and this is the destination that you really want to go to, then I suggest that you head over to truly expatravel.com where you'll find uh travel guides and a deep dive into this sort of destination. If that's not what you want and you can't find an episode that uh is a destination you want to travel to, then head over and follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok because I'm pretty sure you'll find something there. In the meantime, safe travels and I'll see you next week.