Once you're here: living in Puerto Vallarta as a Canadian or American
The areas pages are about choosing where to be. This one is about what happens after that.
Living in Puerto Vallarta as a Canadian or American turns out to be easier than most people expect. What catches people out is the small practical things, none of them difficult, most of them just different enough from home to trip you up once.
Doug and Charlotte are here part of the year rather than all of it, so everything below is written from six months at a time, November to April. Where that limits what they can tell you, the page says so.
Once you're here: living in Puerto Vallarta as a Canadian
This is the lesson Charlotte would hand over first, and it is the one most people take two or three years to learn for themselves.
The first few winters she packed extra clothes, household things, and a long list of just-in-case supplies. Most of it sat untouched and came home again.
Life here is more casual than the one you are packing for. You will wear a fraction of what you bring, and the version of yourself you are packing for is the one at home.
Less really is more
What she has stopped bringing
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Too many clothes
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Kitchen gadgets
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Multiple pairs of shoes
What she is always glad she brought
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Prescription medications. If there is one thing on this list, it is this one.
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Toiletries you are particular about. A favourite shampoo or lotion is often hard to find here or expensive when you do. There is a Sephora now, which has helped.
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Important documents, and copies of them.
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Your own electronics and chargers. There is no Apple Store in Puerto Vallarta, so a cable you forgot is a bigger problem than it would be at home.
Almost everything else can be bought locally if it turns out you needed it. Which is the whole point: you can replace a frying pan here. You cannot replace a prescription.
This is near the top of most people's worries about spending half a year somewhere else, and it is one of the easier things about this bay.
Seeing a doctor
For ordinary things, a private clinic rather than a hospital.
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That is what Charlotte and Doug do. Hospital CMQ, Joya Hospital and Medasist are the ones foreign residents here tend to use, largely because a good many of the doctors speak English and because getting an appointment is straightforward rather than a project.
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For anything serious, she would go straight to one of the private hospitals.
On insurance, what she does rather than what you should do.
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Doug and Charlotte carry travel medical insurance from Canada, which covers major emergencies and hospitalisation, and for six months a year that has worked. Some long-term residents buy Mexican private health insurance instead, which is a different arrangement for a different situation.
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This is the one thing on this page to check for yourself rather than take from anybody's website. Policies differ, and the questions worth asking your own provider are how long a single trip it covers, whether that covers your whole stay or part of it, and what being away for six months does to your provincial health coverage at home. Ask before you book, not after.
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Dental care here is good and it costs less than it does at home, enough less that Charlotte now schedules her cleanings and any non-urgent dental work for while she is in Puerto Vallarta rather than fitting them around being back in Canada.
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That is not a small saving dressed up as a lifestyle point. It is a genuine change in how the year is organised, and plenty of people here do the same thing.
And the pleasant surprise is the dentist.
One of the first questions people ask, and the honest answer is about habit rather than about risk.
In El Tigre there is a water treatment plant, and Doug and Charlotte have a filtration system in the condo on top of that.
They still drink bottled water.
That is what most people here do, whatever the building has, and it is worth knowing because it tells you something a specification sheet will not. Treated supply and a filter are good things to have. They do not change the habit, and nobody here treats that as a hardship. It is simply how the kitchen works.
The two brands you will see everywhere are Ciel, which is Coca-Cola’s, and Epura, which is Pepsi’s. Both come in the large jugs as well as in bottles, and between them they are most of what is on the shelf.
And it is a different question from the one on the Bucerías page
That one is about whether a building’s cistern runs out, which is a question about supply. This is about what you put in a glass.
Ask both. A building can be perfectly fine on one and not on the other, and they get confused constantly because both conversations start with the word water.
The water you drink
Most of Charlotte’s spending goes on a Canadian credit card with no foreign transaction fee, which is the single easiest decision on this list if your current card charges one.
She also takes pesos out of local ATMs, because a lot of small businesses, market stalls and food stands still prefer cash. Larger grocery stores, restaurants and pharmacies almost always take cards.
A mix of both is what works, and after the first year it stops being something you think about.
Two things she learned the hard way, both in the first year
Decline the ATM’s offer to convert the currency for you. It will ask whether you want to be charged in Canadian dollars rather than pesos, which sounds helpful and is not. Say no and let your own bank handle the exchange. The rate is usually better.
Tell your bank you are going. Hers flagged her card for suspicious activity after a few purchases in Mexico, which is a tedious thing to sort out from four thousand kilometres away and a thirty second thing to prevent.
Paying for things
Do you need a Mexican bank account?
For most people in their first few seasons, no.
Doug has one. It came with his Mexican residence card, which is one of the practical arguments for getting one, and Charlotte’s card is in process.
But the reason people ask this question is usually about getting at their money, and that turns out not to be the problem they expected. The Canadian banks work well with the Mexican ones, and in all their time here Doug and Charlotte have never had trouble reaching their money through their Canadian accounts.
So a Mexican account is a convenience rather than a requirement, and a residence card is a much larger decision than a banking one.
And residency is a conversation rather than a page
It comes up constantly once somebody is past their second or third season.
What Doug offers there is his own experience rather than advice. He went through it himself, so what he can tell you is why he decided to, what it actually changed, and what he would weigh if he were doing it again. Charlotte’s is in process, so between them they can speak to both ends of it.
That is a different thing from guidance on the process, and at the point where somebody is still deciding whether to bother at all, it is the more useful of the two.
What the process actually involves belongs with people who do immigration for a living, and the requirements change, which is why none of them are written down here. Same reason there are no prices on this site.
Better than most people expect, and this matters more every year as more people arrive still working.
Doug and Charlotte have fibre internet in the condo and it has been more than adequate for video calls, streaming and remote work. Not adequate-for-Mexico. Adequate.
Internet and your phone
The phones
Charlotte and Doug are on a plan with their Canadian carrier, Rogers, that includes calls and texts in Mexico. Plenty of people get a Mexican SIM instead, and either works.
Doug keeps a Canadian cell phone, and that is deliberate rather than habit. Most clients would rather ring a Canadian number than an international one, so there is one for them to ring.
Almost everything else happens on WhatsApp
This is the one nobody tells you, and it is worth sorting out before you land rather than in week two.
Doug and Charlotte use WhatsApp for anyone with a Mexican number, and that turns out to be most people. The doctors. The dentist. Restaurants. And most of the people you will come to know.
It is less a preference here than the default. Somebody will ask for your number and mean your WhatsApp. A restaurant will take a booking on it. A clinic will send your appointment on it.
So download it, set it up on the number you are actually going to use, and do that before you arrive. It is a five minute job at home and an irritating one from a departure lounge.
If you are working while you are here
Have both. Home internet and a mobile data plan as a backup, so that a problem with one is an inconvenience rather than a missed day.
That is ordinary advice anywhere. It is worth following here because you are further from the people who could lend you a desk.
The honest answer is that Doug and Charlotte did not have one for the first few years, and the way they got around changed in stages rather than all at once. That progression is more useful than a yes or a no.
It went like this.
Ubers and taxis to begin with, which they still use for going out to dinner, because it removes the question of parking and the question of driving home.
Then bicycles, which they ride a great deal. Living in El Tigre there are plenty of places where a bike is simply the easiest way to get somewhere, and that is true of a lot of Nuevo Vallarta.
Then Doug bought a scooter, for the local markets and for getting to the beach.
Then a car, eventually.
On buying one here rather than driving one down
They bought a vehicle in Mexico. For them that was simpler than the long drive and the vehicle import questions that come with bringing one from Canada.
That is a decision with paperwork attached either way, and it is worth asking Doug and the in-house lawyer about rather than working it out from a website.
What took adjusting
Traffic is more aggressive than Canadians are used to. There are a great many speed bumps, some of them where you would not expect one. Motorcycles filter through traffic. Pedestrians cross wherever it suits them.
None of that is a reason not to drive here. It is a reason to drive for a week before you decide you hate it, because once you adjust to the local style it is perfectly manageable. Charlotte would make the same decision again.
Whether you need a car
That one has a page of its own, because it is more than a paragraph and because it is the question people search for most.
If a dog is coming with you
Puerto Vallarta is one of the easiest places in Mexico for Canadians and Americans to spend part of the year. Healthcare is accessible, the banking and the internet are straightforward once you have learned how they work, and most people eventually discover they can travel a great deal lighter than they thought.
None of that is why you would choose this bay over another one. It is why, having chosen it, the practical side turns out to take up less of your attention than you expected.
Two links
The short version: living in Puerto Vallarta as a Canadian