05.14.21

After traveling through 23 countries and staying in most of them, I found an inside secret I wish I had learned much sooner!

Picture this: You get to a new town, and the one thing you have more than anything, is QUESTIONS! Instead of guessing or wondering, I learned how to get answers: ask the locals. Ask fellow expats. Ask those who previously had the same questions, and may have found answers the hard way.

I learned this when I recently went to Acapulco, Mexico, for the first time. One of my initial questions was, “How much should we pay to get from the airport to our hotel?” Since we have dealt with hundreds of taxi drivers over the years, I know that many are not honest, and the range of prices to the same location can vary. So I asked the locals.

They told me that the taxis were federally regulated AT the airport, so getting rides FROM the airport had little negotiation, but the return trip BACK was wide open. This I found out when we paid $450 pesos FROM and $300 pesos TO the airport. Granted, the ride FROM was in a pretty nice car, and the one back was, well, it was a piece of shit! No working speedometer, noisy muffler, rough ride, but a kind, sweet driver who pulled to the side of the road to allow us to take pictures and got us there in one piece. That’s a winner. BTW, he offered $300 to start, which I knew was very fair, so he got a nice tip for his honesty.

I also asked about places to eat (got lots of suggestions on that one), and since we wanted to see the world famous cliff divers, I had questions on that, too, which got answered. One of the locals warned me that the beaches downtown where we stayed were yucky (true) and recommended one a few miles away called Playa Bonfil. What a find, and a beach we never would have known about. We rented a motorcycle for a day ($20 USD) so took the ride out to Bonfil and found a really nice beach with rows of restaurants offering covered palapas, lounge chairs to lay on, and the cost of this? Just eat there, which we did. For all of about $10 we had several meals and a place to hang for half the day. And another bene was the variety of beach vendors offering lots of cool stuff, like quail’s eggs (ate ‘em), oysters and clams (passed), and some of the tastiest mango ever, which was probably hanging from a tree a few hours earlier.

The lesson: Ask a Local

In a few months I’ll be going to Oaxaca for a few weeks, so I found an expat group for the city and now I monitor their daily feed. Many of the questions that others ask I may not have thought of, but they are good questions! As I get closer I will throw my own questions out there and receive more personalized intel. So, if you are planning to go somewhere, do your homework and ask the locals. Here’s how:

• In Facebook (probably best) type in “city you wish to visit, expats” in the “group” search, and you may find several. I look for the ones with the most members. They may require you to join, so do that.
• Observe for a few days to see what the chatter is all about. YOUR question(s) may come up, if not, ask them yourself.

And that’s it. Mind you this is more suited if you are staying somewhere for a few days or need specific information. If you just want the Top 10 things to do, or something pretty mundane, just Google that yourself.