Americans moving to Mexico: the role of technology

Recently a researcher on Americans moving to Mexico, a woman who is writing a scholarly book on the subject, contacted me with some questions. Here are my answers to her question about the role of technology in this migration:

As you may have already concluded, technology in the form of the internet, telephone services, ATMs, airlines, medical resources, and likely other things, seems to be a very important part of the migration of many Americans and Canadians to Mexico.

In reverse order:

Especially in the larger cities, Mexico has current medical technology, often at a fraction of the price people would pay up north.

The ease and relatively low cost of flying means that grandchildren and other dear ones can be visited (or come down here). It's under an hour from the GDL airport to anywhere on the north shore of Lake Chapala.

ATMs: Travelers checks, long a mainstay of my foreign travel, are a thing of the past. ATMs are the main way foreigners here get cash, and since Mexico is still very much a cash economy, we need more of it than we might NOB.

Phone services: skype, vonage, and cellphones are widely used here. For example, we have a Verizon plan which has since been discontinued, but existing subscribers continue. Our Colorado phone number means it's a local call for people from our community up north to call us. We call all over the US and Mexico for a flat monthly fee; while there is a limit on the number of minutes, we almost never exceed it. This has been extremely important to us in staying in touch with family and friends, as well as occasional business calls. Just a few minutes ago, I called an American friend of mine who lives a 20-minute drive from here, from my US number to hers, even though we both also have Mexican numbers.

Ah, the internet, now that's really the big important one. We and many others do our banking and manage investments with US banks or firms, all online. We stay in touch via email, with lots of photo sharing. We use the web for information, business, and entertainment. If I didn't have a good internet connection, very simply I wouldn't be here, and many other Americans feel that way.

I sometimes think back to a four-month trip my husband and I took through Mexico and Guatemala in 1979 in a Ford van. We received four pieces of mail from the US in Antigua, Guatemala, and maybe two in Mexico. We talked on the phone with family twice. If things were still like that, living in Mexico would not really be a long term option for me!