Below is a list of attractive locations to live in Latin America, listed alphabetically by country:
In Argentina
Buenos Aires, Argentina the country's capital. See Living in Buenos Aires.
Salta, Argentina the country's 8th largest city, situated in the Lerma Valley, 1,152 meters above sea level, at the foothills of the Andes mountains. Nicknamed Salta la Linda ("Salta the Pretty"), it has become a major tourist destination due to its old, colonial architecture and the natural scenery of the valleys westward. The climate and soils of the Salta region enable the regions vinyards to produce many fine wines of international reputation.
in Belize
Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. It is the only country in Central America where English is an official language, although Spanish and Kriol are also widely spoken.
In Bolivia
Cochabamba, Bolivia FEATURED CITY is located in a valley in the Andes mountains, is the third largest city in Bolivia. It is the main agricultural region of the country and is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" due to its spring-like temperatures year round. See Case study: Cochabamba for more details.
Click on the image below to visit the GoogleCochabamba web site.
In Ecuador
Quito, Ecuador is the second most populous city in Ecuador and the nations capital. It is located on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains. The elevation of the city's central square is 2,850 m (about 9,350 ft), making Quito the second highest capital city in the world.
In Mexico
Ajijic, Mexico is a community near Guadalajara situated on the north shore of Lake Chapala at 5046 feet above sea level in the vast central Mexican plateau that is home to the Sierra Madre mountain range. Ajijic enjoys a year round average temperature of about 72 degrees. The temperature ranges from a low of about 50 degrees in the winter months, to a high of about 90 degrees in summer. The Chapala region, especially Ajijic, is home to more than 3,000 expatriate Americans.
Merida is a “people city.” A few months ago Mexico City’s leading La Reforma newspaper polled the country’s citizens and asked them to name the most livable cities in Mexico. Merida ranked second, behind Colima, near the Pacific coast. Every night of the week you will find live music of a different variety in a different plaza around town. The food vendors will be there…grab a freshly made hotdog, hamburger, or taco for a buck or two, and for dessert, a cone filled with homemade ice cream will set you back another buck.
During the day, you’ll often find students in these same plazas (Merida is known for its fine high schools, technical schools, colleges and universities), some diligently tapping away on laptop keyboards. The mayor of Merida is installing free wireless Internet service in 50 locations around the city, including parks. The most popular gathering spots are already wired.
The city has also allocated 60 million pesos (about $6 million) to beautify its central historic district. Workers are busily restoring and painting building facades, and removing overhead power lines and placing them underground. Some city streets will be inaccessible to bus traffic.
“Merida is like the French Quarter, but cleaner and safer, like Santa Fe but cheaper, and it’s what Key West used to be,” says real estate agent Eric Partney. “There is a lively street life here, and that gives the city a bohemian feel.”
Merida is the best of genteel, easygoing Old Mexico, yet it offers the sophistication you’d expect of a city with nearly 1 million inhabitants. You’ll find Mexico’s largest shopping mall here, the Gran Plaza. Two more mega shopping malls are now also being built. The city offers a lively cultural life, with several theaters where you can take in a play, the symphony, or the ballet. There are also several excellent health care facilities, including the Clínica Merida and the new Star Medica, featuring state-of-the-art laboratory and diagnostic equipment.
Manzanillo, along with Puerto Vallarta, which lies about 165 miles north—is one of the biggest beach resort cities on this part of Mexico’s Pacific coast. But where Vallarta is sleek and chic, with great shopping and high-end restaurants, Manzanillo offers a more casual lifestyle. Here there are great (but simple) seafood restaurants, scuba shacks, and great beaches. The city boasts two five-mile stretches of beach, on two bays that are separated by a peninsula.
One of the nicest, cleanest beaches is at Las Brisas, in the Bay of Manzanillo. This area tends to be more residential, with condominium complexes and the occasional small B&B. It lies right beside a naval base, and on some mornings you can hear the naval band or see teams of naval recruits and officers exercising on the beach. (Their presence may also account in part for Las Brisas’s reputation for safety.)
Transportation connections are good, too. It is well connected by road with communities up and down the coast and with cities in the interior. Manzanillo has an international airport, with direct flights from Houston and Los Angeles. In addition, the large international airport at Guadalajara is only three hours away by highway.
To keep you busy in your retirement, the area offers many sports-related activities, including sport fishing, golf (there are five golf courses in the area), hiking, horseback riding, and boating. Swimming, surfing, scuba diving, and snorkeling, of course, are popular, and the equipment is readily available. Plus, Manzanillo also has several spas and gyms for indoor workouts.
There’s a lot to like in Manzanillo: a warm climate; attractive beaches; friendly population; scores of restaurants and hotels; and still-affordable real estate.
Xalapa's roads wind among lushly green hills and ravines, where rivulets and small waterfalls are a common sight. In spring, coffee bushes in bloom, their tiny white flowers scattered like snowflakes on the green leaves, grow in every ravine under arching banana trees. This is the heart of Veracruz State’s coffee-growing region, where the foothills meet the mountains.
The air here is rich and moist and the temperature mild, though you may need a light jacket in the evening. It’s hard to believe that you’re only an hour from the coast, with its temperatures in the 90s. But in that hour’s drive you’ve gone from sea level to 4,000 feet, and from Veracruz’s black-sand beaches to this capital city nestled in the hills.
With a population of about 400,000, Xalapa is no longer a tiny capital.. But it still gives the feeling of a small city that you can easily escape into the countryside. From the city’s heights you can see green hills in almost every direction, blending into blue-tinged mountains. It’s no surprise that Xalapa is a hub for mountain sports, especially eco-tourism and white-water rafting on the area’s many little rivers.
For many people, though, Xalapa’s cultural life is the main draw. This is a city that exudes creative, intellectual energy. Known as the “Athens of Veracruz,” Xalapa is home to three universities and arguably the best music school in Mexico. Chic coffee shops and bistros fill during the day with shoppers and into the evening with students, academics, and writers, their conversations a roar over the tinkle of wine glasses and coffee cups. Walking through the city center, you see placards at almost every corner announcing concerts and plays. Xalapa’s symphony orchestra is considered the best in Mexico—but there are all styles of music here, from rock to jazz as well as classical. And if history is your passion, you’re in for a treat—Xalapas’s anthropological museum is widely considered the best in Mexico after the one in Mexico City.
Housing and overall cost of living are remarkably inexpensive. There are plenty of properties for sale for less than $150,000. And there are lots of options on where to buy—city neighborhoods where you can walk to shops, gated communities with expansive green areas, and nearby villages that offer colonial charm and are within an easy drive of Xalapa’s cultural amenities.
in Peru
Arequipa, Peru is the second most populous city of the country. Arequipa lies in the Andes mountains, at an altitude of 2,380 meters (7740 feet) above sea level, overseen by the snow-capped volcano El Misti. The city has many colonial-era Spanish buildings built of sillar, a pearly white volcanic rock, from which it gets the nickname La Ciudad Blanca ("The White City"). The historic centre of Arequipa was named a UNESCO world heritage site in 2000, in recognition of its architecture and historic integrity.
