Life at Lakeside Archives - Focus On Mexico

Piñatas and Posadas – Christmas in Mexico

Christmas in Mexico is similar yet different from the U.S. depending on what part of the country you live in. Large cities such as Guadalajara tend to have a similar U.S. like frenzied shopping atmosphere, but Christmas in smaller towns and villages is quite distinct. There is much less emphasis on gifts and more emphasis on the family celebrations and traditions surrounding Christmas. I took an informal poll of my ESL students to see what family gifts they were giving for Christmas and was charmed with the simple answers - a bottle of cologne, a shirt, a pair of shoes, a necklace, etc. - … [Read more...]

Rainy Season at Lake Chapala

Here in Mexico's Lake Chapala area our rainy season runs from approximately June 15 to October 15 varying slightly from year to year. For instance in 2018 it rained all the way through Day of the Dead in November, and 2017 when the rainy season was mostly over by September 30. In 2019, we saw serious flooding in many areas of Mexico and several severe hail storms including one in Guadalajara that left almost 4 feet of hail on the streets. That one made the international news! 2024 was another near record amount of rainfall - good thing, since the previous year had very little and the Lake was … [Read more...]

A Guide to the Move2Mexico RoadMap – An Interactive Online Program

Focus has developed online programs that cover the essentials of moving to Mexico - via an interactive online format. Dozens of our new friends have enjoyed taking the new online format. If getting to a live program is not within reach for now, consider this program! Using our 20+ year experience at helping people transform their lives in Mexico, we've applied our team's local expertise to our online programs and created a 9-Step RoadMap (see below) that walks you through the essential steps of a move to Mexico. Whether you are thinking of moving Part-Time or Full-TIme, the … [Read more...]

Top 8 Reasons Retirees Move to Lake Chapala

So you've worked hard for years and can finally look at retiring! That's great! But where will you live? For some people, getting out of the rat race and enjoying a much better quality of living for far less money is more than wishful thinking, it's their reality and one of the many reasons Lake Chapala is one of the top retirement destinations in the world. This article lays out what I feel are the top reasons why you too should consider Lake Chapala as a retirement destination. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to limit this to eight reasons why people fall in love with--and choose to … [Read more...]

Wide Eyed Mexico

While visiting Lakeside you may want to take a tour of the area with one of the expert local tour companies/guides. There are several excellent tour experiences available depending on your interests. In this post, we interview Carlos Martinez, co-founder of a new tour company called Wide Eyed Mexico formed by long term Jalisco residents with extensive travel expediente throughout the world. Please describe Wide Eyed Mexico for our readers. Wide Eyed Mexico is a very distinct tour company offering private off the beaten track custom tours for groups of 6 to 10 people who are family or … [Read more...]