I Built My Dream Life In Mexico But Now I'm Leaving Everything Behind — Here's Why
Moving abroad gave me everything I thought I wanted, until I realized the dream I built in Mexico wasn't one I was meant to keep.
lo lindo | Unsplash 15 years ago, I left my own country, the Netherlands. I was never happy there and always knew it was not the right place for me. Since then, I’ve traveled the globe in search of a place to call home.
I have been living abroad for twelve years, traveling to about 50 countries so far. Some touched my soul, and others made me want to leave as soon as possible.
There was one country that pulled me in like no other: Mexico.
Jose Luis Carrascosa / Shutterstock
To be honest, I didn’t even plan to go there. Due to one of my sailboat crew adventures, I had ended up in Guatemala, and I thought I’d just hop into Mexico to quickly check it out. I even told the immigration officer I only needed a one-month visa. He laughed at me and stamped my passport for 6 months.
It’s been five years now, and my tourist visa turned into a Temporary Residency, soon to be a Permanent Resident. If you had told me back then in 2019, when crossing the Mexican border, I was about to find my home in a tiny desert town, I would have laughed at you.
But here I am, five years later, writing from a dusty beach town that I found in the Baja California desert: La Ventana. Actually, I didn’t find it — it found me.
The perfect place
Here’s a confession: long-term travelers don’t just like to travel. They are addicted to moving on — never truly finding a place good enough to settle down. Call it an adventurous spirit … or perhaps having attachment issues.
Of course, I didn’t recognize that in myself, and I was always on the hunt for my perfect place. In my mind, that perfect place looked like a lush jungle environment with the ocean to surf nearby, and an endless (mild) summer with fresh food and cheap prices.
So when I got offered a job in an ocean resort in the desert of the Baja California peninsula, for sure, I wasn’t going to build my life there. Here, the winters are cold and windy, and the summers are extremely dry and hot. Nothing like the perfect tropical place I had in mind.
But when I got here, something peaceful settled in me. The turquoise waters, the endless views of the horizon scattered with cacti — it was special.
There were only dirt roads and one little grocery store. No typical Mexican culture, no architecture or temples, nothing colorful — just desert and ocean. And there was kitesurfing. Lots of it.
The winter not only pulled the wind into the bay, but also the Americans and Canadians looking for their escape. The coast was lined up with motorhomes and trailers, and the sky filled up with kites in all shapes and sizes.
I initially came to work at that resort for the scuba diving, but I soon got hooked on flying high in the air with my kite. Could this be my place after all?
Paradise or prison
The Covid-19 pandemic hit two months after my arrival, at about the same time I was planning to move on. It forced me to stay put, locked inside our one-street town where I got stuck with the rest of the seasonal visitors. None of us is eager to return to our COVID-locked countries.
At first, I was angry. How dare they take my freedom away? My traveler spirit was aching — I had to keep going! But I soon realized that I was actually very fortunate to be stuck in paradise.
We were lucky. We could still go kiting, the town slowed down, and everybody got to know each other. We had late-night BBQs in each other's million-dollar houses, as many Americans had fled their beachfront villas and asked us to take care of their homes.
Living the dream
We skinny-dipped in the warm waters under the starry nights. We camped at waterfalls and surfed the waves on the Pacific side of the peninsula (La Ventana is located on the Sea of Cortez side, and doesn’t typically have waves).
It was surreal. I spent about 100 dollars per month while living in a beautiful mansion. I drove my scooter around — my skin scorched by the harsh sun, and ate street tacos for $3.00.
Here, lockdowns didn’t really exist, and we danced the nights away in the desert heat — flying our kites in the blueest ocean I’d ever seen. It was the best summer of my life.
After that first year, I knew it: this is my home. This place had everything I was unknowingly looking for. In the winter, I could kite while the town came to life with all the wind-addicted visitors. And in the summer, scuba diving and mountain biking were prime when everything else slowed down.
I acquired a piece of bare desert land for a good price — it was still a pandemic year after all — and bought an old RV. The next summer, I spent renovating it, slowly building my dream home. I fenced my property, installed a septic and water tank, and bought solar panels to live fully off-grid.
When winter came again, I was ready to move in. I had no neighbors and no noise. And I was in pure bliss.
I had some online projects to make a bit of money and spent almost all my afternoons flying my kites or biking the trails. All my pandemic friends were still here as well, and most of us bought land, too.
Things are changing
But by the fourth year, I started getting this feeling to move on again. I pushed it away, blaming it on my ‘running away’ tendencies. La Ventana had transformed me in those past years.
I had gone through a tough heartbreak, stopped drinking and partying, and lost many friends who were on different journeys. I had started meditating and doing yoga, and took various plant medicines to heal my stuff.
Even though I had built my dream life, it was a tough ride. Places like these tend to attract certain people for a reason. We all came with baggage. Some chose to solve their issues, while others sank even deeper.
I am convinced this area is a vortex. Almost everybody I know here initially came for just a few weeks and never left. It pulls you in when you need to find yourself. But you need to work for it. That’s what vortex places do to you.
Time to move on
Last summer, my motorhome was broken into. Most of my stuff — all my hours of blood, sweat, and tears — were gone. My camper was the first home I had ever created for myself, and the feeling of some strangers entering my personal space to take everything they please is extremely unsettling.
I was in Asia when it happened, and it made everything clear: I was pushed out of my dream life. Last year, I didn’t listen to the quiet nudges that I had to move on from here. I had now done my healing work, found myself in ways I never expected, and La Ventana started to feel less like home.
But I didn’t want to fall back into my old patterns of constantly moving, so I forced myself to stay. After all, I did truly want to settle down.
But the robbery was a harsh reminder that everything is temporary and attachments don’t serve us. It’s one of the many profound lessons I’ve learned here — just surrender to what you cannot control. Which is basically life in general.
I am writing this article during the last weeks of my time here. My RV is now sold, my bags are packed, and I am ready to say goodbye to the five most transformative years of my life.
Some say I am running away again. But I know better. I learned to let go of my attachments — and that’s when you can see life for what it really is: a journey in itself, constantly changing.
I used to use traveling as an escape. But this time, I am moving toward my destiny. It’s never too late to make the switch.
I am 37 years old, and I am once again turning my whole life around. And I couldn’t be more ready for it.
Yvette van den Brand is an international writer focused on personal growth, mindfulness, and spirituality. Her travels around the world and diverse cultural experiences deeply inform her spiritual practice, which she integrates into her daily life and articles.
