In December 2021, D and I traveled to La Paz for our joint birthdays (just 4 days apart) and a very Sagittarius celebration: travel, exploration, new experiences.
It was my first time visiting La Paz (actually, my first time anywhere in Baja aside from Cabo)… and I was in awe of the beauty of the place, the quiet, and the magical mix of desert and ocean. The pace felt slower, the air felt cleaner (SO MUCH cleaner than in CDMX), and there was so much to do outdoors.
We almost immediately started dreamily discussing how we could make the move – both physically, to this new place, and business-wise, into hospitality by maybe starting a hotel (a pipe dream of mine for.ev.er). We began looking for properties, something small. We were searching for empty, virgin beachfront land, in which we could build a tiny home for ourselves, and two or three small eco-friendly casitas to Airbnb.
The first plot we found that fit our specifications (and budget!) was just twenty minutes from La Paz center, right on the beach. We both fell in love at first sight, with the wildness of the property, the free-range cattle and horses, and the incredible hawks that would float on the breeze.
We started moving forward in the process, both logistically like paying for a land assessor and gathering documents, as well as emotionally, dreaming up what we could accomplish there… when the agent told us abruptly that she’d sold the property out from under us.
That was both a financial setback (we’d paid for the land assessment based on the good faith promise from the real estate agent that no one else was considering the land, and that we would be taking steps to move forward) and emotional disappointment, and rocked our trust in the only responsive agent we’d found. We continued looking, though, with other agents (“fool me once”), throughout Baja, though deciding to focus on the Sea of Cortez.
We made another trip to Baja on March 24, flying into La Paz but this time not stopping, but driving north for three hours to Loreto.
We saw a few spots just outside Loreto, and then continued two hours beyond, to the tiny freshwater oasis town of Mulege. We overnighted riverside in Mulege, but focused our land search in a remote beachside community called Punta Chivato.
Both D and I immediately went head over heels for Punta Chivato. The empty, expansive beaches were contrasted by beautiful mountains and ridges in the back. The community was quiet, international, and safe-feeling, separated from the busy highway by a long, winding, sand “road” that only locals would dare to traverse.
We made offers on two properties: a small less-than-an-acre beachfront corner lot, and a huge 33-acre mountain-backed lot set one row back from the beach (with a direct path a 5-minute walk to the ocean).
Our offer on the back lot was accepted, and we started moving forward… but this time, with much BIGGER plans than just a tiny home for us, and a couple Airbnb casitas.
A short vacation in Thailand turned into a life abroad with a canceled ticket home. Nearly a decade later and after living in Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, Puebla, and Puerto Vallarta, Steph is on to her next adventure and living back in beautiful, cosmopolitan Mexico City. She is living, traveling, and working (both as an expat therapist and an international health insurance representative) around the world to find the beautiful, inspirational, and interesting while sharing it with you!
