- Description -
This home has it all…PRICE …VIEW and LOCATION More white water views then not. This 2 bedroom plus a Den or 3rd bedroom is located in just one row up from the beach and has views from almost every. The master bedroom not only has a white water view, you can hear the surf as you sleep. A garage with a work bench, a laundry room, you own private entry, dimmers on all lights, new carpeting, new tile and much more.

See the full listing at http://www.owninginmexico.com/Rosarito/Baja_California/Ho… along with other similar homes in the area.

NAOS Living is an elite beachfront residential resort located at the Northern end of Rosarito Beach in what is known as the ‘Riviera Baja’. Host to a diversity of amenities, NAOS Living focuses on health and wellness both as a theme and as a lifestyle, providing comfort, luxury and a privileged location featuring a 4 mile stretch of sandy beach, near by commodities and unsurpassed views of the Coronado Islands. For a complete list of NAOS amenities visit http://www.naosliving.com.

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For more information on Calafia Condos visit http://www.calafiacondos.com. Click here for even more real estate in Mexico

Tourism in Mexico is up again despite the perception that it is not safe because of the drug-related violence that has claimed thousands of Mexican lives in recent years, according to a binational panel in San Diego on Tuesday.

Ernesto Coppel Kelly, a Mexican resort entrepreneur, said now is a good time to travel to Mexico. Troy Orem / SanDiegoRed.com

“The perception is that we are losing ground but it’s the other way,” said Ernesto Coppel Kelly, one of Mexico’s leading tourism entrepreneurs.

Coppel was speaking at a roundtable discussion organized by the Mexico Center of the San Diego Regional Chamber that focused on U.S tourism to Mexico.

The panel included Baja California, Tijuana and San Diego tourism and transportation officials and the editor-in-chief of the San Diego Business Journal.

Coppel, chairman of the Pueblo Bonito resorts and spas in Mazatlan and Los Cabos, said more than 22 million foreign tourists visited Mexico last year, a 12 percent increase from the previous year and another increase is expected this year. More than six million visitors last year were Americans, he said.

“With better news from the media we could have better business,” Coppel said.

He said later during an interview that tourism was up largely because prices were cut to attract foreign visitors.

“We have bargains. Our prices are so low because of the economy and because of the bad media we’ve been getting,” Coppel said. “Our rates are the lowest.”

Ernesto Coppel

Most of the panelists faulted the news media for fueling the perception that Mexico is not safe.

Reo Carr, editor-in-chief of the San Diego Business Journal, said journalists were doing their jobs reporting events taking place in Mexico.

“I don’t think we’re reporting things that aren’t happening.”

“I know that they are true,” Coppel said. “But let’s confine it to its correct proportion.”

Panelists expressed concern that the drug-related violence in Mexico continued to overshadow the positive economic ties between the two countries. The violence also was not being put in the proper context for the average American to understand.

“We have a problem. Of course we do,” Coppel said. “But we’re making lots of progress. Ninety nine percent of the people who die are criminals,” he said. “The roots of the problem are being attacked. We are winning this fight against these gangs. We cannot finish it in one month. It’s going to take a few years or more. We want order. We want peace.”

Carr agreed the news media need to provide more balanced coverage of Mexico but that the country’s image is going to take a while to change.

“A few spectacular crime sprees by the drug cartels completely change the perception,” he said.

Juan Tintos Funcke, Baja California’s secretary of tourism, replied, “Yes, we do have our Columbines. We do have our incidents where a violent act makes the front page but it’s the same in other countries.”

Mariano Escobedo, president of the Tijuana Convention and Visitors Bureau, said tourist spots in the city remain safe and Americans are starting to return to visit.

“To us violence is almost a non-issue,” Escobedo said. He noted a 26 percent increase in American travelers visiting Tijuana last year as compared to 2009.

“There’s violence in Tijuana, in the hills. It’s gangs versus gangs. They’re not targeting Americans. There is no spillover into tourist sections,” Escobedo said.

In fact, a much of the crime that occurs in Tijuana occurs in its eastern and southern neighborhoods, far away from financial and tourist districts.

Sporadically, though, there have been killings in these commercial areas, mostly involving street-level drug dealers, according to authorities.

His biggest concern is that violence happening in other Mexican border states will be associated with Tijuana and continue to cast a negative image over the city, he said.

Tintos said his office earlier this year formed a Baja California image committee made up of Americans who live in the Mexican border state who want to get the word out that it is a safe place to visit and live. It has also hired a public relations firm to “go after the news media, in a good way.”

“There are a lot of good things happening in Baja that we have not been very good at promoting,” Tintos said.

Leonel.sanchez@gmail.com

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TIJUANA — Baja California has been losing cruise-ship visitors, sales of coastal real estate have plummeted and many resort hotel rooms sit empty. Yet the range of tourism offerings for visitors to the state has never been greater.

Fans cheer on the Xoloitzcuintles soccer team in Tijuana, which has developed a growing following on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly after its ascension to Mexico’s Primera Division in May. / Photo by K.C. Alfred * U-T

Among this year’s choices: a large agricultural fair in Mexicali, new fine-dining restaurants in Tijuana, an expanded wine festival in Ensenada, and surfing and rock-climbing classes in Rosarito Beach.

In the wake of a difficult decade for tourism, government and private promoters in Baja California are finding more ways to attract visitors as they launch into the traditional summer peak season. The state’s tourism secretary, Juan Tintos, speaks of “reorganizing, redefining our strategies in the tourism sector.”

That means continuing to target Hispanics living in the United States but also relying more heavily on Mexican domestic tourism. It means depending far less on the traditional flow of Americans to Baja California’s beaches and focusing on new niches: athletes and sports fans, food and wine devotees, convention visitors and medical tourists.

When things were going well, “the state didn’t have a need to look in general at what it can offer,” said Laura Torres, whose family owns and operates Rosarito Beach Hotel. Then a series of crises in recent years forced the search for a broader range of offerings.

Torres, the head of Baja California’s Business Coordinating Council, has started a tour agency that takes guests on excursions such as whale-watching trips, visits to a Spanish mission, rappelling classes in nearby La Mision.

“We have so much to offer, that we’re ourselves getting to know our state,” she said.

Jahdiel Vargas, a tourism consultant in Tijuana, said the region is still evolving from the mindset of “traditional 1980s tourism,” when “it didn’t matter what you did as long as you were in a foreign country.” The latest trends in tourism worldwide — where many visitors now seek out specific activities — are forcing specialization and different promotional strategies for Baja California, he said.

Derrik Chinn (at center) runs Turista Libre, a monthly tour of various "ordinary" places throughout Tijuana. He is a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana. / Photo by David Maung

“The tourists who are trying to find new experiences in Mexico are pushing us to do better,” Vargas said.

A decade ago, lengthy waits at ports of entry along the San Diego sector dealt a severe blow to cross-border tourism, the result of tighter U.S. border security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In subsequent years, the U.S. economic downturn, the H1N1 swine-flu scare and reports of drug-gang violence in Mexico served to further discourage American visitors to Baja California.

Aiming for a recovery, Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee has sought out new markets.

“Blue-eyed, blond tourism is not coming down, by a long shot,” said Mariano Escobedo, the committee’s president. In its place, he said, local, state and national Mexican tourists are increasingly filling the void.

Figures from Banco de Mexico show that tourist expenditures in Baja California dropped from $1.25 billion in 2006 to $1.01 billion in 2009, while the numbers of international visitors fell from 27.1 million to 24.1 million in that period.

The downward trend was stemmed last year with a slight increase in both counts, and tourism promoters have been taking heart.

Tourism accounted for about one-tenth of Baja California’s revenues last year, generating about $835 million, Tintos said. He hopes to raise that figure to $855 million this year.

“We’re not abandoning the American market, we’re changing our strategy” with methods such as emphasizing the use of social media and reaching out more to Canadians and U.S. Hispanics, Tintos said.

According to hotel occupancy figures, the signs have been encouraging on holiday weekends — including Easter and Memorial Day — especially in Rosarito, San Felipe and other beach destinations.

One sign of the changing times is Turista Libre, a monthly tour led by Derrik Chinn, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana.

His day trips draw between 25 and 40 participants who come to experience Tijuana like a Tijuanense might on his or her day off: visits to an indoor roller-skating rink, a Xolos soccer game, Tijuana’s cultural center, the El Vergel water park in eastern Tijuana — site of the June 25 tour.

The idea, Chinn said, is to “put an outsider in the shoes of an insider for the day.”

San Diegans, he said, do “hear good things about Tijuana amid all the bad news. They’ll catch whiffs of good things — like ‘Tijuana has an amazing music scene, Tijuana has an amazing arts scene’ — but they don’t know how to go about finding it.”

BAJA CALIFORNIA TOURISM: WHAT’S CHANGING

More Mexican visitors

*The domestic market has become increasingly important for Baja California’s tourism industry in recent years.

*More than 90 percent of the 18,000 out-of-state visitors to Mexicali’s annual Agrobaja agricultural fair this year were from other parts of Mexico, according to the event’s coordinators.

*Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee reports that domestic demand accounts for 80 percent of hotel-room rentals.

*The Rosarito Ensenada 50-Mile Fun Bicycle Ride, a twice-yearly event that traditionally has relied heavily on U.S. tourists, has been attracting an increasingly larger proportion of Mexican riders. “Baja tourism is reinventing itself, and we that bring tourists down are adapting to its changes,” said Gary Foster, the ride’s promoter.

Sports events

*The Baja California High Performance Center, a sprawling athletic facility that opened in 2003, has allowed Tijuana to host national and international competitions. The state is making a bid to host Mexico’s National Olympics in 2013. The event drew 13,000 athletes and 20,000 supporters to the area when it was held in 2009.

*The Xoloitzcuintles soccer team in Tijuana has developed a growing following on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly after its ascension to Mexico’s Primera Division in May.

Conventions

*A new convention center is under construction between Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. It is scheduled to open in 2012 and will be able to accommodate close to 5,000 people, state officials said.

*Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee has 20 national conventions on its calendar for this year. Among groups that have gathered in the city so far are the Mexican Association of Public Accountants, the Mexican Volleyball Federation and the National Congress of Urological Gynecology.

Food and wine

*Ensenada’s Fiestas de la Vendimia, the annual grape harvest festivities, drew close to 35,000 visitors last year. Organizers expect to surpass that number during this year’s event in August.

*Mexico’s federal tourism secretary has listed Valle de Guadalupe and surrounding wine-producing areas among the nation’s 10 major tourist routes.

*More microbreweries are pulling beer aficionados to the state. Many of them will be featured next month at a beer festival in Tijuana.

*Baja California cuisine has been receiving greater international recognition. For example, celebrity chef Rick Bayless is focusing on Baja cuisine during the eighth season of his PBS program, “Mexico, One Plate at a Time,” which is scheduled to air this year.

sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com • (619) 293-1716 • Twitter: @sandradibble

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Two Baja Real Estate Firms Merge To Become Powerful Force In Northern Baja

According to Max Katz, owner of Baja Real Estate Group, the new company will be called Baja Real Estate Group but will operate two divisions, Beachside Realty in Rosarito and Baja Premiere Properties in Bajamar and Ensenada. A new office is already planned in the Guadalupe Valley, just north of Ensenada.

“Mimi Mills and associates have an outstanding reputation in the area,” said Max Katz, “and her long history throughout northern Baja will contribute greatly to the strength of our new organization.”

Bajamar Premier Properties began within the gated oceanfront golf community of Bajamar, since 2005 guiding American and Canadian expatriates through safe and successful transactions.

“Max and his wife Kathy Katz represent some of the most respected real estate developers in the region and, as we combine our forces, we will be able to serve more new developments and spread our expertise to those who need our services,” said Marianne “Mimi” Mills.

New residential developments currently represented by the Baja Real Estate Group include Calafia Resort and Villas in the area known as Calafia, 10 Miles south of Rosarito; Palacio del Mar in El Descanso, 20 miles south of Rosarito, and Naos, where sales recently began in the northern beach corridor of Rosarito

Kathy Katz, Max Katz & Marianne 'Mimi' Mills

“This is a perfect way to expand our business without spending a great deal of money,” Kathy Katz added. “We can serve more clients by combining all of our sales agents into one company.

“Agent support will be the key to our success, making sure their sellers and buyers have all the tools needed in today’s market,” she continued. “Our team will be unmatched.”

Eduardo Rosales, president of the real estate trade association AMPI in Rosarito, echoed the remarks of the new business partners.

“The combination of these highly regarded real estate professionals, now united together, is a perfect balance for the continually changing real estate market here in northern Baja,” Rosales said.

A 16-year veteran of real estate sales in the United States, Mills retired to the golf course Bajamar community in 2002 but couldn’t stay away from assisting other Americans in either buying or building their dream home.

“Our brokerage prides itself on trust, integrity and hard work to bring our buyers and sellers together in the most beneficial and profitable manner for all parties, she said. “I am delighted to team up with Max and Kathy Katz, who share my same dedication to ethics.”

Max and Kathy Katz founded Baja Real Estate Group in 2009, after successfully running a Prudential Northern Baja office in Rosarito for three years. Both have over 20 years of experience doing business in Mexico.

To contact either Baja Premier Properties or Beachside Realty, visit the Baja Real Estate Group’s website at www.bajaREgroup.com.

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Brad Billingsley and his wife Linda

Brad Billingsley could have been waiting for his tee time at an Arizona golf course.

Instead, the former Lafayette resident and his wife Linda were in a lagoon off Cabo San Lucas, snapping photos of gray whales bobbing next to their small charter boat.

“Every day, it’s an adventure here,” Brad Billingsley said. “It’s added 20 years to my life.”

Brad, 62, and Linda Billingsley, 61, are among the “silver surge” of baby boomers seeking alternative retirement nests in Mexico, according to a recent report by the International Community Foundation.

It’s not certain how many U.S. retirees are living in Mexico — a 2004 study puts it between 500,000 and 600,000 — but the foundation and other researchers say the number is bound to increase as more boomers settle into their golden years and find Mexico an affordable alternative. Almost half the retirees living in coastal areas are getting by comfortably on less than $1,000 per month, said the report, which cites the growth of real estate projects targeted at retirees as proof that expatriates are flocking south of the border.

The Billingsleys had seriously considered a retirement community with a golf course in central Arizona. But they lacked the enthusiasm for fairway living that seemed to consume retirees there. “Their entire lives were involved with golf,” Brad Billingsley said.

In 2007, the couple became expatriates and settled into a $300,000, two-bedroom beachfront condominium in Rosarito Beach, in Baja California.

They’ve made the most out of their retirement dollars, Brad Billingsley said. The cost of living — from groceries to health care — is low in their beachfront town and there’s plenty to do, such as driving down the coast to Cabo, walking on the beach and shopping at the local mercado.

The couple lived in the Bay Area for 60 years, much of it in Walnut Creek and Lafayette.

Sometimes they miss their old haunts, especially bookstores, Brad Billingsley said. But like most expatriates surveyed in the foundation report, they return often to the states. The Billingsleys make a trip across the border to San Diego every few weeks.

Affordability, quality of life, weather and proximity to the U.S. were top reasons retirees chose Mexico, according to the survey of 842 expatriates conducted by the foundation.

“After the market crash of 2008, we wanted to better understand what was going on with retirees in Mexico,” said Richard Kiy, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, a Southern California-based nonprofit that works to increase charitable giving and volunteerism across U.S. borders. In an 88-question survey of retirees 50 and older, the foundation found that expatriates had weathered the economic storm well.

A survey snapshot: Retirees’ biggest complaint is litter, while their favorite pastime is walking on the beach. More than three-quarters own a home. Almost 44 percent get by comfortably on less than $1,000 per month, and 61 percent are married — slightly less than the U.S. average of 65 percent for the same age group.

The foundation’s 17-page report, released in March, deals with demographics and day-to-day basics such as public safety concerns and household expenses of retirees in coastal areas such as Cancun, Rosarito Beach, Rocky Point and Puerto. Four follow-up studies over the next few months will tackle topics that include the impact on Mexico’s environment, health care accessibility, real estate and civic involvement by U.S. retirees.

Crime concerns affect mostly tourists

A weakening American economy, U.S. State Department travel alerts and worries about the H1N1 virus have hurt tourist travel numbers to Mexico over the past year, but the country still remains an attractive haven for retirees, said Anne McEnany, co-author of the report and the foundation’s senior adviser for environment and conservation.

Reports of narcotics-related violence, especially in border cities like Tijuana and Nogales, gave many retirees jitters initially, McEnany said. After they’ve settled into their new homes, anxiety fades away.

“They said they felt completely safe and that the media was over-hyping the narco-violence,” McEnany said. The impact was on friends and family, who changed their minds about visiting, she said.

“I’m really saddened to see coverage of (Mexican) crime in the media,” said Doug Gray, 60, a retired public safety officer from Livermore.

He and his wife Cyndi recently purchased a condominium in Manzanillo, a port city between Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco. They say they feel as safe — if not safer — walking around the mercados and boulevards as they did in Livermore.

Cyndi Gray said her best moment in Manzanillo was sitting on little plastic chairs at a cafe, watching waves roll in from the Pacific, sipping margaritas and eating coconut shrimp.

“We really love the pace,” she said. “It’s a slower pace and you can sit down there and get into the groove. I can unplug.”

The Grays have yet to live there full-time; Cyndi, 48, is still working.

Ellen Fields, another expat from California, lives in Merida, on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Her adopted city is about 22 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico — close, but not part of the coastal regions surveyed by the foundation. It has a reputation for being safe and hasn’t been affected by crime associated with border cities. “The Yucatán is not touched by that,” Fields said, adding, “I’ve never felt unsafe here.”

A self-described “dot-bomb refugee,” Fields and her husband James run yucatanliving.com, a Web site for expatriates. They moved to Merida from San Luis Obispo in 2002 and never looked back.

Ellen Fields says she’s enchanted by the Old World feel of the markets and people. “People in Yucatán are very welcoming. It’s a very gracious culture,” she said. “You walk down the street here and people say hello to you.”

One of the things she misses about California: “Mountains. It’s flat as a pancake here.”

Fields recommends living and working in Mexico, but warns that it takes a lot of planning. “You can’t come down here expecting someone to hire you,” Fields said. And learn the language, she advises.

Although Fields isn’t quite fluent, she says she can now hold a conversation without thinking about it.

About 48 percent of those surveyed in the foundation’s report were fluent or spoke intermediate-level Spanish, McEnany said. Even though many service businesses in Mexico have English speaking staffers, there’s no substitute for learning the language, she said.

Retirees may settle in only to find they can’t interact.

“They do the hobby thing and then after about a year they get bored,” McEnany said. “They are interested in getting involved in the community but they don’t have the language skills.”

One pitfall of expatriate living comes when communities “tend to circle around themselves” and don’t reach out to their adopted country, McEnany said. In addition, English-oriented businesses and the proliferation of big-box outlets like Walmart, Sam’s Club and Costco around near retirement hubs have made it even easier for Americans to isolate themselves from Mexican culture.

In the survey, about 88 percent of respondents said they feel somewhat or fully integrated into their new country. Nevertheless, most retirees continue to “see themselves as visitors in someone else’s country,” McEnany said.

The foundation is keenly interested in what U.S. retirees are doing with their time. Its chief goal is to assist American donors in charitably supporting communities abroad. The largest group of foundation donors consists of American expatriates in northwest Mexico.

Bob Hansen, 52, of Alameda said he’s aiming to retire in Manzanillo because of the community there. Like most retirees in the foundation survey, he visited several times before deciding to buy. Three years ago, he purchased a fixer-upper on the beach for $64,000.

Hansen has made many friends there and loves the lifestyle. “I have a huge pool of friends there,” he said.

He met one close Mexican friend after anchoring his sailboat close to a small village called Colimilla, near Manzanillo. A fisherman helped guide him to shore and afterward they cooled off with a cola.

“I could hardly speak Spanish and he didn’t speak English well either, but we had a connection of the souls,” Hansen said. “After the drinks, we got in his old truck and he drove all over the area showing me all the beautiful places in the area.”

Hansen purchased his home the next year and he stayed with his new friend in a nearby village while the sale cleared.

“I ended up being introduced to some of the kindest and warmest people on earth in that wonderful time I stayed in this village,” Hansen said.

Quality of life a top draw

Kathie Parker, formerly of Oakland, can attest to that. A third-generation Californian who moved in 2008 to Merida, Parker said she doesn’t miss the stress of living in the Bay Area.

“I never plan to move back to California,” she said.

Parker, 60, is a retired masseuse and moved with her partner Holly Smith in June 2008. They sold their home in Oakland and purchased a three-bedroom, three-bath home with a pool for less than $200,000.

But she insists that quality of life was her top concern. “I didn’t just choose this place because it was cheap,” Parker said. “I wanted to live here.”

She visits and talks daily with Yucatecan friends in Merida and is taking Spanish classes. Along with a group of other expats, she participated last year in a U.S. National Day of Service. They raised enough money to buy chairs and tables for a local school library.

“There are a lot of (Americans) who live here who want to make it as American as they possibly can,” Parker said. “We moved to Mexico to be with Mexicans. The people here are wonderful. You just have to try.”

If you have any questions you would like to ask Brad Billingsley you can send him an email at bradbillingsleyy@yahoo.com.

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Villanueva, far left; Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres, center in striped maroon sweater; and Bruce Howard, far right in yellow vest

ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO—Seven members of a California Rotary club joined with about 20 local Rotarians and Rosarito residents Saturday in an event to demonstrate this tourist area is perfectly safe for visitors.

The event organized by Rotarians from Cambria, California was officially a beach maintenance session but Bruce Howard, past president of that club, said its main purpose was to help eliminate inaccurate perceptions that have developed in the U.S.

“We want to tell people that Baja is safe,” said Howard, who owns a vacation home in Rosarito. “We’re coming down, we love coming down and we feel safe and welcome and comfortable here.”

Howard said media coverage of the Mexican government’s aggressive crackdown on drug cartels, including some sensationalized stories, has created the impression among some in the U.S. that the area is unsafe for visitors.

“Those of us who love this area and visit it often know that is not true,” Howard said. “But unfortunately the perception is seen as reality by many and it has badly hurt the economy and many people here.”

Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres thanked Howard and those attending for their effort: “We appreciate you thinking of Rosarito and trusting us when we say that we’re truly safe for visitors.”

Howard also urged all the Rotarians to send news of the event to their local papers in the U.S. Joining Howard for the trip from Cambria were Sharon Harvey, Socorro Simmons, David May, Tommy Howard, Vikki Hansen and Dennis White.

Members of the two local clubs, Club Playas de Rosarito and the Rotary Club of Rosarito, also helped organize the event and participated. The clubs will join together for future events also, said Rosarito Rotarian Jorge Villanueva.

Some of the Rotarians wore yellow vests for the beach maintenance, which took about two hours. “The beaches are cleaner here than the ones at home,” Howard said.

Some local residents as well as Rosarito Rotarians and members of the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau also joined in. Howard said several Rotarians from clubs in Southern California as well as Wyoming also participated.

ROSARITO CONTACT:
Ron Raposa
(619)948-3740
ronraposa@hotmail.com

U.S. ROTARY CONTACT:
Bruce Howard
(805) 909-0780
bruce@brucehowardrealtor.com

Bring Your Medicare to Mexico

Suzan Haskins
Latin America Editor, International Living
International Living Postcards—your daily escape

Which foreign country will be the first in which Americans can use Medicare and Medicaid benefits?

Mexico, of course.

It just makes sense. Mexico is right next door to the largest market of health care consumers in the world. Some health services in Mexico can cost 12 times less than what is charged in the U.S., experts say.

It’s no wonder that Americans (and yes, Canadians, too) cross the Mexican border in frequently increasing numbers to avail of the high-quality but low-cost health care Mexico provides, including reduced cost prescriptions.

Already, the four largest commercial U.S. health insurers—with enrollments totaling nearly 100 million people—have either launched pilot programs exploring or offering overseas travel to countries like Mexico for health services. Some smaller health insurers and brokers also have introduced travel options for hundreds of employers around the country.

It also makes sense that Americans should be able to use insurance benefits from Medicare and Medicaid in Mexico. And that ability may become reality very soon, says Bruno Ferrari, the chief executive officer of Promexico, Mexico’s foreign investment agency.

And he believes that within one year, the governments of Mexico and the U.S. may have an agreement to let Americans use their Medicare and Medicaid insurance at Mexican health care facilities.

Already, 10 U.S. and Canadian companies have expressed an interest in building facilities to cater to Americans seeking to take advantage of low medical expenses, he says.

This is all good news for those of us who live in Mexico and for anyone thinking about relocating or retiring there.

Anticipating the approval of both U.S. private insurance and Medicare/Medicaid programs in Mexico, real estate developers are getting in on the act, too. Many of them are creating special communities that cater to the health needs of foreign retirees, including assisted living centers.

Since Mexico has been hard hit by the global economic meltdown, and the peso has recently lost 30% of its value against the dollar, there are deals to be had on real estate in Mexico right now. (And on travel and just about everything else).

Health care, health insurance, and real estate opportunities in Mexico will be just some of the subjects of discussion at our upcoming Live & Invest in Mexico Seminar in Puerto Vallarta November 12-14.

There are many reasons why today’s Mexico makes sense for the retiree or investor. There truly will never be a better time in your lifetime to start a new life in Mexico.

Suzan Haskins
Latin America Editor, International Living
International Living Postcards—your daily escape

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Finally Some Good News on Travel in Mexico

Poor old Mexico. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down! Just when the price of oil plummets, American jobs dry up, and the fear of drug violence cuts tourism in half, along comes swine flu to cut it in half again.

OK, it’s time for a little good news. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control lifted its recommendation against travel to Mexico; the swine flu isn’t so bad after all, and it probably didn’t come here from Mexico in the first place.

And now a little more good news. Drug violence is not a threat to ordinary tourists like you and me. This is according to the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department and me. Let me give you a little background.

I had driven to, in and around Mexico with impunity and pleasure, but that was years ago. Now I was planning two road trips, one from the border to central Mexico, another from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Oaxaca and back, and my friends were alarmed.

“What about the drug war?”

“Aren’t you afraid of being kidnapped?”

No. At least I didn’t think so. The dangers of Mexico have always been exaggerated, and I have always taken them with a grain of salt. The drug trade is nothing new, and poor people have been kidnapping rich ones for money in the Third World and even in the First World (Italy) for a long time. Besides, I’m not rich.

Still, news reports in the weeks before I left caused my grain of salt to grow smaller. One said that President Felipe Calderon’s assault on the drug cartels had started a “civil war.” Another called the kidnappings an epidemic. A third compared Mexico to Pakistan and described it as a “failed state.” And an official at an Air Force base in New Mexico advised those in his command who planned to drive into Mexico to do so in broad daylight in caravans with cell phones at the ready.

Hmmm.

I called Sanborn’s, the American insurance people who have been providing auto insurance for American motorists in Mexico for 60 years, and asked if they advised any special precautions.

“Only to stick to main routes and not to drive at night, but that’s mainly because of animals that wander onto roads.”

“Have you had problems with tourists being held up or hijacked?”

“No. We wouldn’t be insuring them if we did.” (A review of Sanborn’s rates indicates no dramatic increases in recent months or years which would likely have occurred if theft or damage claims had gone up.)

OK. I’d go, but I’d avoid Ciudad Juarez where the violence is the worst. I’d cross the border on a Sunday morning, the quietest time in any week, and I’d do it at Laredo, where the cartels recently seemed to have called a truce.

What follows are facts, anecdotes and opinions.

Here are the facts:

Mexican highways are excellent and well-marked. Most major cities are now connected by well-engineered toll roads that have limited access and are patrolled by federal police and Green Angels, motorist-assistant trucks manned by mechanics.

Customs offices are clean and customs officials are professional and efficient. Neither used to be the case.

Gas stations are also vastly improved. Almost all now include a convenience store and some even have food courts.

And the vehicle stock is better than years ago; gone are most of the lopsided buses and one-eyed trucks of the past.

Here are the anecdotes:

David Tramp is an American who has lived in Ensenada, Mexico, for three years and sells real estate. He drives his Hummer into California through Tijuana, one of the hotbeds of drug violence, about four times a month. Has he ever had or seen any trouble? “Never.” Does he have any advice for tourists? “Stay out of high-crime areas where there are drugs and prostitutes. Common sense.”

Fiona McNeill is a school teacher in her 60s with very little Spanish who is working in a Waldorf School near San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. She drove there alone in nine days from her home in Bend, Oregon, without incident except being short-changed in a gas station.

Ramon Morales is a Harley Davidson motorcycle mechanic who came to Mexico with his pregnant wife and three-year-old daughter when he was laid off from his job in San Antonio. Despite his Hispanic name, he has red hair and a Texas twang. His wife was reluctant to come. “Now I can’t get her to go home. Hell, I gotta get back and find some work.”

Then are the drug wars a figment of someone’s imagination?

Not at all, but they are not a problem for tourists. One traveler I talked to compares them to the turf wars of inner city gangs or the internecine cocaine wars of the 1970s and ’80s in South Florida made famous in the television show “Miami Vice” and the movie “Scarface.” “People were dying all over the place, and no one stopped going to Florida.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew the same analogy on March 26 while speaking in Monterrey, Mexico.

Then is the press in the United States overreacting?

One observer I spoke with thought it is—at least in part in response to political pressure. Fanning the flames of the issue are the anti-immigration forces in whose interest it is to stir up fear of Mexico and Mexicans. “I think this is about ‘the fence’ that anti-immigration groups want to build from the Gulf to the Pacific. Almost no one who lives down on the border wants this wall,” he said. Indeed, Texas’s conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry, has opposed the wall, and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano once famously said when she was governor of Arizona, “If you build a 50-foot high wall, somebody will find a 51-foot ladder.”

But alarmist news accounts continue. A headline on an article in the San Antonio Express News in February announced, “Mexican Murders, American Victims,” and led with the statement that “230 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2003.” After some alarming claims, the article implicitly admits that two-thirds of those killed were involved in the drug trade or gang activity. Many of the others were in high-crime areas. In fact, only three of the 230 deaths have resulted in protests by the U.S. State Department, seeming to support the Mexican government’s contention that “Tourists wishing to visit cathedrals, museums and other cultural centers are not at risk.” Despite the Express News’ claim that its investigation “examined hundreds of records,” it failed to report a single instance of an ordinary tourist on vacation being murdered.

A CNN report on “Anderson Cooper 360” that aired on March 5 from Rosarito Beach in Baja California, warned American students of the dangers of traveling to Mexico for spring break, reporting that 20 murders, including some beheadings, had taken place in the community in the previous year. Only late in the report and then parenthetically was it noted that none of the 20 murder victims was either American or a tourist.

I entered Mexico with considerable trepidation, sticking to toll roads and watching both my clock and rearview mirror. When I departed a month later, I did so at my leisure using secondary roads and leaving even these to explore the villages and countryside. As a motor tourist I did not feel threatened by the drug violence or kidnappings I had read and heard about. And I was able to take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate that has made Mexico once again the best travel bargain available while rediscovering that country’s charm, beauty and friendliness.

Should you go? You’ll have to decide that for yourself. As for me, I’ve already rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende for a month early next year. I’m going back, and I’m driving.

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