If you found this article, chances are you will visit Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. I’m sure of it. You are not going to wander into it aimlessly. There is a reason the state of Jalisco has the most amount of US expats and of course it’s a fact. I counted all the foreigners that I saw during my amazing tenure in Guadalajara. I don’t need Google or Wikipedia to tell me, I have a PhD in cultural travels.
Just a disclaimer for you all readers, Guadalajara is not for everybody and this article is just from my perspective after living there for several months. That’s plenty of proof to give me authority to discuss Guadalajara for foreigners. I also hablo español muy bien. I am Tapatia level 99. Tapatia is the name of Guadalajara natives. If you want to know the difference between Mexican Spanish and Colombian Spanish, leave a comment and I’ll write you an article.
Let’s proceed with the personal experiences from me, other foreigners and locals living Guadalajara. First thing’s first, get your Spanish game level up because very few Tapatias speak English but you can get buy with a few phrases. Check out my Spanish audio crash course.
The locals are polite and chill. I’ve never been in a tense situation except one time. I was in a conversation with a beautiful brunette but all I could think of was clenching my but cheeks hard enough not to release the incoming fart from the bistec tacos I ate an hour earlier. For real, those are the two most amazing things to enjoy. Beautiful Tapatia people and delicious 20-peso ($1) meat tacos that propel your motor.
In all seriousness, you will be impressed with Guadalajara because it’s different than other parts of Mexico. In fact, the locals will tell you that too if you ask them why they live there. Here’s a summary of the positive things you will experience visiting the second biggest city of Mexico:
- Inexpensive food and drinks
- Lively parties and live music
- Inexpensive medical care
- Weather sunset at 8pm
- Safety
Food
About the food: I’m not even going to mention Mexican food you have tried outside of Mexico. There’s not competition. No food franchise nor family restaurant in the US serves the same tasting food you can eat in Guadalajara. The city is also known for their unique panderia’s (bakeries). Even the proud people of Mexico City will admit they love the breads from Guadalajara. It’s kind of like why the pizza in New York City is better. It has something to do with the local water.
You can eat from $1 dollar tacos to $25 steak, but I’m no food connoisseur. I just eat for nutrition and health. Street vendors serve locals in any given neighborhood on any given street. With the amount of taco choices, you can eat out the entire day and not spend more than a 6-10 dollars. Street food includes tortas (sandwiches), tacos, burgers, and tortas ahogados (drowned sandwiches). There are some other food carts, but I mainly ate tacos, ceviche, and comida corrida.
For lunch, many places serve comida corrida which translates to fast-food but it is nothing like the American fast food. It just means that a restaurant has set meals, usually 2-3 options for the entree served with rice, beans, salad, pasta and the drink of the day. The price of this is ~70 pesos or $3.70. A burger will cost you from 80-120 pesos but the burger meat consists of 70% beef and 30% pork. If you get bored of Mexican food, which you won’t, you can find pizza, sushi, Italian, Chinese, and French food. They are all more expensive than Mexican food.
Surprisingly, seafood is not expensive in Guadalajara. In fact, I’ve never seen seafood cheaper elsewhere outside of Mexico. I found a street vendor that sold ceviche cocktails with oysters for 85 pesos ($4.50). Can you freakin’ believe it? I ate there twice a week. The seafood is also fresh because it comes from a neighboring city called Nayarit, only a few hours away by car. Seafood in restaurants will be more expensive. You can expect to pay 120-180 pesos ($6-10) for a seafood cocktail. You will also notice that the seafood cocktails are prepared differently in Guadalajara than they are in Mexico city.
You want to party, get some booze, pre-game, buy a bottle at a nightclub? It’s totally affordable, even for a hipster or backpacker. A beer will cost you 17 pesos, <$1 at the convenience store or 45 pesos, $2.30 at a bar. Liquor bottles such as tequila or rum will cost you less than 200 pesos, $10 at the store and 800 pesos at the bar. Alcohol doesn’t get any cheaper than in Mexico. Keep in mind, it’s illegal to drink an open container on the street so just chug a beer can right after you buy it in the convenience store.
For the big eaters, you can find a few all-you-can eat buffets. The closest one Colonia Americana is the El Jardin (Vegetarian Garden) and Sirloin Stockade in Centro. They are affordable with good service. The only other time you will find a buffet is on Sunday for brunch at a few smaller restaurants.
Parties
Guadalajara is not as big as Mexico City, nor is it known to be a party destination but if you stay around avenida Chapultepec you will see many bars to choose from. If you want to know the exact details for the city’s nightlife, I reveal my secrets for solo travels here.
While many bars are centralized around Chapultepec, there are still other options. Further out from Colonia Americana, there are even better places such as Plaza Andares, Glow bar, and bars in centro. You can have fun almost every night of the week. One thing that I’ve seen in Mexico and not in many other countries is the musicians. Guadalajara and Mexico in general has people playing a musical instrument at any given hour near a restaurant collecting tips. Sometimes you will see an entire mariachi band playing special requests, but this is mainly at nicer quality restaurants.
Another thing I’ve seen here is the amount of people dancing and celebrating festivities. Daytime parades occur often on Mexican holidays. People here love to dance especially in groups until sunrise. If you are expecting the 2am close times of the West you will reconsider your bedtime in Guadalajara. If there’s banda, norteña or salsa music there will be somebody dancing somewhere as long as it’s in a club. This is on the contrary to what you see in the states with many people being wallflowers. If people are not dancing in Mexico, they are sitting at tables and drinking.
One thing that shocked me in Guadalajara is their choice of music. This is probably the least authentic Mexican thing I’ve experienced and it’s not even Mexican. Tapatias love American music especially rock, rock & roll, classics, 80s, 90s all from the US. You will hear this in bars, uber rides, as well as some public buses!
Medical Care
Have you ever been treated by a doctor that felt like a friend? There are less regulations in Mexico so doctors don’t have to worry about getting sued. In fact, every time I had a medical visit including dentists and dermatologists, they all provided me their personal phone numbers to follow-up. Yes really! A general practitioner visit will cost you 500 pesos, $26 usually on the spot, without an appointment. This also goes for a visit to a dentist and others but the price can be higher starting at 600-800 pesos.
Many legitimate offices will have the doctor’s credentials posted such as their diploma and state certificate but not all of them so this another reason to ask for recommendations from locals. If you are looking for one, leave a comment and I’ll reply to it.
Don’t rely on google maps to find you a reputable doctor nor Yelp’s bs reviews. It’s best to ask for recommendations because most locals don’t care about google maps and many business won’t even be registered on there. I’ve had difficulties finding what I see on google maps to its physical location. It’s possible that some clinics you visit will be in a residential area and not have a business sign outside. For example, the first dentist I visited was just somebody’s house with the living room as the reception and an actual water leak from the ceiling.
Another dentist I visited had a two story house but inside it did appear as an actual clinic although run by a Japanese guy. His price was higher than the Mexican dentists so I skipped him. Alternatively, you can find a centro commercial (shopping mall) which will have reputable clinics. Don’t hesitate to ask locals for advice. Since I’m not Latin, I don’t have five names so making an appointment by phone can be a challenging task. After providing my first and last name, I was asked if I have other names. It’s common in Latin America to have five names but that’s another story.
If you’re into aesthetics, you can find several clinics for skin treatments, plastic surgery, facials, but not massages! While clinic prices here are cheaper than the US, they are still not the best quality nor services. I would recommend Colombia over Mexico. Still it’s okay to get a deep facial cleaning for around 800 pesos ($43). I found a dermatologist who treated me with a facial micro-needling using stem cells for ~2,500 ($132) pesos while others where charging 3,800 pesos.
Weather
Depending on where you are coming from, the weather can be better for you in Guadalajara. Personally, I felt fine whenever it did not rain. It gets warm enough in the day for t-shirt and shorts so wear shorts if you want to make it obvious you are a foreigner. Rain, although lasting 1-2 hours is torrential and leaves flooding on the streets. Run indoors as soon you see it get dark from the clouds or if you hear thunder in the distance.
This climate is year-round although rain season is mostly in the fall. Also expect many mosquitoes and no window nets in homes. My favorite part about the weather is the late sunset during the summer, July-Septemeber months. I was happy to enjoy many hours of daylight up until 8pm.
Safety
Before I segue in to the cons of the city, I will tell you a bit about safety in Guadalajara. It’s a cartel war zone so watch out! Nah, I’m just kidding. While it is said cartel members can be anywhere, it is generally a non-issue with tourists if you don’t get involved in the drug trade. So be a good boy or good girl and you will continue living a happy Latin lifestyle. Tapatios are polite and respectful so treat them the same or even better.
I’ve felt safer in Guadalajara then I did some some major American cities. Police patrols several neighborhoods including the popular Colonia Americana many times from day time to night time. I’ve never witnessed a crime other than cars crossing a red light.
Many females do take caution but you will see pedestrians walking throughout the night on the main streets. Personally, I have walked through Colonia Americana and all around avenida Chapultepec up to 4am and the only trouble I had was getting my shoes wet in a flooded sidewalk.
Entrance to most bars will have a host to sit you at a table while the nightclubs will do a body pat-down for entrance. Nightclubs will have a few bouncers to keep things in check although it can get crowded where you will get shoved and bumped but it’s harmless. Most of your precautions should take in traffic and crossing streets. This is where accidents happen and drivers have right of way.
Finally, we can get into some of the down sides of the city so you know exactly what you’re getting into. I still have yet to find paradise but I’ve been close. While Guadalajara exceeded my expectations, it still leaves me to wonder about a permanent residence.
- Drivers have right of way
- Hailstorm and flooding
- Infrastructure, plumbing
- Restaurant & Service hours
- Need to Know Spanish
Drivers have right of way
Watch your step! Anytime you step off the sidewalk and onto the intersection, there’s a driver that won’t slow down for you. If the light is not red or if there is no light, it doesn’t matter. There aren’t many stop signs and if there are, they get ignored so whether you are walking or biking, car drivers will zip by you without thinking twice.
I can’t count the number of times I had to jump back as I was crossing the road because of car traffic. It is the frogger-level of danger as in some parts of europe and completely the opposite of Southeast Asia where you can nonchalantly walk in between car traffic. This also applies to trucks and buses, although if you are biking on a two-lane road, the vehicles will leave you some space so they can pass you.
Drivers love to honk their horn at pedestrians as well!
Hailstorm and flooding
I’ve seen hail before and that was during the east coast winters in the states where snow falls once or twice a year. Thus, I correlated cold weather with ice storms and hail. Only in Guadalajara did I realize hail is a thing during warm weather. The difference was that it lasted between 1-2 hours and it happened more than once.
It’s not too bad if you don’t have a car and you’re inside but you can cancel your afternoon plans and stay inside. The streets get flooded due to poor poor sewage drains. If you take a look at 90% of the street drains when it’s dry, you will notice loads of street trash just behind the metal bars with no room disappear.
This all seems unbelievable, it could have been a rare occurrence and it wasn’t terribly dangerous around the city center and Colonia Americana but the are articles like this one the show otherwise.
Infrastructure & Plumbing
Appearance wise, everything looks normal in the nice neighborhoods of Guadalajara but if you pay close attention, you will see low-hanging cables, holes in the sidewalk, some construction here and there which demonstrates incomplete infrastructure. If you would like to trace an electric problem or why your internet went out, then good luck.
I’ve stayed in over six residences around town and each one seemed to have internet issues on occasion. You can get fast internet if you pay the price. Even cafes get good connections, but the reliability rate is low. You will get occasional outages and you can’t do much about it. Have a 4G SIM card as a back up. One of the apartments I stayed at lost plumbing and power for nearly an entire day after a storm.
I found out from the apartment host that a tree caused power line damage thus losing power, but how do you explain the water outage? I didn’t get a reason. Besides outages, the water pressure can vary significantly in your bathroom. The variances include setting water temperature so you can have a comfortable shower and wondering why the toilet won’t flush completely on the first try.
Aged buildings will have these issues. You can choose to go luxury and pay around $1,000 for a furnished apartment with modern utilities to have more consistent electricity and water pressure but you will still have internet signal drop outs.
Restaurant & Service hours
Do you like quality customer service and consistent hours when you want to eat? You can get them but it only happens during Mexican time meaning, when a restaurant manager or owner is ready to open their place of business. The business hours shown on google maps, on the menu, even the restaurant entrance are not 100% accurate.
For example, a breakfast-only restaurant will run from 8am to 1:30-2pm. A lunch place will be open from 2pm to 5:30-6pm and dinner restaurants from 7pm to whenever. Big franchises and restaurant chains will have more consistent hours such as Domino’s pizza but they will have fewer locations and be more costly.
A restaurant can run out of ingredients before the end of the day so they will close early. Sometimes they open late too and tell you to come back in half an hour. But it’s not really a big deal because there are many restaurants to choose from. It’s just that if you have your favorite places, you will need more of them on certain days.
You can expect 99% of places to be polite and provide good service, it just won’t be consistent. One thing you will notice is the number of males working as restaurant servers. Males outnumber females in all restaurants of Guadalajara except Cerveceria Chapultepec. It is the only restaurant chain where I saw an equal amount of male and female staff.
On a positive note, it’s acceptable and easy to customize your order if you disapprove of a side dish or an ingredient. This could be choosing beans instead of rice, not having onions on your enchiladas or just getting an extra portion of meat and paying more. The process will be much smoother if you do it in Spanish.
The flexible business hours also apply to other service industries including clinics, dentists, and small shops. Always plan a bit in advance and leave some buffer time for the task to be completed.
Need to Know Spanish
Finally, something not every foreigner will able to do with fluency is being able to speak Spanish. Even in Mexico City, it’s not common to find locals who speak English. Most bilingual locals will be business man and attendees of language exchanges events. Not many really. When I attended those events any given day, there were around 10-20 people with a third being foreigners and travelers.
The great thing is that you can get by with a basic level of Spanish and most locals won’t try to deceive you or overcharge you which can happen in Mexico City.
Conclusion
I ❤️ Guadalajara! It’s a great place to be, to eat, to drink, to party, to learn Spanish, to learn about mariachi and tequila, but it’s not perfect. Outside of the nicer neighborhoods, it’s less safe with less things to do so Colonia Americana only makes up a tiny part of the big city that feels more like a relaxed easy-going town.
3 thoughts on “Living in Guadalajara: Pros and Cons”