The Month Of México: January 2026 Recap

Damn Time – can you slow down for a hot second 🙂 ? I’d appreciate it.

Somehow the first month of 2026 is over before I’ve gotten used to writing 2026. I spent the month living up to my new Snowbird status and heading to the sunny beaches of México and escaping the snowstorms of the northeast US. 

I’m currently writing this while watching dolphins frolic off the coast of La Paz in Baja California Sur. I think snowbirds might be on to something 😉 . So let’s see what I got up to in January!

I Went To México🇲🇽!

After experiencing several snow storms in Upstate NY, I headed to México this month! I explored two new-to-me Mexican states (Oaxaca and Baja California Sur) as well as México City, which apparently technically isn’t in a state like Washington DC. 

My Mom and cousin joined me in exploring Oaxaca and my Partner joined for CDMX and Baja. Originally this plan had the main goals of enjoying the beaches in these states and swimming with Whale Sharks in La Paz. 

Unfortunately, that second plan didn’t happen 🙂 . When we arrived in La Paz we saw that the day we had booked our Whale Shark tour was the only day with rain – and it was torrential rain. 

We reached out to see if we could change the date and were able to, but then on the day of our rebooked tour…it was cancelled 🙂 . The port was actually closed because of high winds and that was our last day in La Paz so we didn’t have another chance. 

And to add insult to injury, the day that looked like torrential rain was actually sunny and rain free (all the rain happened the night before). So maybe we should have just kept our original date. Lesson learned!

Anyway, in general I try not to go anywhere with only one main goal in mind so I still had a wonderful time exploring these new-to-me states, walking along the beach and enjoying the local cuisines. However, this obviously was a much faster travel schedule than my usual “stay in one city for at least a month” slow travel ways and it definitely took a toll on me.

I was tired by the end of it and needed some serious rest days. I know – woe is me, traveling around sunny México 😉 , but it’s a good reminder to make sure I build a fair bit of rest days into these kind of fast travel plans going forward. 

I Studied & Practiced Spanish

Before I left for México I started listening to the Spanish audiobook of Project Hail Mary (called Proyecto Hail Mary) and I was pleasantly surprised that I understood most of it – even the scientific language! It seemed like I didn’t lose as much of my understanding of Spanish despite my lack of practice, which was great to see!

• From 0% to Fluent: How I Learned Spanish in 1 Year

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Then once I arrived in México I was speaking and listening to Spanish non-stop and I was so excited to see that I can still understand and speak in real life situations as well! Those immersion classes continue to pay serious dividends 🙂 .

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I Knitted

On a related note, I’ve previously tried listening to audiobooks in English while knitting and didn’t find it fun. But I guess my ears just needed a little more of a challenge because listening to an audiobook in Spanish while knitting was the perfect amount of engagement! So I’m going to keep it up 🙂 .

I’ve been knitting the back piece of my Knives Out inspired Saven Sweater (shown above), and since going to México I’ve been working on the second sleeve. Also here’s my Ravelry account in case you want to be knitting friends 🙂 . 

This month I also helped to teach my MIL how to knit along with my knitting SILs and heard two very different wants to describe how to knit:

1. Stab it, strangle it, scoop out its guts and throw it off a cliff!
2. Take the bunny through the hole, wrap a scarf around him, and take him out of the the hole without losing his scarf

Can you guess which one is my favorite? Stab it indeed🤣.

As a part of my new knitting hobby, I now have a new step before traveling to another country: looking up a specific airline and country’s policy on knitting needles! So this month I learned that México is one of a handful of countries that don’t allow any type of knitting needles in carry-on bags, so I only wanted to bring one pair of needles in case they were confiscated. 

According to this Reddit discussion, people have even had small bamboo needles found and taken so I didn’t want to risk bringing multiple pairs of needles. I wasn’t sure if we were going to check any bags and wanted to be safe just in case. 

I Played Video Games

My goal to expand my video game knowledge this year is going well! I played two new-to-me games this month. 

The first was Foundation, which I bought for 33% off after watching one of my GameTubers play it in the video below. And I had a good time starting my new city, but I have a ways to go 🙂 . 

The second game I played with my Partner! It’s called The Roottrees Are Dead and it’s a detective game with great music and vibes. I actually mentioned that we were playing it to a friend and she played it in one 8 hour sitting – damn!

I had a great time doing this investigation with my Partner, but personally Return Of The Obra Dinn is still my favorite detective game like this followed by Gone Home and then Tacoma by the same studio.

• The Best Video Games I Played In 2023

We Cancelled Our WA Voting Registration

I didn’t realize this was necessary, but my Partner discovered that we needed to mail a printed form to cancel our voting registration in Washington State. I thought I just had to change residency, start voting in another state and not vote in the previous one, but I guess not!

So we had to print a form (literally who has a printer these days), find an envelope (where?) and a stamp (I hope you feel our pain…) and mail a form to Washington saying we’re cancelling. So we did that and no longer have ties to WA State…for now 😉 .

I Hung Out With People

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

Movies

1. Weapons
2. The Naked Gun (2025)
3. Dante’s Peak
4. People We Meet On Vacation
5. The Rip
6. Top Gun: Maverick
7. The Lego Batman Movie
8. Ballerina

TV Shows

1. Heated Rivalry (S1)
2. Pluribus (S1)
3. High Potential (S2)
4. Taskmaster (S15)
5. Stumble (S1)
6. Wild Card Kitchen (S3)

I also had some fun experiences with friends and family, which included:

• Daily Morning Coffee Time with my MIL and SILs
• Weekly Family Dinner
• Lunch with college friend
• A Movie Night with my SILs
• Several Knitting Hangouts
• Hanging with my Cousin in Oaxaca
• Obviously visiting México with my Mom

I Read 10 Books

Here were my favorite reads this month:

1. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
2. Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
3. The Long Game by Rachel Reid

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here. The first book above was a new read for me, but the other two were my 5th re-reads of those books (I usually re-read most of the Game Changers Series twice a year because they’re just that good).

I’ll probably re-read at least these two again before Shane and Ilya’s 3rd book (Unrivaled by Rachel Reid) comes out in September. I of course pre-ordered it the day it was announced 😉 . I ordered it from Bookshop to try and help support local bookstores.  

I Wrote 4 Posts

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

1. The Month Of Festive Cheer: December 2025 Recap
2. MY PARTNER RETIRED!!!
3. The Best Video Games I Played In 2025
4. Review: Dashing Diva Glaze Semi-Cured Gel Nail Strips

I’m still recovering from PurpleMas (it was way harder than I remember lol). It might have taken more out of me than in previous years because my posts keep accidentally getting longer and longer. I keep intending to write less ridiculously long posts and then…that somehow doesn’t happen. Oh well.

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I just need to keep actively trying to build time in my busy 😉 schedule to write, especially when I’m traveling quickly like this month and time can get away from me. However, I did it! I still posted every Tuesday this month so I’m going to focus on that win. 

And this month in the realm of “weird opportunities I declined/ignored” we have:

• An investment platform
• An influencer platform
• A house selling website that wanted me to write about the financial benefits of homeownership (…but I think owning a home is often a bad financial decision so that’s not going to work out 🙂 ).
• An AI money manager (*vomit*)

Physical

Sleep

My sleep was pretty good this month! I kept awakening with the sun, which I prefer since the sun was going down at 4pm in the northeast before I flew south. I didn’t want to miss a minute of that light. 

Once I was in México, I found myself still awakening with the sun, but that was because the sunrises were gorgeous and at least when we were in Oaxaca, that was some of the best times to spot whales (which we did!) I also started getting back into naps this month after all that fast traveling, which has been lovely 🙂 .  

Food

Eating this month was phenomenal 🙂 . On an unrelated note 😉 , I ate keto 35% of the time and took 20 days off keto. I took most of the month off cooking, carb counting and meal planning so I could fully experience all the new cuisines I was encountering and that was definitely a great choice. However like usual, I am excited to get back into all of that next month since I always feel way better when I’m eating keto. 

Exercise

My exercise routine this month was on point before I started traveling! I was still heavy lifting 3x a week and making new gains almost every time. I love the feeling of getting stronger and it has had additional benefits of continuing to strengthen my knee/hip/back and help get rid of the pain that I had after I injured myself running too much. 

I miss our squat rack 🙂 . But while traveling I’m trying not to lose my gains by continuing to hit my protein goals when I’m eating keto and doing pilates and body weight squats as well as going on hikes and walking all over México. Next month I might add things like planks and push ups. TBD. 

Mental

Learning

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

México

• Oaxaca is a state in México, it’s pronounced “Wahaca” and it’s about the size of Maine
• Baja California Sur is another state in México that is under the US state of California and is about the size of the Czech Republic
• My first night in México City my phone alerted me at 1am to a “sismo severo” (aka a severe earthquake). A 4.9 magnitude earthquake hit the city during the night and it led me to wonder how frequent earthquakes are in México and it turns out: very frequent 🙂 . In fact, México was the country with the most earthquakes in 2024
  • This led me to look at websites that track earthquakes and saw that it appears México experienced 121 earthquakes in the last 30 days
• On a similar natural disaster note, when flying from México City to Oaxaca, I was looking out the window as I usually do and thought, “Is that…AN ACTIVE VOLCANO?!?!” I checked after we landed and yes…yes it is. It’s called Popocatépetl and it’s been erupting since 2024. I had no idea a plane could fly near an active volcano – good to know! 

Astronomy

My stargazing this month was pretty amazing. I loved looking out at the sky filled with stars in Oaxaca and La Paz. In that darkness I also saw a cruise ship all lit up at night, out on the ocean against the black sky, which looked really cool. I also enjoyed that the Full Moon was so bright I had to put on my eyemask to sleep 🙂 . 

Birds

International birding is back! I always love seeing new-to-me birds in new countries and cities and this month didn’t disappoint. Here are the birds I saw by location:

Oaxaca 

Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Great Kiskadee, Brown Pelican, Orange Breasted Bunting, Inca Dove, Red-Billed Tropicbird, Magnificent Frigatebird, Great Tailed Grackle

Baja California Sur

Monk Parakeet (cute, colorful and loud motherfuckers🤣), Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird, Yellow-Footed Gull, Snowy Egret, Laughing Gull, Common Ground Dove, Royal Tern, Caspian Tern, Neotropic Cormorant, Brandt’s Cormorant , American White Pelican, Spotted Sandpiper , Gila Woodpecker , Northern Mockingbird, White-Winged Dove, Turkey Vulture, Hooded Oriole

Fauna

In addition to the birds above, I also got to see Humpback Whales (and a baby!!!) in Oaxaca and Long-Beaked Dolphins in La Paz. It’s always so wild to just be chilling on the beach and see gorgeous wild animals going about their lives. This city girl forgets what that’s like sometimes 🙂 . 

Creativity

As I mentioned above, I’m still a little burned out from PurpleMas, but I’m working on it by resting as much as I want. I’m still excited to write a lot of posts this year and continue learning and exploring this world of ours, but in the mean time: Naps are key 🙂 . 

Emotional

My emotions this month were overall good, but I did have a depressive episode. It was already happening and then I got a series of bad news, which didn’t help things. However, during that time I kept telling myself that those feelings would pass like they always do, and they did so that’s good 🙂 .

Otherwise I was surprised with how good my emotions were given how dark and cold the northeast was, but I made it through unscathed and am now very happy to be soaking up the sun’s rays once again. I had been getting way too relatively pale for my liking 😉 .

Money

After I arrived in México we went to an ATM and used the below tip to save on unnecessary ATM fees abroad. I’m so glad I wrote it down to help me remember what to do 🙂 . 

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This month I also hit a new all-time net worth high of $1,018,629.39, which honestly doesn’t sound real to me 🙂 . And finally, here’s where my net worth ended this month: 

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Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in January! I’m really enjoying this snowbird life and am excited to settled down in México City for the next month and do more of the slow traveling that I prefer. 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
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
5. The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
6. The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
8. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap
10. The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap
11. The Month Of Amsterdam: November 2024 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2024 Recap

Monthly (2025)

1. The Month Of Yuki Matsuri: January 2025 Recap
2. The Month Of Auckland: February 2025 Recap
3. The Month Of Sakura: March 2025 Recap
4. The Month Of Seattle: April 2025 Recap
5. The Month Of Settling Down(ish): May 2025 Recap
6. The Month Of Machu Picchu: June 2025 Recap
7. The Month Of The UK: July 2025 Recap
8. The Month Of Bath: August 2025 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2025 Recap
10. The Month I Became A Millionaire: October 2025 Recap
11. The Month Of Thanks: November 2025 Recap
12. The Month Of Festive Cheer: December 2025 Recap