In the past few months I have been traveling around Central America and Mexico. I've been here many times before but it is a bit different now. When you are in the cities there is still some semblance of Covid "weirdness" in that people are wearing masks in a lot of places and in some of them they are required to do so. Once you get out of the major cities this notion almost completely disappears and almost everyone, including government officials like police officers, are not wearing masks and there are virtually no precautions in place.
This has been true in the last 3 countries I have been in. Of those 3 countries Mexico is the one I have seen "evolve" the most. 4 months ago when I first arrived they were almost vigilant about the masks and even distancing, well at least in the airports, and once you got even a few miles away from the airport in Mexico City, you started to notice fewer and fewer situations of enforcement and compliance. I went back several months later and this had changed quite a bit. The airports still had a mask rule of sorts but even there I started to notice large groups of people that were not complying and there was no consequences for that - which I enjoyed seeing.
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It seemed to be somewhat voluntary and most of the people who were "complying" with the mask business were doing so in a half-assed way such as wearing the mask over their mouths only and would pull them down frequently. I'm not a fan of masks in case you couldn't tell and this has become increasingly silly in my mind as more and more information emerges showing that the cloth ones that most people wear don't even actually accomplish anything. I'm not tying to start a virus conversation or argument though - do whatever you want I say.
The point of all of this is that when I am traveling now I am running into a lot of people that were previously something called "Snow Birds" in that they would leave Canada or northern parts of the United States or Europe during the winter and live in Mexico mostly, but also other countries south of it, then when winter is over they would return to their home countries.
A few years back, as I am sure you may recall, these people and perhaps millions of others around the world, were not able to go anywhere. They were trapped in the country that they were visiting at the beginning of 2020 and here we are 2 years later. They are still where they got trapped all that time ago.
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For most of the folks that I have talked to, this started out as a massive pain in the ass because they had a plan, they had flights, they had a life that they needed to get back to in their place of origin, but the world had simply shut down and they either couldn't get back to their home country or were unwilling to return to a place that was going to treat the like caged animals. The places they were staying had some regulations but for the most part you were still able to live your life in a normal fashion. You could still go outdoors, you could still travel, and you could still go shopping without having the Covid-gestapo harass you around every corner. For many of these people that I have met, this temporary setback turned into a new life.
Obviously, in order for someone to pull this off they needed to have deep pockets or at the minimum the ability to make money while not living in their home country. This one couple that I spoke to had said that they negotiated a deal with their employers that they would work permanently from a distance and never go to their office for a reduced salary - a loss that was easily compensated for with the dramatically decreased cost of living that they found in their new home.
Now one thing had to change in their lives, even if they were relatively affluent: They had to acquire a more affordable way of living since this had changed from a 2 month vacation into a lifestyle. Gone were the villas with attached swimming pool and cleaning service. They needed to move into more reasonable and permanent lodging.
I was regaled with stories about how it was initially tough because once you move out of a resort-type environment and into a "normal" house things seem a bit depressing but in the end, everyone I have spoken to is far happier, even in the reduced luxury, than they would have been if they were back in their office back home. How can you really argue with that?
I recall my day-to-day before I started to travel the world and I remember long lines everywhere I went, the damn traffic that invaded my everyday life, and once Covid became part of our lives, the extreme hassle that would come from all of that as well.
These people had never contemplated permanently living abroad and were kind of pushed into it by forces beyond their control. At first they were worried but now the predominant opinion is one of "why did we wait so long to do this?"
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This is a very simplistic map but it gets the point across. It isn't just Mexico either and I am only using that because it was the easiest map to find. A vast majority of the world is significantly less expensive than the west and this isn't just in comparison to the large, expensive cities. I have lived in massive metro areas in USA as well as small and medium-sized ones; they are all much more expensive than all of the places I have lived in Mexico as well as other, nearby countries. Dramatically so.
Now I realize that this isn't going to apply to everyone because not everyone's job is possible to be done remotely. It also includes other complications such as whether or not you have children - that complicates things on a very high scale. However, for many people the notion of living outside of your home country permanently is something that could actually result in them having a better way of life, even though the salary is going to be a lot less. People sometimes fail to factor in "cost of living" when they are considering how much money they actually make. How much of it is left at the end of a month? If the answer is close to none then you probably don't have much to lose by simply trying to see if working remotely is something that you can possibly do.
I stumbled upon this information about 13 years ago and I have never looked back. You will miss out on certain things in life such as the acquisition of tons of "stuff" in your home because chances are you are not going to own your home in whatever foreign country you decide to set up shop in. For me at least, this is a notion that I gladly leave behind anyway.
I am happy when I meet these people that unintentionally uprooted their lives to start a new one thousands of miles away from their "home" though. They found out accidentally that life can be pretty fantastic if you just broaden your horizons, even if you were forced to do so. It really is a big world out there and I feel that if people limit themselves to just their city, state/province, or even their own country, that they could be missing out on where they truly belong on this planet.
For the people I am meeting in 2022, this happened because they were forced to do it. I'm just happy for them that it happened at all because they all seem to enjoy a much greater quality of life in their new life.