The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023 Recap

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And just like that, the second to last month of 2023 is over. Let’s see what I got up to!

I Went To NYC

The reason for my trip to NYC was a bit random. I knew that I would be flying into NYC after leaving New Zealand and I wanted a non-stop flight to Puerto Vallarta after that, so I planned to fly out of NYC for that trip as well.

I was originally going to do that the same day I arrived from New Zealand and then realized – why am I rushing? I don’t have a job to get back to. I can take my time. I also assumed I would be jetlagged to hell and would need the time to recover so I could later properly enjoy México.

So I stayed in NYC for a week and had a wonderful time! As you’ll see in the Hang Out and Blog sections below, I met up with a bunch of readers and old friends. It was a wonderful pitstop and I’m definitely going to incorporate more time in NYC going forward.

However, one thing that made my trip less enjoyable was that after wearing a jacket in chilly New Zealand, I expected to continue the fall party in NYC, but nope! When I arrived they were experiencing a 90F heat wave. Weird.

I Moved To Puerto Vallarta!

That NYC heat wave ended up preparing me for the weather in Puerto Vallarta, México which I appreciated. I’d visited PVR before in October 2019, but I mostly stayed in our pool 🙂 .

This time I’m living here like a local, which is obviously a very different experience to a vacation. I think I’m getting used to the heat though and I’m enjoying running while the sun rises over the mountains that surround this beautiful beach town. A gorgeous view helps make a lot of things better.

Anyway, I created a very challenging schedule for myself during this month in Puerto Vallarta. It went something like this:

7am Run
8am Breakfast with my Partner
9am Write
10am Birdwatch
11am Pooltime
12pm Lunch with my Partner
1pm Nap
2pm Explore The City
5pm Dinner with my Partner and/or Friends
7pm Read
10pm Bed

As you can see, I’ve got a lot going on 😉 .I’m obviously kidding, but I did really enjoy being able to plan my days around the sun and the beach waves while eating well, exploring a new city and still having time to expand my mind by reading my face off and setting new physical personal records.

We were also there during Día De Muertos (Day Of The Dead), which was on November 2nd in PVR. It was very cool to see how the whole city transformed to celebrate their loved ones.

I Learned Spanish

Once again I’m living in a Spanish speaking country and compared to my last one, (Argentina) I can see how much I’ve improved with my Spanish learning, which is awesome. As I mentioned, we’re living with locals and away from the tourist area so I’m mostly speaking Spanish while out and about, which is great for my practice. When we go to most restaurants, grocery stores and pharmacies, it’s all Spanish all the time and I love it 🙂 .

Luckily these interactions are no longer difficult or nerve wracking like they were when I first started learning the language. I’m more comfortable and confident in my abilities and can hear, understand and respond to what someone is saying before my brain even registers it – just like I do with quick interactions in English!

I was also reading a book that had Spanish in it without translations and I had no trouble reading it. And when the radio plays a Mexican station in a ride share for example and they’re speaking wildly fast, I still understand them instead of the language sounding like music like it did when I went to Mérida, México last year after having never studied Spanish before. Basically I’m just in awe of what I’ve accomplished and how I continue to improve. I thought I was bad at languages, but it turns out that I was just not being taught in a way that worked me for. Immersion for the win!

As for other ways I’ve been practicing, I’m once again texting my Mom in Spanish most of the time and a friend of mine who learned English and Spanish growing up, randomly started speaking Spanish in our ongoing text chain, which I was surprised by since it was unprompted, but I appreciated. She later said that my Spanish had improved a lot since the last time she saw me, which I take as a high compliment 🙂 .

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as a weekly Spanish call with my Mom, bi-weekly call with a former colleague and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

  1. White Lotus S1
  2. Brooklyn 99 S1-S8
  3. Quiz Lady
  4. Nothing To Hide

I also hung out with two college friends, one of whom I hadn’t seen in almost a decade so it was great to catch up. We also ran into people we knew on the streets of NYC, which was wild and random given the population of that city.

I Played Video Games

I accidentally played a fair amount of video games this month 🙂 . My interest in games seems to seriously ebb and flow. I don’t play any for months and then suddenly I’m playing 10 hours a day. I am bad at moderation 🙂 .

Anyway, my partner and I played Return Of The Obra Dinn, which we LOVED. It’s a gorgeous, scary and fascinating game. I love the premise, art and music and I wish I could play it again for the first time.

I also tried Subnautica, which might not be for me because it doesn’t seem to be built in a way that’s intuitive to me and I just found it stressful and frustrating, but I think I’ll give it another try before giving up completely 🙂 . I also of course played my old favs Cities Skylines and The Sims since I ‘accidentally’ bought a new pack for The Sims that was 60% off for Cyber Monday 🙂 . It was a great month for gaming 🙂 .

I Read 25 Books

This month I read:

  1. The Body: A Guide For Occupants by Bill Bryson
  2. The Tragedy Of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward
  3. Game Changers by Rachel Reid
  4. Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
  5. Tough Guy by Rachel Reid
  6. Common Goal by Rachel Reid
  7. Role Model by Rachel Reid
  8. The Long Game by Rachel Reid
  9. Time To Shine by Rachel Reid
  10. Whispers In The Dark by Lily Mayne
  11. The Duchess Effect by Tracey Livesay
  12. Forget Me Not By Julie Soto
  13. Mane Of My Existence by Rhea Fox
  14. Ache by Marley Valentine
  15. Until I Saw You by Dianna Roman
  16. In The Eye Of The Beholder by Dianna Roman
  17. The Fating by Dianna Roman
  18. Real Gold by Deven Balsam
  19. End Scene by Nicky James
  20. King Of Cups by Phoebe Woods
  21. Meg by Steve Alten
  22. A Charmed Christmas by Alison Cochrun
  23. Home by Martha Wells
  24. My Roommate Is A Vampire by Jenna Levine
  25. Teighan by Eryn Hawk

And once again, I’m in love 🙂 . Rachel Reid’s Game Changers Series hooked me so of course, I had to immediately read all of them as well as a new book of hers that just came out that I got from the library. The amazing recommendations of new authors in 2023 has continued! If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

  1. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023 Recap
  2. Review: Singapore Air First Class Suites – A $4,280 Apartment In The Sky For $26
  3. I Recorded What I Did Every Hour For 3 Years Of Retirement: Here’s What Retirees Do All Day!
  4. Medical Tourism: A $38 Dental Cleaning In Puerto Vallarta, México

Outside of those posts, I was able to hang out with y’all in the real world! I metup with 4 readers for individual coffee dates while I was in NYC  and it was so fun! Thank you so much to those of you that reached out asking to hang out when you saw I would be in your area. Meeting so many of you this year has definitely been a highlight of 2023.

In blog news, I found out how to add a “Like” button to my posts at the recommendation of a reader when I was discussing the decline in comments around here. I’m going to try my best to not just use the Like button as another metric of outside validation and instead focus on writing because I love to do it 🙂 .

This month another reader asked me if I offer financial coaching for a fee, which I don’t, but I was honored to be asked 🙂 . And this month in “people who want to pay me to do strange things:” a company offered me $500 to add a link to my site advertising their Life insurance for parents…I don’t think I need to point out why that’s strange 🙂 (Hint: No, I’m Never Having Kids.)

Then another company wanted me to join a platform where I answer questions for a fee. Is this a new trend? I’ve been getting contacted every month by several companies with this model lately. All different companies with seemingly identical business models. I’m gonna continue answering questions for free online so I’m good 🙂 .

Physical

Sleep

After the silence of Queenstown, New Zealand I was not ready for a real city again – you would think NYC would have helped acclimate me, but sadly no. So moving to busy Puerto Vallarta led me to use my beloved Slim Fit Ear Plugs for my small ears 🙂 .

Using those led me to awesome sleep all month with maybe 2 nights where I had trouble sleeping. And I couldn’t figure out why. This usually happens on a full moon (no I’m not a werewolf 😉 …,), but it was a New Moon instead so I have no idea. Anyway, great sleep 94% of this month is still awesome.

Food

I have a new approach to my eating plan! I documented this in the below post, but the TL;DR is that I used to only eat keto when I was visiting places I’ve been (and explored before). However, this year showed me that plan might not work so well since we were constantly going to new places, so I was very rarely eating healthy.

So now in Year 4, I have a new approach! I’m going to eat keto and calorie count in countries where that is easy, such as México and Costa Rica and take specific days off to explore the local food scenes. This was the first month of this experiment and it’s going really well so far! I get to still enjoy local delicacies in all their glory and the rest of the time eat keto and follow my body’s preferred eating plan.

I wasn’t sure that it would work at first since it can take a body days to a week to get back into ketosis, but I seem to get back to normal in less than 24 hours. I guess all that practice the last few years is paying off 😉 . I was also worried that this would feel limiting since one of the ways I love exploring a new location is through their food, but at least in México it’s been easy to try local food and stay keto.

I often just don’t eat the tortilla on a taco for example or order my coffee with almond milk (leche de almendras 😉 ) and it’s not a big deal. I doubt I’d feel that way if I didn’t speak the local language, but in these locations it’s been easy and I’ve felt less bloated and tired than I have been when I was eating carbs all the time.

The other change I made was around exercise calories. I’ll talk about my new running regime in the next section, but I used to not eat back any running calories I burned. However, after 2 weeks I had several days in a row where I was constantly hungry, which is not at all normal for me while eating keto.

I usually have to force myself to eat more to hit my protein goals so I can build muscle. So that was a red flag for me and as a result, I’ve started eating some of my running calories back IF I’m hungry. And so far that’s been working well. I guess all that extra exercise caught up with me 😉 .

Exercise

Another goal for Year 4 of retirement was to increase my running distance and keep making new PRs. So when we arrived in México, despite the heat and humidity, I became hardcore about adhering to my 3x a week running goal and at the same time increasing my distance substantially.

I increased my usual distance 50% and then 100% with the goal of doing 2x my normal run distance 3x a week. And I’m doing exactly that! My partner and I have been getting up early and running before the heat and humidity get particularly bad, which has been very helpful.

I hate getting up early, but having a buddy and knowing that my run would be miserable if I waited until my usual time in the afternoon, helps get me out of bed. The afternoon naps after pool time help too 😉 .

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Puerto Vallarta, México

  • There are 556,096 people living in Puerto Vallarta and about 40,000 of them are US expats
  • México is officially called The United Mexican States
  • There are about 129 million people in México (a little more than 1/2 of the number of people in the US)
  • The US is about 5x bigger than México:

  • As of October 2022 México no longer adheres to Daylight Savings Time. Genius!
  • Día De Muertos now happens from November 1-2 each year started in ancient Mesoamerica (which was where Mexico and northern Central America is today) with indigenous groups, such as Aztec, Mayans and Toltec. It was created to commemorate loved ones who had died. After the Spanish started colonizing the area, this celebration became intertwined with two Spanish holidays: All Saints Day (November 1) and All Soul’s Day (November 2).

Astronomy

My exploration of the stars took a strange turn this month when I visited NYC. I was walking home and a man randomly had a large telescope standing on a garbage can and asked if I wanted to look into it. He had it set to look at the full moon and it was gorgeous – the telescope was as good as the one I used at the Auckland Planetarium last month. So kind and impressive!

So obviously the full moon was gorgeous. I also had a great time watching the sun set over NYC while the full moon rose and it went from bright red to white as it moved across the sky.

When I arrived in México I was happy to see some very pretty sunrises, which almost made it feel good to get up early and run before the heat got too bad. I’ve also been watching the sunset from our Airbnb every day. It’s been a lovely routine.

In other news, I discovered some fun astronomy facts this month:

  • Pluto is only about half the width of the United States. So small!
  • A day on Venus is longer than a year….think about that for a second 😉
  • Sunsets on Mars are blue

Birds

Birdwatching this month was wonderfully out of control! I saw so many cool birds including a bucket list item for me: seeing Blue Footed Boobies! I didn’t know this before now, but their feet are blue because of the nutrients in their diet so brighter feet mean a healthier bird! It was wild to snorkel up to a rock they were living on and then hang out next to them in a boat. Life complete 😉 .

Photo by Bjarn Bronsveld on Unsplash

Outside of that, I saw a lot of other cool birds, such as:

Great Tailed Grackle, Pale-billed woodpecker, Tropical Kingbird, Great Kiskadee, White-Winged dove, Lark Sparrow, West Mexican Chachalaca (which I thought was a different kind of chicken originally), Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Western Cattle Egret, American White Pelican, Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird, Black-Necked Stilt, Neotropic Cormorant, Denebola, Laughing Gull, Boat-Billed Flycatcher, Military Macaw, Magnificent Frigatebird, Great Egret, Turkey Vultures

Here are some standouts:

Magnificent Frigatebird
Black-Necked Stilt
Military Macaw

Fauna

Seeing animals was also awesome this month. There were giant Green Iguanas that liked to hang out on a roof across from one of our balconies, Fruit Bats under the arches at Los Arcos National Marine Park and so many tropical fish we saw while snorkeling there, such as:

Parrotfish, King Angelfish, Yellowfin Surgeonfish, Razor Surgeonfish, Gafftopsail Pompano, Blacknosed Butterflyfish, Cortez Angelfish, Temperate Scad, Giant Damselfish, Guineafowl Puffer, Brassy Drummer, Acapulco Major, Panamic Sergeant Major, Bottlenose Dolphins

Flora

Puerto Vallarta is such a green city. I totally forgot it’s surrounded by lush green mountains and there is greenery and flowers everywhere. I went wild trying to identify everything and instead ended up discovering:

Crown-Of-Thorns, Coral Vine, Yellow Cosmos, Cypress Vine, Scarlet Creeper, Littlebell, Violettas, Peacock Flower, Beach Morning Glory, Japanese Morning Glory

Random

  • Coriander and Cilantro are from the same plant. Cilantro is the name of the leaves and coriander is the stems
  • Koalas have too opposable thumbs on each hand…Creatures on this Earth are so weird 🙂
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Creativity

My creativity was going well this month! I’ve been cranking out posts after struggling to incorporate writing time into my fast travel schedule last month. I’m happy to once again be slow traveling and have time to think and write again. Now I need to focus on the millions of places I want to review on Insta because like always I’m way behind on that 🙂 .

Emotional

My emotions were really good this month! I think daily pool time, beach exploration, running and sunshine have been great for my mood 🙂 .

Money

This month I discovered I’ve been using foreign ATMs wrong – oops. Luckily I rarely use cash so this hasn’t costs me hundreds of dollars or anything, but it definitely would have so I’m glad I caught it now:

As for my spending, getting prescriptions and dental care in México continues to be a lovely medical tourism hack:

There’s one month left in 2023 and it looks like I’m going to go slightly over my $22,700 budget for the year. I’m not surprised by this given all the wild times I’ve had and the intentional choice to spend a lot of time in high cost of living areas in 2023, but I’m already working on evening that out by being in México and spending the first quarter of 2024 in Costa Rica. I’m also not concerned because I was under-budget 20% last year. It’ll all even out 🙂 .

Net worth wise the market has been rocketing up. I’m curious what December will bring:

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in November! It’s been wonderful to lounge on the beach during months that are usually wet, dark and dreary back home. This might be a trend I need to keep up 🙂 . However, in a few weeks I’ll be trading in my flip flops to fly back to the northeast US to see family for Christmas. The temperature shock may turn me into a popsicle – we shall see 🙂 . Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

  1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
  2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
  3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
  4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
  5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
  6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
  7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
  8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
  9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
  10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
  11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
  12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

  1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
  2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
  3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

  1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
  3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
  4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
  5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
  6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
  7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
  8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
  9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
  10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
  11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
  12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

  1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap
  2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023 Recap
  3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023 Recap
  4. The Month Of California: April 2023 Recap
  5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023 Recap
  6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023 Recap
  7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023 Recap
  8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023 Recap
  9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023 Recap
  10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?

17 thoughts on “The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023 Recap

  1. Puerto Vallarta looks and sounds wonderful; the perfect remedy for the dark and drizzly winter in the northern hemisphere 🙂 well done you on keeping up Spanish. It’s very easy to lose proficiency in a language if you don’t use it consistently.

    I didn’t know that tip about the ATMs! Thank you for sharing it. I’ve managed to avoid withdrawing cash from foreign ATMs for years but I’ll be travelling next year and can imagine scenarios where I’ll need to do this. I’ll keep this in mind.

    1. Yeah I love it here 🙂 . And grabbing some sun in the darker days of fall has really helped my mood. Thanks for the Spanish encouragement! It’s definitely easier to keep up if I have to speak it every day here haha. I was slacking on my solitary practice before we got here so it was a good challenge to add back into my life.

      So happy I could help spread that ATM knowledge! Safe travels.

  2. Thanks for posting as per usual, love reading this first thing on a Tuesday morning in bed. I’m still shocked that you get so much life and experiences on the amount that you spend…

    Also, thinking back, you’re probably the reason I got into birding and it’s something I got my dad into which has been great since we don’t share a lot of common hobbies so thank you. Maybe I’ll get into plants in the future lol

    1. Thank you for reading 🙂 . I’m so happy to hear that! And yeah – my main hobbies of reading library books, walking on beaches and lounging in pools are all free lol.

      Oh wow – that’s so cool about birding!!! It’s great to find common hobbies. I don’t love plants as much as birds, but I do find them quite interesting – especially learning to recognize unique plants in different parts of the world. It’s a fun IRL Pokémon game.

    1. It’s at the end of the post after the “Share” section and before the “Related” articles section. I have no idea how to make it more prominent or move it lol. I am sadly far from a programmer and have no idea about these things. I was proud of myself for just figuring out how to add it 😉 .

      And yeah I’m enjoying myself 🙂 . Thanks for reading!

  3. Hi! I’d love to know how you compare Puerto Vallarta to Mérida. My partner and I are finalizing plans for our 13 week “sabbatical” in México next Feb-May! Our plans have shifted – we’re now spending only the first 6 weeks in Mérida (I was worried about the heat in April), then going to oaxaca for 6 weeks and mexico city for a week. I’m considering adding a trip to Puerto Escondido or somewhere else on the Oaxaca coast for a long weekend (I know this is far from Puerto Vallarta, but the same ocean!). How did the Pacific coast of Mexico compare to the Yucatán?

    Also, as we figure out our packing lists, I’m curious if you have a list of all the clothes you own and take with you. I think you’ve written about nomad items you love but not necessarily the key articles of clothing. Would love to know!

    1. Hi – That’s super cool!!

      I think they’re very different in great ways 🙂 . Mérida felt like a small town surrounded by a gorgeous jungle with its local markets, quiet streets and nearby cenotes and Mayan ruins. Puerto Vallarta feels like a city on the beach. It has a lot more going on, bigger grocery stores, malls etc. and has a lot of tourists while they were rare when I lived in Mérida. I’ve very much enjoyed both places, but they have very different vibes. I haven’t been to the Oaxaca coast yet, but I suspect that anywhere also on the Pacific would have similar gorgeous beaches and abundant wildlife like PVR.

      I’ve made lists about the clothes I own, but I think it was when I first retired and it’s evolved. I don’t have a list of all the clothes I currently own unfortunately (a post about it has been on my list for a while and I’ve been too lazy to do it 🙂 ), but I can tell you everything I wore in the last week if that’s helpful:
      – 3 sundresses
      – 4 flowy t-shirts
      – 1 pair of short leggings
      – 1 pair of shorts
      – flip flops
      – 4 pairs of regular socks
      – sneakers
      – pjs
      – bombas slippers
      Running stuff (I’m separating this in case it doesn’t apply):
      – 3 racerback workout tops
      – 1 pair of running leggings
      – 3 pairs of running socks

      Basically I pick light fabric items that keep me cool and hide the inevitable bucket of sweat I will produce 🙂 . Good call avoiding Mérida in April by the way. It wasn’t my smartest choice to be there last April weather-wise. Safe travels! I hope y’all have a fantastic time.

  4. Sounds like a blast! I really enjoyed PV back in January. I couldn’t believe how cheap Uber was and even some of the restaurants once you walked a few blocks away from the beach. Some of those hills are steep! How long will you be in PV for?

  5. It was great to meet you in NYC! Thanks for taking the time out of your glamorous, jet-setting life. I do like Christmas stuff, but skipping the winter to sit on a beach and eat tacos sounds like an amazing plan.

    It’s funny that companies keep offering to pay you for coaching or to answer questions. It’s very “Office Space” – like, the less you need to work, the more people want to pay you to work for them. Mrs. Frugalwoods got some criticism for launching a (super-pricey) financial consulting business, but if it was a similar situation where people were persistently offering to pay for advice, I can see how someone might decide to take them up on it.

    1. Of course! Thanks so much again for the hangout 🙂 . I’m a bit of a Grinch about Christmas lol, but I’ll be getting the best of both worlds I think – chilling on the beach and then sliding back to the US right in time for family hangouts around a Christmas tree 😉 .

      It is indeed very Office Space. No shade to anyone who wants to provide financial services in an ethical way since the world does seem to be lacking in that, but yeah – that kind of thing is not how I want to spend my time currently 🙂 . I’m also just happy doing that kind of stuff without a paywall by answering questions here and on my socials, but I totally understand people wanting to be paid for their time.

  6. I love reading your posts! Thanks for sharing so much detail about your spending, dining, socializing, etc. We get to live and travel vicariously through you! Already looking forward to your next post.

    1. I’m so glad you’re enjoying them!…especially my possibly silly level of detail 🙂 . Thank you for reading!

  7. The beautiful thing about focusing on FI is you actually find out how much you enjoy hobbies that are free or low cost, like the library, reading, cycling, hanging out at the park. It’s not forced, it’s just grounding and you become more grateful for the simple things.

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