What I Use: Mexico City (January-May 2025) (Premium)

We've been in Mexico City since mid-January, but we're finally heading back to Pennsylvania this weekend. That's a bit over 15 weeks, or just shy of four months, and that's by far the longest consecutive period we've spent outside the United States. Our goal this year is to spend at least six months in Mexico, and while we don't have return plans yet, that should be easy enough to achieve. One possibility is us coming back here after the fourth of July and staying until just before Thanksgiving, which would be another four and a half months if we pull it off.

We'll see. But first things first.

Travel
We finally flew here the way I've always wanted to fly, with the most minimal of luggage imaginable. To get there, I purchased a Ravenna Mini Rolling Case from Rick Steves last year, but this was the first time I was able to fly with it. This tiny rolling luggage measures just 17 x 13.5 x 8 inches, well under the roughly 22 x 16 x 8 inch size that's standard for flights in the European Union (and the roughly 20 x 14 x 9 inch size of the replacement for the full-sized Ravenna, now called the Riga Rolling Case.) Apparently, it's too small for most Americans, too, as Rick Steves is selling it now for just $50, one third its normal price, in the bargain bin part of his online store.

Anyway, flying here with that carry-on was, of course, wonderful, and for the first time in memory, recent or otherwise, I came here without any review laptops. But I also brought my HP Renew backpack for the laptops I did bring. (More on that below.)

We found our apartment in January 2022 and finalized the purchase that May. During that time and since then, we've flown to and from Mexico City dozens of times. But we'd stopped exploring the rest of the country, in part to focus on our apartment, which needed furnishing and various upgrades. And in part because we love this neighborhood and found it hard to leave. Previously, we had visited Puebla, San Miguel de Allende, and Guanajuato. And we've wanted to explore more of Mexico as had before we got the apartment.

This trip was different. After three years of sticking to Mexico City, we visited three other places during this stay, which was a nice return to form. In January, just after arriving here, we spent about five days in Puerto Vallarta visiting with Richard Campbell and his wife Stacy. In mid-March, we went back to San Miguel de Allende with friends who were visiting from Boston. And earlier this month, we spent a long weekend in Oaxaca. We flew on the first and third of those trips, and we took an amazingly luxurious bus back and forth on the second.

My normal/EU-sized Rick Steves Ravenna bag is here in Mexico City now, so I was able to use that for each of these trips. And based on what I'm bringing home--again, more on that below--I will likely leave the mini rolling case here when we leave and fly home with the larger bag.

Randomly, I almost made a fourth trip while here...