What I Use: Mexico City (October 2023) (Premium)

Our third and final trip to Mexico City this year unfolded much like our previous two, in March and July, where we just lived like locals, worked each day, and did just a bit of sightseeing. This is by design: Our goal is to spend more time here each year—fewer but longer trips—and eventually split out time between our apartment in Roma Norte and someplace in the U.S. So far so good.

But I also had some specific work-related goals for this trip. And perhaps that’s a good place to start, since I did pretty well on my to-do list but didn’t quite accomplish everything that I’d hoped.

What I finished, what I did not finish

Let me start with the biggest defeat: Between our July and August trips to Mexico City, I engaged in a whirlwind digital decluttering initiative that saw a lot of success but also a few setbacks. Coming into this trip, I had hoped to rectify my separate Google Photos and OneDrive photo collections, finish organizing and archiving my remaining photo scans, and publish the remainder of my Microsoft-related videos to the Thurrott.com YouTube channel.

And while I did, in fact, finish that latter task, the other two remain incomplete.

Irritatingly, I did a lot of work on the photo collection consolidation bit here but still came up empty. I even wrote almost 3,000 words on the topic as I went, but never published it because it would read as gibberish: All I did was make some progress in certain directions but not actually achieve what I wanted to achieve. So I am pushing that project—and the scans, which I barely looked at here—forward to the post-trip future.

My other work was more successful.

I also wanted to complete two major hardware reviews, for the iPhone 15 Pro Max and HP Spectre Folding PC. And I completed those, although each was longer than expected, and thus took longer to finish than expected. But that’s OK. I appreciate the mostly positive feedback on both, to date, and would like to think I’m making some kind of contribution with each. Now, I am looking forward to testing the Pixel 8 Pro (and, to a lesser degree, the Pixel Watch) when I get home, but there are also some iPhone-related topics that perhaps deserve some post-review attention. It’s impossible to get to everything, but we’ll see.

Finally, I had also hoped to publish an initial 23H2 update for the Windows 11 Field Guide during this trip, while not knowing at the time what the actual schedule for that release would be or how I would update the ebook and web versions of the book in turn. In the end, I decided to publish the new chapters in batches to the site first and then bulk update the book with some amount of 23H2 content on or before Microsoft released 23H2. And I succeeded even though Microsoft released 23H2 weeks earlier than I expected. So that was nice, and I have several other edited chapters in progress now. I’ll publish new chapters one at a time in each location going forward.

(The schedule for these things going forward is messy. I’m home through next weekend and then I’ll be in Seattle next week for Microsoft Ignite. And then we move from our apartment into a rented condo the day after I fly home. The book and digital decluttering work will continue in tandem from the new place.)

Quick apartment update

As far as our apartment here in Mexico City goes, all the big stuff—furniture, appliances, tech—was completed long ago. But we finally got the deed after an 18-month wait, so that was nice.

We also bought some artwork from local artists to help add some color to the place, and we’ll likely paint the walls—I’m thinking a dark forest green/gray color—to darken it up on the next trip. A few more blankets. And a microwave oven so we can heat up leftovers. Nothing dramatic.

And then there’s the tech stuff. One of the interesting things about owning this apartment is that we can leave stuff here and travel with less. We keep clothes here, toiletries, tech products, and so on, so we don’t carry much of that with us beyond what we’re wearing. But I always bring more tech, either because there are items I want to leave here or because I’m reviewing hardware or have other immediate needs.

The two JBL Charge 5 speakers we purchased in July continue to work well: We have one permanently attached to the TV via USB for power and to the Apple TV via Bluetooth. And we use the other for music night out on the balcony, usually with both in stereo. But these speakers sound great when used alone too. It’s a huge improvement for the TV in particular.

Laptops

And on that note, I brought two laptops here, an HP Dragonfly Pro that continues to be among my favorite laptops of all time, and the HP Spectre Folding Laptop that I just reviewed. I could have left the Dragonfly Pro home since I have two terrific laptops here in Mexico City, but I brought it because I needed a clean and complete Windows 11 version 23H2 configuration for my book work and I wanted one with a 16:10 display for screenshots. And there was no guarantee that the two laptops I have here would reach this state as quickly as I needed. So along it came.

(If that bit doesn’t make sense to you, I explained the need, and the uncertainty of different Windows 11 configurations across multiple PCs, in this earlier article about my book updating plans. The Dragonfly Pro was in an ideal state for my book-writing needs when I traveled.)

Home office

If you read about my More Mobile setup here in previous What I Use articles (like this one), you know that I have everything I need here: There’s a laptop stand, a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless Keyboard and Mouse, an Audio-Technica ATR2500x-USB Cardioid Condenser Microphone, and an HP Thunderbolt 4 Dock G4. So I can just show up with whatever laptop and get to work.

But I did upgrade the laptop stand on this trip in the hope of getting a bit less wobble (for podcasts). To date, I had been using an inexpensive and very portable Nexstand Portable Laptop Stand and it’s always worked fine, it’s just a little wobbly. I’d been meaning to cart a sturdier (and more expensive) Lifelong Ergonomic Laptop Stand that I purchased for my home set up in November 2201 here for a while now, as I went back to a desktop PC at home this past April. But its bulk always made me put this off.

Well, it’s here now. In fact, thanks to the niceties noted above, I barely fill a carry-on when we fly here now, so it was no problem carrying it on the plane (and security didn’t even look at it twice when it went through the X-ray, which I didn’t expect). I’ll keep the Nexstand around because it’s so light and portable, so it travels well, but this will be the permanent setup here going forward.

Tied to my digital decluttering plans, I also brought a Samsung T7 external SSD because I needed something big enough to hold my photo collection(s). And while I was defeated in that task, as noted above, I was quite happy with the portability and performance of the drive and will always travel with it going forward. (I’ll keep it with a handful of USB flash drives that I always bring too.) It was useful when I reset three PCs, in turn, for 23H2 after that release was made available, as I could offload big files I wanted to keep and then return after each clean install.

Phones

I brought two phones here, the iPhone 15 Pro Max I reviewed and a year-old Google Pixel 6a.

I used the iPhone exclusively during the trip, and as noted in that review, I used it with two eSIMs, my normal T-Mobile eSIM and a Nomad eSIM that gave me 10 GB of high-speed data in Mexico over a 30-day period that started when I activated it and cost $32. Nomad worked out great and I guess I can recommend it. I will certainly use it again and again until/unless I find something better. Please use my referral code, PAUL65GE, if you give it a go yourself, as it will give me a $3 credit.

I didn’t use the Pixel 6a almost at all. It was here as a sort of backup, and it has a Telcel nanoSIM tied to our local phone number. We had expected to finally open a bank account here on this trip, and that phone number is one of several things we need for that, but we ran out of time. So the Pixel 6a just sort of sat there, barely used.

Travel tech

Much of travel tech setup remains unchanged. I still use an iPad Air for reading and, when flying, watching videos, and while it had been having performance issues in recent months, a factory reset and clean install fixed that nicely, so I’ll keep it going into next year. I switched to  Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II earlier this year and gave the older OG Bose QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Earbuds to my wife, but then found the ear fit wasn’t as good, and so we swapped again and now she uses the newer pair. I prefer the OG version, go figure. (Not that I used them here, even once. Just on the plane rides.)

Embarrassingly, given how happy I am having all the tech I need here already, I still ended up bringing with too much stuff. For example, I bought a second Anker 555 8-in-1 USB-C Hub about a month ago to replace the first one because we leave it in Mexico for my wife to use with her own More Mobile setup, but I traveled with it here … for some reason. And of course, I didn’t need or use it. I brought an Xbox Wireless Controller and USB cable here … for some reason. Despite the fact that I have one of each here already. And then never used either, other than to test a game on the iPhone. I also brought extra Anker smartphone power bricks, extra cables, extra USB-C dongles, and other items too. So I won’t make these mistakes again: I made a new list of what I have here, and I’ll travel even lighter next time. (It’s hard being this compulsive.)

Health and fitness

From a health perspective, I’m surprised to say that I keep losing weight. I don’t know how much yet, as we don’t have a scale yet. But I had sort of hoped that this trip would jumpstart that again for me, as we both often lose weight when traveling, and it definitely has. But I’ll check in on that again in December when my blood will be tested again. I’m trying to do this as responsibly as possible, with the oversight of my doctor. I need to step up the resistance training when I get back, though: I definitely lose muscle mass when I can’t go to the gym for weeks at a time.

I stuck with my old Fitbit Charge 5 for tracking steps and resting heart rate, and saw the usual results: We walk a lot more here than we do at home, and my resting heart rate is elevated for 10 days or so before lowering to near-normal levels: The elevation effect here is real. I was checking my glucose on the last trip and in the subsequent month, as you may recall, but that’s over. And I’ll look at that again when I see the numbers from my blood work in December. I could see another month of oversight and food testing. But we ate terrifically well on this trip, and I mean that from a low-carb/high-fat “healthy keto” standpoint in my case: I avoided carbs here easily and ate many salads in addition to the protein/fat foods.

Luggage

There were again no changes to our luggage. As noted, my wife and I travel light, we only travel light, and we are able to travel lighter than ever on these trips. I brought the same Rick Steves Ravenna rolling case and HP Renew Backpack as ever, the latter because it holds 2 laptops easily. And this is about to get even better: We fly home on Tuesday, and I am getting a new CPAP on Thursday. So I’m leaving my current CPAP here, and won’t have to carry it home in my bag. If the new CPAP is light/small enough, I will buy a second one and bring that here; otherwise, I’ll stick with the old one here. Either way, no more flying with a CPAP (at least to/from Mexico). It’s a dream come true.

‘Til next time…

We’re coming back in February: Thanks to a nephew who stayed in our apartment to take care of the cats and is happy to do so again, we booked our next trip, and this will be a bit longer still. In the meantime, there’s that trip to Seattle, the holidays, and then what I’m sure will feel like an endless January in the Pennsylvania cold. But we’ll get through it. And we’ll be back.

NOTE: If you enjoy the Mexico City photos and information, please consider following me on Instagram or subscribing to the Eternal Spring YouTube channel my wife and I make.