Living in the Yucatan is absolutely beautiful. It’s a little piece of paradise. The weather is wonderful, the beaches are nice, the people are very friendly and family-oriented, and if you can’t buy what you need here, you don’t really need it.

I could say the same about Celestún, a small fishing village of 7,500 people in the state of Yucatan where I live, except that if you live in Celestún, you have to buy everything in Merida because Celestún is a small village and there is not a lot of shopping here.
I live on the water to the point where I can throw a rock underhand into the ocean from my property. I can sit on my terrace in the morning, have coffee, and maybe see one other person or two other people. It is very quiet, very private, and very beautiful. Celestún is a safe place, we have a much lower cost of living, medical care is half the amount it costs in North America, and dental care is about 15% of how much it costs in North America for the same quality. The temperature here ranges from 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and 70 to 80 degrees in the winter.
I am a more private person so I do not mix a lot with either the foreigners or the locals. I do a lot of my visiting with tourists who come here. Whenever I see tourists, I always stop and ask if I can help them find anything. They give vast amounts of information about their life, which is pretty neat, and all they ask in return is that you tell them where they can see alligators in Celestún, or where they can see flamingos, which Celestún is famous for. That is where I get a lot of my social interaction here in Celestún. My wife’s family is around a lot and she has a lot of friends who come all the time. I do a lot of business on the Internet, during which I interact with people from all over the world. Once a week, in Merida, we go see additional friends. Celestún is a little bit isolated but you could select your friends and still have good social interaction.
(The Raquel Welch 1970 television special partly filmed in Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)