The gringo community in Latin America is different, both quantitatively and qualitatively, from the one I joined in 2008. It has exploded in size and changed in personality. These changes have been prompted by the improved safety of the region and expanding reach of the internet.
Safety
The more significant development is probably changing attitudes toward Latin America. It still figures among the world’s most dangerous regions depending what you measure, but the perception among gringos that you’re taking your life into your hands by visiting has changed.
When I told people in 2008 that I’d be moving to Peru, I heard several replies to the effect of and even literally, “don’t get kidnapped.” For a generation of Americans, that was Latin America’s reputation. Part of that is driven by proximity to Mexico over-representing Americans’ ideas of Latin America. And for at least a generation in Mexico, for-profit kidnapping was big business (inspiring “Man on Fire” by Denzel Washington).
In South America, kidnapping was nominally political but with a for-profit element, if not entirely for profit. Nowhere more than in Colombia, where well-heeled Colombians and certainly foreigners had to avoid rural highways because of guerrilla roadblocks. “Proof of Life” may be ridiculed today, but it was very much the reality of the 1990s. The finca culture was dormant. If you’re more interested in true stories, Law of the Jungle by John Otis has been on the Expat Chronicles reading list since its inception.
Colombians don’t like to talk about the Pablo Escobar era, but he was a global news story for years, more than the kidnapping problem. Uzi-toting gunmen on motorcycles and random bombings were Colombia’s (deserved) reputation. Beyond Colombia, there were guerrilla insurgencies throughout the region at different times, including in Peru with the Shining Path.
All of those problems have abated over the last 20 years, and enough time has passed since that a generation of gringos don’t associate kidnapping or political violence with Latin America. They may have other preconceptions and stereotypes that we of the 20th century didn’t have, and I don’t know what those would be. But it’s clear they are not so afraid.
The previous fear standard kept the waves of gringos at bay for a long time. I used to say that the gringos you come across in Latin America are an odd lot, with a high proportion of checkered pasts, particularly when it comes to drugs and run-ins with the law. That is over. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the community may be less delinquent than the general population back home, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the gringo expats are less delinquent as a percentage of the total that stay home because it’s a more educated crowd. And that leads us to the next driver, the internet.
Internet Work
Remote work has been a gamechanger. The perception of relative safety may be more important, as I doubt Syria or Congo have seen a spike in remote-work expats, but safety alone wouldn’t have such an outsize effect because aspiring expats would have to do what we in the 2000s did: get a job.
I deplore the old cliché of the old man decrying how easy it is for kids nowadays (he had to walk a mile in the snow before school buses!), but the scene has changed. I’m hesitant to consider myself to be of the old school. But I moved to Peru in 2008 without a laptop. I’ve always been a tech laggard, but still … I moved to Peru without a laptop. The iPhone had been invented, but almost nobody had one. Blackberries were something of a status symbol in LatAm until at least 2013.
I considered the real veterans to be those who predated mobile phones and, even more hardcore, the internet. How would you like Latin America with no email and the landline phones don’t work when it rains?
But when I arrived, every neighborhood was dotted with internet cafes and phone cabins. The plazas were crawling with women who sold calls from their mobile phones. The mobile plans at the time were nuts and nobody had unlimited calls. Most people didn’t have enough credit to make calls or send texts at will. That led to not only llamadas / minutos vendors all over the streets but also a byzantine (and now obsolete) index of tricks people would use to communicate without credit.
Then, oddly, cheap smartphones were everywhere all of a sudden, probably around 2015. The Blackberries were obsolete, and my aha moment was seeing a taxi driver pull up his cheap smartphone to search an address.
With internet everywhere at all times, foreigners can live in Latin America without actually working in Latin America. Before 2015, I knew exactly two people who had set up businesses that could be run online, and I was one of them. Now it’s ubiquitous. I would argue that spending your workday in the metaverse (in English) is missing a key part of life in Latin America, but it’s a hell of a lot more than I’m doing from my desk in St. Louis.
In the long run, the COVID-19 pandemic boosted the gringo community in Latin America, but I’m not sure it did everywhere in the short term. In Peru and most countries, which had real lockdowns as seen in Europe, the embassies organized escape flights and more foreigners left than came. But the two giants in Brazil and Mexico remained mostly open and specifically the latter saw a huge influx. The backlash in Mexico City made news in the English papers.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the remote-work trend, but it was already underway. Even Latins who spoke English were getting in on the action via sites like 99designs, Upwork and Fiverr. With the internet of the 2010s and 2020s, moving to Latin America no longer requires a leap of faith. It’s almost a low-risk proposition. You may not have to do anything different to earn a living.
Internet Social
Back in 2008 I had a MySpace account and I was in a small club, as a grad student, to have a Facebook account (back then you had to have a .edu email address). Nobody over the age of 30 were on either. Peruvians used Hi5, but I thought two was more than enough so I never bothered with that. Couchsurfing was a thing. Maybe still is, I never got into it.
There were expat web forums, but they were hellscapes with mad drama (like Twitter today) so most people wouldn’t bother. It was the infancy of YouTubers, and there weren’t enough of them to invent the word yet. There were expat blogs, of which mine was probably the most popular in Latin America, but back then you could count all of them on your fingers and toes. Valuable information came from the forums, blogs and, yes, hardcopy books. Lonely Planet was a thing. Is it today?
There was no Airbnb, no Uber, no hotel-booking sites. Hell, the airlines would usually fail to take payment or book a flight. You had to make a reservation and print off a voucher to pay at a bank. Like hotel-booking and airlines, people in the first world had begun to use online dating but not in Latin America, during this life before Tinder.
I almost called this section “interconnectedness,” but it goes further than email. A gringo’s social opportunities exploded with social media and influencers. In the old days you had to make friends in real life.
Back in 2008 the technical skills required to start a website were less common than they are today, especially among gringos in Latin America. But with smartphones and apps, any dipshit can start creating content and getting exposure to huge audiences via established platforms that didn’t exist 20, nay 10 years ago. The new generation has an easier time with websites, if they even bother. They are virtual natives to sites like YouTube, TicToc and Instagram, which still have me fumbling around with controls.
There is not only more interaction because of the internet, but more temptation and even incentive to put yourself out there and become an influencer. The worst thing that can happen is you don’t make any money, but you make a bunch of friends all over the region and get valuable information.
Alt-Right Politics
The HBO documentary, The Anarchists, looks at a strange expat scene of gringos in Acapulco who are not Latin Americanists at all, but “anarcho-capitalists.” They left the United States to find “freedom” in Mexico. Their colony resembles the socialist communes of the 1960s, albeit with opposite politics (and more money), but all the naive idealism and inevitable fallout.
The Anarchists in Acapulco are an extreme illustration of the changing character of expats in Latin America. When I came down, during the George W. Bush presidency, I don’t think expat politics were much different than the general population. If anything, they were a little to the left. But over the last decade the scene is filling up with anti-vaxxing crypto bros who, while they wouldn’t use a terms as old as PUA or manosphere, are essentially the new PUA manosphere.
Once upon a time, before the rise of Trump, a subculture of gringo male bloggers known as the “alt right” published provocative and reactionary content. I was considered by some a part of this group because I was a gringo male blogger publishing politically incorrect takes, but I never really saw myself as a true member. I wasn’t in on the war on women, which was abundantly clear when I married one.
When Trump came along the alt right dropped the war on women and went political for the insurgent MAGA movement that is leading a historic realignment in the Republican party. My denunciations of the yanqui caudillo, early and often, left no doubt I was not in the scene.
But before Trump, I was the only figure in Latin America even remotely adjacent to the alt right. There was no personalities south of Texas. None would even consider moving to Colombia or Peru. Back then the young reactionaries were real proud boys and lovers of America. To leave the United States for a Hispanic shithole was sacrilegious.
Trump ushered in an anti-American or “blame America first” element into the political right. Hordes of right-leaning young people saw the United States as somehow spoiled, corrupted and unredeemable. And of those that didn’t go full MAGA politics, many of them came to Latin America.
Like the Anarchists’, I would argue theirs is a sophomoric idea of freedom which will collide with reality, specifically in regards to business and family. But alt-right disciples would have a lot to like in Latin America, which are many of the same things that attracted me. Traditional gender roles abound. Idealization of white skin. It’s quite difficult to go to jail, although that is changing. Cheap party favors and that will never change.
For years I considered Expat Chronicles to be ground zero for ugly American content, and that I was the heavyweight champ of ugly Americans in Latin America. The total number of blogs in Latin America could be counted on your fingers and toes, and I didn’t know of any publishing hardcore stuff that could get you fired from a job.
THAT IS OVER. With the rise of “influencers,” the number of publishers including on social media today is uncountable, and the number publishing terminable offenses, anonymous and otherwise, is probably uncountable as well. This is no longer the ugliest American content from Latin America. I’m milquetoast among this new crowd.
El Olvido Que Seremos
I see the same old lessons being relearned among the new generation. I feel like The Mick or any of the other old blowhards I used to hear griping about the locals. I didn’t believe them, dismissing them as past their time. I have now turned into them, repeating the same old gripes to googly-eyed gringos still in their junior years in Latin America.
Expat Chronicles used to be a known entity in the LatAm expat scene. It’s strange to be forgotten. I daresay it hurts a little. It hurts to know most of the new crop never heard of Expat Chronicles, and weren’t influenced even indirectly by degrees of separation to make the not-so-risky leap. It hurts to think I wasn’t a pioneer, but just a small taste of what was inevitably to come.
Tough shit, old man. Suck it up and keep on keeping on.
My recommendations are all active on Twitter. I don’t know if anybody uses Facebook anymore, and I doubt LinkedIn will reveal much. I imagine you can find the same scene on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. I may be on Twitter too much.
Some old friends who contributed or commented here include Jake Nomada (see his pieces here on Cuba and Modafinil), My Latin Life (whose podcast is nearing 100 episodes) and Iberian America. Other personalities who have inspired blog posts include LawrenceFBA and Bowtied Passport. Start following them to get an idea of the new scene. Then let the algorithm suggest more than you bargained for.
Expat Chronicles 
Your analysis of the right leaning aspect of some of these expats misses a key component: US cities have really changed significantly. Progressives, a relatively small percentage of Democrats, are the wealthiest political group in the country and by far the most powerful. They control one of our two main political parties, and they also control government bureaucracy at all levels. Don’t believe me? Look up which city is the most leftwing city in the US and also is surrounded by perennially seven of the ten wealthiest counties in the US: Washington D.C. They control every US metro except Florida metros and like Oklahoma City and Tulsa or something.
Over the last 20 years but much more intensely since and during the Trump, BLM, and COVID periods, progressives are flexing power in cities across the country, and it’s real power. It’s hard left DA’s, it’s “Don’t fuck a Republican” campaigns, it’s the sheer unbridled hatred of the right that is ho-hum on the left (even a barely progressive adjacent Democrat like you indulges in it constantly). Progressives have some fantasy that the right or alt right or whatever is the aggressor in American politics, but it’s not, it’s almost entirely on defense. That’s why Trump happened: he was essentially a very vocal and outspoken leader of the defense against the left after years of the Romney’s of the world basically letting the left take over. Progressives also control basically the entire corporate world and the previously uber libertarian tech world, mostly by HR takeover, but also by clever and insidious things like ESG, which has gobbled up basically everything. It’s easy to make ass covering Fortune 500’s step and fetch it because they’re all a bunch of kissing upward and operating out of fear middle manager types. Easy marks. The left has always been very sophisticated with these types of campaigns and initiatives – this is just the latest example.
This is a really major turn off to all kinds of people, many of whom are only vaguely conservative. It’s why Florida has grown exponentially – it’s a political wave of internal migrants who are just sick of being hunted and treated like shit in US cities, which really wasn’t the case 20 years ago.
The cultural manifestation of a lot of this is fairly hostile (and frankly not very attractive beyond the woke Hollywood starlet) women, a really controlling “do as we say, motherfucker” environment in all major urban areas (and less major as well), again with the exceptions mentioned above, forced acquiescence to left political ideas.
There was never any scientific reason to force COVID vaccination, for example… We knew very early that it didn’t stop people from getting or passing the virus, but that didn’t stop Biden’s hyper progressive admin. It was obviously a total power flex.
So a number of young dudes are basically “Fuck all of that shit” and bounce.
It’s not driven by the right, it’s driven by the left, and in case you haven’t noticed, y’all run basically everything in this country. If I were in my 20s, I would totally be living in LatAm. Plus it’s also really expensive in US cities to buy property. Why hang around?
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I know people leave CA to save on taxes, but left-wing fascism doesn’t pass the smell test for me. One of the guys I mentioned is from Kansas!
I think this generation is a product of their time, born after the fall of the Berlin Wall so don’t remember a world of two superpowers, with the USA representing freedom against repression. Most were too young to remember the trauma of 9/11, they only know the legacy of Iraq. Then the Great Recession and bank bailouts. It’s a more pessimistic era. Easy to become cynical.
And with the internet, the young but tradition-oriented people didn’t grow up into a conservative media landscape made up of just Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, but a complex universe that includes crackpots like Alex Jones and QAnon, and everything in between.
That’s my theory.
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My company has 40 employees scattered all over the world. Only 11 are in the USA and we haven’t hired anyone technical in the US in 3 years. There is amazing technical talent all over the world, it just never had the opportunity to monetize their talents like they do now. Long term, I think this is going to have a huge impact.
What I’ll call “free ranging software engineers” tend to be risk avoidant. These are not people who fought golden gloves or drank heavily. Maybe they smoked a pen, but they’d never buy drugs from someone on the street, if there isn’t a cannabis store with neatly packaged drugs, the risk is too high. They fundamentally follow rules. Also, they work 50-60 hours a week, and they work hard. That saps most of their energy, so when they go out, they’re looking for rich experiences.
Wage arbitrage is probably the biggest motivator. $140K is not that much in the US, but it’s a huge amount in LATAM. If you don’t have something anchoring you in a US city, why stay? Why pay $3,000 for a 1 bedroom in LA, when you can pay $1,000 in LATAM and live better? Time zones overlap enough that no one cares.
Nomad List provides details on costs, locations and contact information in a simple and intuitive way, gathered from thousands or tens of thousands of individuals uploading their personal experiences. In the US, remote working individuals have an issue meeting people and making friends. In LATAM, remote work colonies of furnished apartments, workspaces, organized events etc. have blossomed. Everybody there are remote-working expats. And surprisingly, the male/female ratio is about 50-50. And everyone has money and are “risk-averse, professional explorers”.
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I was going to comment on this when you first published it but my laptop broke and I had a hard time getting a comment through on my phone for reasons on my end. Here´s my long winded thought that´ll go all over the place:
I first began traveling around 2013 and been traveling since with a strong Mexico City focus over the last 6 years.
For sure, you hit the nail on the head with most of what you said that I agree with. Such as with the detail about working from your laptop being a big difference between expats from before and those now. Though I think working from your laptop was more common before Covid also.
The difference between before and after Covid was that before someone working online most likely was working for himself. Maybe he was selling a course on gumroad, doing affiliate marketing for Cupid Latina sites or whatever else, etc. Usually said person had to be a little more creative than the average Joe or at least copy well the business model of other expats. You did have plenty working local jobs though but I always remembered way more working online but I´m talking say 2013 and not 2008. Nowadays, plenty of people still work for themselves but the flooding of professional remote jobs has changed things.
One thing I´d wonder is how that changes in the future. More reports of companies calling in the workers to the states, putting in restrictions that they can only work remotely in certain states nobody wants to move to like Iowa or Ohio, letting people work remotely only 3 days out of the week, pressure from commercial real estate, etc. I just read that supposedly commercial real estate could take a 800 billion hit from the risk remote work poses. You can bet they will fight it.
But, on the flip side, there´s obvious incentives to have remote work and some companies will keep it to make their job offers more competitive. Also why pay for office pay you might not need? And most reports predict remote work will become more plentiful.
One problem I´ve always had with the idea of remote working helping gringos move abroad in the future is that, if your job can be done from anywhere, then your job could be given to a dude in Ukraine, Colombia, etc.
You have companies out there right now like Gringo Jobs or Hire UA that help companies get cheaper labor that they claim is professional from places outside the US, Canada, etc.
Of course, not every remote worker from the US could be replaced by that but it does call into question how many of the new remote jobs in the future will actually be given to those in places like the US.
I guess, if that is a concern, a new job for any gringo thinking of living abroad is just starting your own company to connect ¨third world types¨to companies back home. If you can´t beat them, join them.
In the long run though, I also think there will be legal and financial challenges to someone doing remote work while living in one particular country long term. What I mean is the following coming to fruitation someday:
1. Efforts by policymakers to limit people flying internationally or how much they fly due to climate change concerns. Not saying that flying will be impossible but, if I had to guess, probably some effort to increase the price of the average flight or some other restriction out of concern for climate change (unless they manage to make flying green).
2. More importantly, Latin America isn´t as poor as it used to be. Standards are going up by the country regarding residency and also efforts to limit people who just live on tourist visas. Mexico is a prime example of that. Increasing financial residency requirements by a lot while trying to limit visa runs in the last few years. I think Peru at one point allowed visa runs but maybe that was a long time ago. You would know more about that. Panama modifiied their Friendly Nations program and now it´s harder to be legal there. If I remember right, even Paraguay made some less friendly changes to their residency path after they got so many people applying to move there.
Latin America increasing its standards has usually been the norm though over the decades and it definitely correlates with how rich the region becomes and how many people try to move there. You get to be more picky when you got more people applying. With even more people working remotely, standards will only get higher while, at the same time, Latin American countries try promoting ¨digital nomad¨visas that don´t work well for those wanting to live long term beyond a few years.
Long term though as to how that could change the ëxpat¨scene? I´m just guessing but probably all of those factors would limit greatly the number of people who can actually live in Latin America while at the same time probably discouraging the number of those who are poorer, just looking for drugs, etc.
Though I don´t think you´ll ever get rid of all the poorer and more degenerate gringos from Latin America.
You´ll always have those who just backpack and go from one country to the next never needing a proper visa or residency. Or those who live 6 months in one country and 6 months in the next. Some of the more degenerate ¨drugs and pussy¨types will always be trying to visit — even if their visits are shorter in the medium future.
But, at least for those with actual residency, I think those factors plus the arrival of more remote work opportunities will mean the average gringo having even more money on average than say those arriving in 2013.
Because, back in 2013 or 2014, it was fairly easy for even poorer gringos to actually live here longer term in any one specific country with no restrictions on visa runs and said gringo probably was poorer because so many of those ¨working for themselves¨doing affiliate marketing or whatever were not very rich. Some made good money with that but so many were and many still do just live on 1000 a month.
But most of that is predictions on the future from my keyboard. We´ll see what happens.
Going back to the current community now, there´s some things I´d add to what you said.
First, when it comes to the changing politics of the community, I think it´s easy to say that it seems like it would be more right wing but I´m not really sure. Sure, you have all of the anti vax people. But, based on simply most of the expats I see on Facebook groups and more rarely in real life, most seem fairly left leaning.
I see way more people joining in on the ¨we´re not expats, we´re immigrants¨talking point than talking about being anti vax or for Trump. Of course, you always had expats who pandered to the locals on other talking points like saying the US shouldn´t be called America or whatever. It just seems that you have more of the former than the latter even today based mostly on what I see on Facebook expat groups.
Of course, it depends on the online group you´re part of. Maybe Facebook attracts more of a left leaning crowd than Telegram groups. There have been telegram groups I´ve been part of that were very right leaning but those groups attracted a different crowd than just a generalized ¨FB expat mexico¨group. But, in real life, I don´t hang with expats usually but, on the rare occasion I encounter one, almost always they lean to the left if something ever gives them away.
As to comparing how right wing though the current crowd is to the past, I´d probably agree but I´m not too convinced that they are that much more right wing. You´re probably right but I remember Roosh V and his forum fairly well. I used to frequent it as a teenager funny enough because I always found the idea of dudes traveling the world to be cool and something I wanted to do myself.
And, while most of the ¨manosphere¨content back then was PUA related from what I remember, there was always a right leaning element to it from my memory. For whatever reason, that type of content always attracts and appeals more to right wing leaning men than left leaning. Having talked with other dudes who found that stuff appealing (mostly online), I don´t think I´ve ever talked to one who was left leaning or at least a hard Bernie Sanders left leaning type. Maybe a few Mike Bloomberg type Democrats but the PUA stuff always seemed to naturally attract right leaning types. I haven´t talked with anyone in that crowd though in years because it´s no longer as interesting as I get older but that´s what I remember anyhow.
But, even nowadays, while I think the focus of the ¨manosphere¨is a lot less focused on dating as many women as possible and has taken a more political spin to it, there´s still plenty of dudes who travel abroad only for the women.
The difference is they have a new name for the new generation: passport bros.
Going back into politics though, there have always been people too who claimed they would ¨leave america¨if x president got elected. If I remember right, I think it was Rush Limbaugh who threatened to go to Costa Rica if Obama passed his healthcare bill in 2010. The dude was full of shit but that type of talk from both the right and the left has been around well before Trump, Covid, etc.
On my first trip to Latin America actually, I met a guy that I´m still in contact with named Peter that was all about leaving America because¨it´s fascist.¨Dude was living in Chiapas. That was in 2013 but he had been hanging around Mexico for decades before.
And Chiapas is general is a good example by the way of very political gringos of the left coming to Latin America to support local causes like the Zapatista movement. There´s a history with that going back decades and one could easily research no shortage of other politically motivated gringos and their movements coming to select parts of Latin America for over centuries. Paraguay had a few that I remember of socialist nazis forming their own communities lol.
Among other examples I´m sure one could come up with regarding left or right leaning gringos coming down here.
Of course, as you put it, the bigger difference is more in the laptop and being able to keep your income from home. Nowadays, it´s easier to double down on your threat to leave America or whatever country due to politically motivated reasons for Mexico, Colombia, Thailand, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, etc.
I doubt though most are forming anarchist or any politically inspired movement or group down here. Most politically motivated gringos simply want to live in a land that they don´t care to learn the politics about, can´t read the local news to get mad about politics and just live away from the politics of back home that made them mad.
What´s always been ironic about these types is that some of them will continue to engage in politics back home by posting memes on Facebook all day in their rental in Costa Rica or they will unironically call themselves ¨political refugees¨while some actual political refugees from Nicaragua or wherever are closeby outside.
Though I would wonder though how many of those being able to leave are actually right leaning versus left leaning. Plenty who do claim to have left for vax reasons, yes. But a lot of the remote jobs — though definitely not all — were tech related. I´m not convinced the average tech bro going to Mexico City is a MAGA red hat Trump supporter.
One last thing to say is that ultimately though the expat scene you find down here is going to have its variety depending on what part of Latin America you are in. Like always since 2008 or 2013 or 2016 or now or in the future.
One obvious example of that would be Venezuela. I´m sure the average expat hanging in Venezuela is of a different breed than one hanging in Mexico City.
And it doesn´t have to be just Venezuela. Could be Honduras, El Salvador, Paraguay, etc.
Even a typical expat to be seen in a more dangerous or normal neighborhood of Mexico City is probably somewhat different from the average one hanging in popular areas for expats like Condesa.
Especially as it relates to your point about how the expats in the past were of a different breed — more willing to take risks, checkered pasts, doing drugs, poorer, etc.
I´d say you´d get a similar vibe to that — and it isn´t hard to do — by simply avoiding the areas popular for expats that get written about on Forbes magazine or wherever.
Because ultimately even most of these new expats or digital nomads are never going to venture outside of their bubbles. It´ll be like the past where it´ll be the ones who are a little more different to venture out, see places other gringos have been to decades prior but aren´t popular with gringos now and then write or talk about said places afterwards.
With time, some of those places will be nice enough for the expat who doesn´t take as many risks.
Just take Mexico City for example. Most expats will NEVER visit most parts of the city — even if those parts do have things to do or see and fun to be had. Why? Lonely Planet hasn´t talked about those spots and, going to your point about danger, most expats see those areas as shitholes even if they´ve never seen those areas or have any idea what they are like.
Maybe not so much a fear of being kidnapped but at least a fear of being assaulted or whatever. I´ve heard or read plenty of expats refer to literally any area outside of the gringo popular areas as being no go zones. So, to a degree, I question just how many gringos don´t have a fear of Latin America. I´d still say there´s an element of fear if someone comes down here and whose idea of Latin America includes only 20 specific neighborhoods and nowhere else.
I guess that still implies being less scared than an average gringo 20 years ago if at the very least they are willing to visit SOME areas if even most are of their radar. But there´s always been plenty of gringos willing to go to select parts of Latin America like Cancun. Difference again is in the laptop.
And, even then, I´d still question how many gringos back home don´t have a fear of all of Latin America. Because I still rarely get comments about how dangerous it is, how it´s a shithole, etc.
Back when that religious group of Americans was killed in northern Mexico — mormons or something — people were warning me on FB about life here. You had that one group of 3 black Americans get killed and kidnapped months ago and the same hype about being too dangerous made the rounds online.
Even when you take the English language articles about locals in CDMX being mad about gringos, most gringos back home don´t read that as ¨well, Mexico sounds very nice to live in now and not full of cartels¨and instead think ¨wow, Mexicans hate us and, as an American, would it be nice for me to go or stay home.¨
I´ve seen no shortage of people asking about maybe going to Mexico but scared because of that reason online. It falls back into a common fear Americans have about ¨how everyone outside America hates us¨that I have heard all my life.
So I´m not sure if the majority of Americans are still not scared of coming down. Maybe more than in the past but how many of those would have came down if rent in the US was affordable?
And with those that do visit but do leave the bubble…
The only time I´ve really ever seen gringos venture outside the bubble is because:
1) they´re poor
2) they’re relatives of a local or, on a very rare occasion, dreamers
3) they have a local girlfriend or wife or they went there to bang a random chick off Tinder at her place
4) drugs
5) it´s a youtuber trying to make an edgy video showing a dangerous neighborhood
6) on a rare occasion, it´s someone with an open mind to new areas that arent shitholes but arent recommended by your favorite youtuber
Otherwise? 99% of people are still too scared, or if not scared, simply too conformist to ever go against the advice of other expats for areas to see or live in
Which I also think ultimately will mean that any explosion of expats one is to see will always be limited to very select areas of Latin America but those areas and what is recommended changes with time. Like Colombia not being so popular a few decades ago and now has some popularity. Will Venezuela even be like that? Just wait for Venezuela to drop its visa requirement for Americans and watch even more people go to Margarita Island and other spots.
I´d say actually any gringo who wants that ¨veteran¨feel — even if he isn´t anywhere close to being the first or only gringo on the land — should try to get to Venezuela. I´d imagine it´s the closest one would get to that feeling.
Or maybe Nicaragua. Nicaragua until Venezuela opens up if it ever does for Americans. I´ve seen gringos post online saying they feel like the only gringo in town but who knows.
Other things to say?
I largely agree with what you say about those coming when technology was more primitive being different than those who visit Latin America now. Only thing I´d disagree slightly on is the point about Uber or Airbnb. I´ve never used Airbnb all my life and only began using Uber just a few years ago. I´ve heard other expats talk about how much of a game changer it was and, perhaps it is for those who need more hand holding to come down here, but I don´t think in hindsight that it made things that much easier for me.
I´d add that, among all the new gringo content out there, it´s more video focused than blog or fourm focused. Forums as a way to exchange expat information about life abroad are basically dead with maybe one or two exceptions.
With blogging, it´s similar but some people still do it. I´d say written content is more for Twitter these days for those who want more popularity. Has to be short too. Or podcasts. I don´t know how well podcasts are going but I always heard that was the way to go for content creation.
Anyway, thanks for the shoutout and good article. There were a few you posted I never got around to commenting on because again my laptop died. Take care.
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Agree all around, just want to add that re: “Efforts by policymakers to limit people flying internationally or how much they fly due to climate change concerns” — this will be a carbon tax. It won’t just affect flying, and it will be no time soon.
We’re old enough to have seen how things that seem inevitable take forever to happen, and others that seem impossible happen almost overnight. So I may be wrong but I think a a critical mass of Boomers must die before a carbon tax happens. In other words, not before 2030. Maybe 2040.
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