A lot of that is reassuring... thanks.
i barely know any spanish. enough to get around.. but yeah..
i was thinking about taking some classes..
it's good to see a few others moving to playa..
if anyone wants to grab a cerveza lmk

thanks so much for that info z32,
could you share the email of the company you used? that method seems like a winner, as I also don't speak much spanish

also what kind of price ranges did you encounter for 2br 2ba places?

here is spanish school in playa I'm thinking of doing
http://www.cancunspanish.com/playade...ageschool.html

just made first withdrawal from moneybookers to my bancomer. bancomer gave me 11.56 on the exchange yesterday and i think like hte no vig fx rate was 11.67 or smoething so not too bad on the conversion. + about 250 pesos of wire fees and stuff which is pretty standard.

I feel weird posting his personal email here, so if anyone wants the email of the realtor I used, just PM me. Can't recommend him enough considering his english is very good and how helpful he was.

I only looked in nice, touristy, safe areas, but for the ones I saw were about $1200-$1400 for a 1000sqft 2br/2ba furnished, with utilities included except electric. Those are either a couple blocks from the center of town (5 blocks from the beach) or really, really nice on the inside like the one I ended up renting (about 15 blocks from the center of town, 1 block from the beach). I ended up getting a 3br/3.5ba for $1600 plus electric because it was about 1500sqft and too good of a deal comparatively to pass up for what I need.

link
link2

there is a place on along fifth.. not sure where.. i was recommended to it.. that gives free spanish classes.. fwiw

awesome - good to hear.
have you tried getting a peso/USD account yet?
Or can you at Bancomer?

nice.. i heard electric can be a lot..

i was also recommended to not bring my cell down and tell my carrier that i'm on vacation.. i guess the roaming charges etc. can be awful..
you can get a pay-as-you-go cell at walmart..

up on stars in 60~ hours since arriving. GL to everyone trying to get everything sorted out. have a ways to go in setting up moneybookers, all the euro sites and coordinating to my mexican bank/rerouting it to the usa, but today was a good day in getting the #1 thing on my priority list accomplished

congrats

you can't get a USD account unless you are in a border state (to the US) is what i found out.

can you do a wire from bancomer to a us bank?

Yep you can. (kind of a dumb question haha)

edit: i guess i asked because of all the talk about getting USD/MXN accts. -
but i guess getting those would be to just get around some of the transfer fees...

haha no worries. ya if you could get a USD account then you could go USD from whichever site --> MB --> Mex Bank --> US Bank without incurring any fx fees. But as is, there will be conversion fee from MB-->Bancomer for me and then again from Bancomer -->Bofa + any applicable wire fees et cetera.

bleh.. cost a hundo just to get our manies :/

i guess it is what it is though...
just have to make the transactions worth it

how'd kite boarding go btw?
i was just lookin' at the prices of classes and skydiving lol
think i'm gonna get a (skate)board down there as well..

I live around Playa Del Carmen as well and have a BAM (Banda Aceh Mobil) card as a backup. It's nice to have also just for when you take the laptop down to the local cantina/beach and surf around while you're drinking beers. It works OK, but obviously when I do have to switch over to it I start to wind down my session just to be safe.

Also, my internet is over the phone lines from Telmex. It's super quick in the mornings and at night, but it bottlenecks during the day and is kind of spotty. So I set up an account with Playa Wireless. They're bulletproof. It's really pricey to get the antenna ($600USD, but you can shop around for a used one). I met the American owner in his office and he showed me the whole system, his backup UPS, his backup generators, etc. He uses a microwave signal and guarantees the download AND UPLOAD speed, as opposed to Telmex which advertise "UP to 2Mbps". He really knows his stuff and services businesses mostly. So now I use the Playa Wireless as my main, the Telmex as my backup, and I've got the BAM aircard as a leftover backup, but I'll probably keep it just for road trips and messing around when I'm outside of my place.


Kiteboarding is really good in Tulum (about 1 hour south of Playa). The summer months are the slow season though since the wind dies down a bit and isn't consistent. It should pick back up in Oct-Nov. I do a lot of paddleboarding, diving, freediving, and spearfishing. It's awesome. It's great to live here in Paradise and then take a "vacation" for a few days somewhere else. I love to take the ferry over to Cozumel and dive for a few days. Chichen Itza is amazing, Lake Bacalar (about 3.5 hours south) is awesome and has wakeboarding, Tulum is super chill and a cool hippy place to hang out, Palenque and Chiapas make for an awesome longer road trip (about 12 hours each way), Ixcalak and Belize are awesome (about a 4 hour drive to Ixcalak and another 30min ferry to Ambergris, which is cool), etc.


Here's the story with USD/EUR accounts in Mexico. The Mexican Government doesn't allow non MXN currency accounts, so the banks will open them up for you and you can conduct transactions like normal, but the monies and account are held in another country (Germany for EUR and Grand Cayman for USD). For this reason, Stars won't do a wire transfer to my accounts because the wire information has to go to Bank in Germany/Caymans -> Mexican Bank -> For Further Credit to Your Name. Since that is 3 levels, they say their payment processors won't do it and can't make exceptions. Very frustrating. So in Mex the only cashout currency is EUR, so if I want money sent to my EUR account, I have to do a wire cashout in Pesos to my Mexican Peso account, pay the fx fees, then pay the fx fees again to change it back to EUR and put it in my EUR account. I'm looking into the MB options, but so far it doesn't seem possible.

Let's see, what else... Oh, it's ridiculously safe down here. The Mexican Government actually built Cancun out of nothing. About in 1970 they realized how much money Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco were making, so they decided to look for the next great spot to build a vacation village. Only 3, yes THREE, people lived in Cancun in 1970. The Mexican government poured tons of money and resources into this region and built it up like Vegas. The amount of tourism dollars that comes into the Maya Riviera compared to Cabo/PV/Acapulco/Mazatlan/etc. is staggering. Therefore, this is truly their crown jewel and they keep it extremely safe. When I travel in other parts of Mexico, I also feel very safe, but I don't see as many police officers, federales, security guards, etc. They are just overly safe here in the Riviera Maya. I live right on the beach and leave all my diving/paddling gear strewn about my deck, even when I go out for the day or dinner, and never any problems.

Once everyone gets situated down here, we should all meet up for happy hour!

sounds good...
the spearfishing is also in Tulum? always wanted to try that...
I've heard that Belize is dirty.. and should be a 'no-go'...

others have confirmed using moneybookers. i havent cashed out yet, but the process of stars -> mb -> mexican bank -> us bank seems doable from what others have said

thanks for info on aircards. think im experiencing bottleneck for the first time today after 2 days of perfect connection for 12+ hour sessions both days

other than 2 minor blips that lasted <45 seconds everything still going great down here. my old roommates from orlando will be joining me on wednesday

jsnipes sorry if I missed this, any word on going from bancomer to BOFA?? seems like best route right now is banamex - citibank. Thanks to everyone contributing in this thread, def makes this move a lot easier.

Just a question about the banking in Mexico. WHy does everyone transfer from your mexican bank account to your US account? I mean if you're going to be living in Mex why not just leave all your money in the Mex account until you are ready to leave the country?

Unfortunately you can only xfer to like bofa's Mexican subsidiary not actually back to the US. So best plan is just to send a bank wire back to your US account. While I have heard that bana-->citi is possible I haven't heard anyone actually do it. If someone does please let everyone know though.

Well some of us have plenty of bills to pay back in the US (credit cards fdkhfkjhgf) not to mention savings accounts and not having to worry about currency fluctuation or something else bizarre happening.

I really can't decide between PLaya Del Carmen or Cancun. Also I have mainly been looking on Craigslist for places,anyone know of any other reputable places with apartment/condo listings? ( I dont want to rent a house)

tried to find out more about citi/bana xfers but failed:

so you have a banamex acct. out there J?
Have you called?

Did you call them?
If they allow both way xfers I think I will go and sign up for a citibank account before I leave to make things easier.