KIT Thank You! Page

Well, hello — and welcome!

​Access the Mérida Visitor’s Guide here.​

I’m Amy Jones, and I gave myself Mérida as a Christmas present.
Literally. I moved here on Christmas Day of 2019 — after 32 years in Dallas, Texas — as a gift to myself for finally listening to what I’d known for a while: that I was ready for a completely different kind of life.

Here’s what makes my story a little unusual. For years, I helped other people move. My professional background was in relocation — specifically working with people who were making their final major move. Elderly clients. Retirees. People stepping into the next phase of life. I understood moving, including the emotional side of it that most logistics companies completely ignore, better than most people.

And yet when it came to my own international move? I was overwhelmed, anxious, and deeply frustrated — because I couldn’t find a single reliable, objective resource to help me.

The expat Facebook groups were full of well-meaning people giving me 100 different answers from 100 different personal perspectives. What I needed was a clear, honest, just-the-facts guide from someone who’d actually done it. That didn’t exist. So eventually, I decided to become it.

In September of 2019, I came to Mérida on a research trip. My plan was to visit five different cities over two years before making any decisions. I never visited anywhere else. Something happened here — call it intuition, call it knowing — and it told me, clearly and urgently: move, and move as soon as possible. Three months later, I was here. Three months after that, the world shut down for COVID.

My timing was, let’s say, intuitively guided.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be in your inbox regularly — sharing everything I wish I’d had access to when I was sitting in Dallas, researching this move at midnight, getting nowhere. Cost of living, neighborhoods, research trip strategy, the legal and logistics questions, how to build a life here once you arrive.

Some emails will include free resources. Some will mention guides I’ve put together that go deeper. All of it will be honest — including the parts that aren’t pretty.

Reply to this email anytime. I actually read them.

Hasta Pronto!
Amy Jones, The Mérida Ambassador
Co-Founder, Life in Mérida™

P.S. The fact that you downloaded this guide tells me you’re at least seriously curious. That’s exactly where I was in September of 2019. I know how you feel — and I know what’s on the other side of it.