Last updated September, 2023

Guadalajara is the #1 choice for big city living in Mexico.

As mentioned in the previous post, if you want to live in Mexico and big cities rev your engine, Guadalajara should be your choice. Unlike Mexico City, Guadalajara still has Mexico prices and warmth. It's got everything else too - near-perfect climate, and an endless list of things to see and do both in the city and within the state of Jalisco where it is located, including a number of Pueblos Magicos within a few hours drove. Seven Pueblos Magicos are located in the state of Jalisco, the most popular being the birthplace of Tequila.

Desired neighborhoods in Guadalajara often look like the Super Bowl just got out. People pour out into the streets by the thousands to enjoy their good fortune of spring-like weather year-round.

(I always feel safe in Guadalajara's entertainment zones, for one thing an attacker would need to be willing to attack me in front of at least 50 witnesses). These crowds and the fact that Mexico itself is a young country (the average age is 29) gives the city a youthful energy.

So much to do!

Concerts, multi-venue art scenes and a magnitude of neighborhoods to explore are features we all love about big cities. Big cities have have great dining and street food, large parks, great shopping and an endless variety of events. Guadalajara has all of that.

When I’m out in Guadalajara, I realize why big-city Mexicans get bored in most American cities. Even my home town of Denver on a Friday night would seem empty compared to the throngs on Avenida Chapultepec, a boulevard of bars and restaurants in the heart of Guadalajara. In the center of the boulevard you can watch street performers, look through used books, buy jewelry and browse through handmade wares in the swath of land between traffic lanes. Then you can bop back over to the nightlife taking place in the facing streets.

With four million people in the metropolitan area and eight million total, trying to get your arms around the city you might feel like the proverbial blind person trying to describe an elephant by feeling its truck. It helps to focus on landmarks as you navigate through the city.

Many choices of neighborhoods for expats

Unlike other areas that attract ex-pats, Guadalajara has so many safe, leafy and cool neighborhoods that expats are dispersed throughout the city among eight or nine more affluent areas like Providencia, Chapalita, Zapopan, and Chapultepec rather than exclusively expat communities like those that exist in nearby Lake Chapala and Ajijic. Mornings are the perfect times to stroll through the neighborhoods you want to consider.

This Discover Guadalajara guide gives excellent information on where to stay which can double as a list of areas in which to live if you are considering retiring there. With a little help from Google translate, you can read this article in Spanish about what is like to live in Guadalajara’s greater metropolitan area.

When I’m visiting Guadalajara, I seem to always find myself in Zapopan. It’s a good neighborhood near my Mexican friends who live there and has a fine selection of places to stay through AirBnB. Most recently I stayed at one off Avenida de Guadalupe.

The best inside tip I can give you about the city, info that a Google search for organic grocery stores will absolutely not yield, is that there’s a Whole Foods-style grocery store chain in Guadalajara called Fresko al Comer.

 What makes affluent Mexican neighborhoods different from those of the U.S.?

My first trip here I stayed in a luxury home (all by myself) on a hill of Zapopan in an affluent fraccionamiento about a quarter of a mile from the heady, addictive Centro Commercial which is loaded with designer stores and shoe retailers (Thank god for baggage weight restrictions.) 

What has made that neighborhood of Zapopan interesting to me is both its level of modernity and home-owners’ deliberate fortress-like facades. American homes usually have high levels of security too, but they are discreet in displaying it, sometimes with little more than a  small blue ADP sign stuck in a shrub. 

Expensive homes in Mexico often send a loud signal. You almost never see windows facing the street on the ground floor. Expansive garage doors, always facing the street, make up an integral part of the curb appeal, sometimes sporting expensive wood inlays and accent lighting. There are no front lawns as we know them.  Usually, the outer walls are topped by a two-strand fence of wire of some sort. An outdoor patio area is often placed between the garage and the entrance to the actual house. 

Mexican fraccionamientos (planned communities) and colonias (suburbs) are just as quiet as any parallel neighborhood in the United States, maybe even more so because walled back patios and internal gardens take the place of open front lawns where kids in the U.S. like to run and gather.

Decorative traveling vines running over outside walls facing the street usually have long, sharp thorns, practically like barbed wire. These houses have found ways to may security features attractive, but make no pretense they are anything other than what they are. Does that mean these areas aren’t safe?

All this is not to say crime doesn’t exist here as it does in all large cities. Homeowners simply take a different approach to how they discourage it. They don’t hide their security measures, they flaunt them. They make it clear how difficult it would be to break in, rather than hide their security systems as friends of mine in the U.S. do.

Home security measures in Mexico are based on people, not technology.

The facades and barbed wire vines would be easy to misinterpret as a crime problem. While burglary no doubt would be an issue in any affluent neighborhood without security systems, one thing to remember about Mexico is that they tend to address an issue by throwing people rather than technology at the problem. As a friend once put it, you will never see only one bartender behind the bar at a special event in Mexico. 

The same goes for security people, retail clerks, baristas at the coffee kiosks and construction workers. They throw three times as many people at any service point than we do. Homeowners in the U.S. put their money into expensive electronic security systems and technology. Mexicans would rather hire people.

A security person in the U.S. makes between $15-20 and hour, or $2,720 a month based on the median salary of $17 @hour.  A vigilante de seguridad in Mexico earns around $5,900 pesos a month, or about $350 dollars U.S. This is why neighborhoods double up on security personnel. Even many modest apartment complexes in Guadalajara have gated entrances with a security guard stationed in an office at the gate and private security roaming the area.

I would have felt completely safe walking around in that fraccionamiento anytime during the day or night. Cameras were spread throughout the area and security personnel, vigilantes (private security personnel) drove through the neighborhoods 24 hours a day.

Mexicans are aggressive in their door locking systems as well. Ever since arriving in Mexico four years ago, I have noticed that home locks are often themselves works of art. You will see all kinds of bolts, buttons and oddly shaped keys on houses in Mexico. (Professional lock pickers, I’ve come to learn from research, are akin to the computer hacking community - they love when a company brags about having an unbreakable lock). 

If you rent in Mexico, pay special attention to security systems.

If you rent a house in Mexico through HomeAway or Airbnb, you need to take time to understand your host or homeowner's locking systems, as they can be quite elaborate.

Often in a rental you will need to unlock and pass through barriers before entering the actual house. In the first home I rented in Mexico (and I always rent in affluent areas), I had to use three keys and unlock three doors before entering the main house.

Windows usually have special locking features too. Don’t count on any door or window being locked by just looking at it. Always make sure you get a good demonstration from the owner and hand-test that doors and windows are locked behind you as you enter or leave your Mexican sanctuary.

Lock it all up when you leave any place you live or stay in Mexico, regardless of how inaccessible it appears to be. Sudden thunderstorms are common in Guadalajara as well. Even if the place is secure enough to leave a window open, its not worth the risk of of a rain storm.

Prevention and determent is the name of the game in all aspects of staying safe in whatever home you choose in Mexico.

Related links:

The New York Times on Guadalajara’s “sanctuary” homes.

The cost of living in Guadalajara according to Expatistan

Next up: 

Decide between Lake Chapala and Guadalajara by staying in this fabulous city between the two “sanctuary” homes

Most recent: 

If you're thinking about Mexico and love big cities, Guadalajara is your only (affordable) choice.

About the author:

Hola, I'm Kerry Baker and author of two previous books

"If Only I Had a Place," is a guide to renting in Mexico with style, which includes a listing of rental concierges in Mexico's most popular expat areas. 

My third book is “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico.” The first how-to book you’ve ever bought that will also entertain you.

My recent book is a cookbook, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, a cookbook for travelers, snowbirds and expats who want to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico.