MND’s Where to Live in Mexico 2024 Guide: The best and worst places for expat living in Mexico

After more than four months of deliberation, Mexico News Daily has compiled an exhaustive list of expat living destinations across the country in the Where to Live in Mexico 2024 Guide. We’ve quite literally scaled the country, from river deep to mountain high to find and assess the best expat areas in the country.

Of course, some places have fared better than others. Our Where to Live in Mexico Guide has always been designed to appeal to the broadest range of people — so if you love the wilderness, you might find that the places you prefer have scored low. 

But enough preamble, you’re surely keen to find out the winners and losers in our inaugural list. First up, the bottom three:

Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of things to like about San Felipe — although it didn’t receive much coverage in our Baja California guide. The town offers all the tourist comforts you would generally look for, and even boasts the Baja 500 road race as a jewel of the annual calendar.

The tradeoff of living here is that San Felipe is further away from all the home comforts found in the rest of the state. This also, critically, includes access to flights, with the San Felipe International Airport only serving those who can afford to charter their own aircraft. Instead, travelers will need to journey to Mexicali or Tijuana — two and a half hours and four and a half hours away, respectively — in order to catch a flight home.

The climate is also much hotter and more oppressive than other parts of the state, which may be perfect for snowbirds looking to escape the frozen north, but can present serious challenges during the summer months.

Once upon a time, Manzanillo was a destination in its own right. Those days, sadly, are long gone, though the comment section of our Mid-Pacific Trio guide certainly rode out in defense of the port city.

While commenters touted a low cost of living and great beaches, potential residents should be aware that Manzanillo offers poor connectivity with the rest of Mexico (and the world), with a handful of seasonal flights to Canada and the United States. With Aeroméxico launching regular flights to Atlanta and Los Angeles later this year, however, this may soon change.

Manzanillo also boasts a local arts scene, with music and events from around Colima, but it lacks the pull of bigger, grander destinations. Anyone in search of meaningful cultural experiences and events will be forced to travel elsewhere — either by taking a flight to Mexico City or a four-hour drive to Guadalajara.

Baja California Sur saw high scores for life in Los Cabos — which rated a very respectable 4.0 on our scale. Many locations throughout the rest of the state, however, suffer (or perhaps benefit, depending on your point of view) from the splendid isolation of the peninsula.

This is especially true of beautiful Loreto. Here, you will find yourself in a pleasant mission town with a modest marina, a golf course and wilderness as far as the eye can see. It’s a great place to come and enjoy the great outdoors.

That’s where the benefits end though. So, if you’re not into fitness, Loreto’s remoteness is perhaps not such a good thing. Access to the wider world is limited — which can be a problem for expats when it comes to healthcare, travel or even just finding some home comforts in your new environment.

And now, the moment that you’ve all been waiting for. The three best cities for expats in Mexico for 2024: 

It should come as no surprise that one of the most-loved cities in the world scores so highly in our list. Whatever you want, Mexico City has it in spades. Culture, art, history, music, food — especially food — are all present in seemingly endless amounts. 

Of course, its traffic, dizzying altitude and ever-present smog are negatives, but if you can get past these, there is truly nowhere else in the country — or perhaps even the world — quite like Mexico City.

An important caveat is that this ranking does not include the modern business suburb of Santa Fe, which suffers from traffic bottlenecks between the ultra-modern hillside district and the city proper. 

SMA doesn’t keep being voted the “Best Small City in the World” for nothing, you know. 

There actually isn’t much to say about San Miguel that hasn’t been said before — in fact, one commenter asked when we planned to change our name to “San Miguel News Daily!” — but the Guanajuato city receives a glut of coverage for very good reason. 

As much as cities like Playa del Carmen or Puerto Vallarta are accused of being “Little America” in Mexico, San Miguel de Allende truly is that — but in all the best ways. It’s the perfect fusion between unapologetic “Mexicaninity” and a truly U.S. standard of living, with everything that entails. Enjoy a world-class meal, take in some authentic local culture and then retire to a house with all the modern conveniences you could want. This is the essence of San Miguel life in a nutshell. For comfort, connections, healthcare and a feeling of really being part of Mexico, it’s hard to see where expats could do better.

Guadalajara, Jalisco (4.50)

Tapatíos, rejoice. Our half-term rankings saw this giant of Mexican culture come out on top, and the final report is no different. Guadalajara likes to think of itself as the birthplace of Mexican culture, and in many ways, it is. 

A great way to think about life in Guadalajara is that it is a lot like Mexico City without the negatives. Traffic can still be heavy, but the flat and comparatively non-seismic nature of the city means that getting around by public transport is much easier. Gone too are problems with altitude, though the city is still high-up enough to avoid the excessive heat of the Jalisco summer.

An excellently connected international airport and modern highway network mean that leaving town — whether for the pleasant shores of Lake Chapala, the Riviera Nayarit or a flight back home — is painless compared to most of Mexico.

Whether you’re in Guadalajara for work or play, this is a city that has everything — and it’s rightfully crowned our inaugural “Best City for Mexico Living 2024.”

A full breakdown of our rating system can be found here.

Do you disagree with any of our rankings? Want to see somewhere else covered in our Where to Live in Mexico 2024 Guide? Let us know!

You can see more of our Where to Live in Mexico 2024 series here, including ratings for Yucatán, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, the Baja California peninsula, Jalisco, Mexico City, a Pacific trio of beachside cities and major Bajío and Southern metropolitan areas.

Chris Havler-Barrett is the Features Editor at Mexico News Daily