We’ve decided to head to Mexico for two months, mid October to mid December!
All three of us are quite excited for the trip. It will see us away from home for the late Fall season, including many of the things that make it unpleasant for us at that time of year, including mother/baby cow separation, hunting, and harvesting (hard on the allergies). Weather is always unpredictable in the Midwest, so we don’t know if we’ll be leaving and returning to an extended summer or a blizzard (or both in the same week)!
This will be our longest trip to date, and we’re using it as a test of sorts to see how being away from home for an extended period of time works out for us. We’re wondering things like
- Is there anything we will miss? (Other than family, we know Kiddo will miss Grandma because she can’t go along this time.)
- Does Dad have a good mobile work setup?
- Can we make do with a less than stellar internet connection?
- What don’t we care about that we thought we might?
- Will we wish we’d had a car or like the car free life?
- What kind of Pokemon do they have in Mexico?!
- Can we travel with the Wii U? (One of the only things we missed having along on our last trip).
We want to find out and then use this knowledge to plan future – perhaps longer – trips.
We initially considered several locations but there were several reasons that we decided Playa del Carmen was a best choice for this initial trip:
- Inexpensive airfare
- Reasonably inexpensive accommodations, food and transport
- Active homeschooling/unschooling/worldschooling community
- Many other worldschooling families currently staying in the area
- Large and active expat community (not just Americans)
- Chance to practice the Spanish Mom has been working on learning
- There is lots to do, always many activities going on plus the tourist and cultural attractions
- Vegan friendly
- Nice weather
From the reading that I’ve done ahead, I know that reliable and speedy internet can be hard to come by in Playa. A lot of digital nomads complain about it, and some even warn people away from Playa because of it! I’ve done my best to ensure we have the best connection possible.
After messaging about a dozen options to ask them about the suitability of their internet (everyone says there’s is “fast” but that is such a relative thing), and having several of them speed test their connections, I’ve finally found us a 2 bedroom condo in Playacar, a gated resort area of town. The owner speed tested the connection for us at 15MB down/2MB up sent me screenshots to prove it gets those speeds, something that will be essential in order for this trip to work. I am not yet sure if it will be a mistake to have chosen Playacar rather than something more central. It’s far from the Centro district, which from what I can figure out so far might mean a lot of walking and extra cab fares. We won’t have a car so we’ll be dependent on public transport if we want to go anywhere longer than perhaps a 30 mins walk.
I’m getting excited, but the same time trying not to get too excited until it’s time to go. Mexico here we come!!!