If you’re keen to avoid the kind of giant resorts, vendor-ridden beaches and noisy bars favored by the “spring break” crowd, you can still find upscale tran­quil­ity in Mex­ico with­out hav­ing to break the bank.

Sit­u­ated 27 miles north of Puerto Vallarta’s Gus­tavo Diaz Ordaz Inter­na­tional Air­port, the Punta Mita penin­sula has become a favorite hide­away for celebri­ties and tycoons look­ing for peace and privacy.

On the same lat­i­tude as Hawaii — but only half the flight time from New York (about five hours direct) — the area offers the same near-perfect cli­mate. There are 340 days of sun­shine per year and aver­age tem­per­a­tures of 80 degrees, plus crys­tal blue waters, lush flora and fauna and out­stand­ing amenities.

But if own­ing one of the area’s multimillion-dollar hacien­das or stay­ing at the super­lux­u­ri­ous Four Sea­sons Resort, where rooms aver­age $1,500 per night, is out of your bud­get, try rent­ing one of the sur­pris­ingly afford­able vil­las or con­dos in this peace­ful gated community.

If you’re look­ing for plenty of space, you’ll find it here. A stan­dard floor plan for both con­dos and vil­las con­sists of three en-suite dou­ble bed­rooms with sep­a­rate kitchen, din­ing, liv­ing and out­door areas cov­er­ing at least 3,500 square feet — per­fect for low-key fam­i­lies or groups of friends look­ing for a styl­ish hideaway.

The exquis­ite “Mexi-terranean” inte­ri­ors, ele­gant hybrids of tra­di­tional Mex­i­can and chic south­ern Euro­pean, leave no detail over­looked. Choose a villa and enjoy a pri­vate plunge pool and whirlpool; the en-suite bath­rooms have out­door showers.

You’ll likely find your­self tak­ing as many pho­tos of your impres­sive accom­mo­da­tions as of the fab­u­lous sur­round­ing landscape.

In fact, drag­ging your­self away from your vaca­tion home is likely to be the biggest hur­dle you’ll face.

In-villa spa treat­ments, such as the sig­na­ture Mita Relax­ing Mas­sage ($118), can be arranged through the concierge. You can even sub­mit a gro­cery list before you arrive to ensure your well-appointed kitchen is stocked for leisurely meals over­look­ing the ocean.

But get­ting off your lounger is worth it. Just steps away is 9–1/2 miles of white-sand beaches; a res­i­dents’ beach club, offer­ing a pool, food and spa ser­vices, pro­vides a focal point for each villa or condo community.

Don’t be sur­prised if you have the beach to your­self. The main entry gate allows access only to staff and res­i­dents, many of whom use their prop­er­ties only a few months of the year.

Even dur­ing the Jan­u­ary to April high sea­son, clever plan­ning has ensured that the area never feels busy. The Jack Nick­laus Sig­na­ture Golf Course has tee times avail­able through­out the day (a sec­ond Nick­laus course and St. Regis hotel, with a fit­ness suite avail­able to villa guests, are sched­uled to open in early summer).

Those look­ing for more adven­ture can try sail­ing, div­ing or snor­kel­ing along­side the areas’ many hump­back whales, dol­phins, rays and sea tur­tles. Or try your hand at surf­ing in the pleas­ant 73– to 85-degree waters.

One of the area’s best surf breaks is on a pris­tine beach at the foot of the impres­sive Casa Papelil­los hacienda. Here, you could find your­self catch­ing a wave with the likes of Jay-Z, Bey­oncé, Gwyneth Pal­trow and Chris Mar­tin, who have all stayed at the sump­tu­ous, fully staffed, nine-bedroom estate that rents for $13,000 per night.

And if you want to take a break from cook­ing, there are plenty of options, though you’d be wise to hire a car as taxis can be expensive.

The area’s small local vil­lage, over­look­ing Ban­deras Bay on the south side of the 1,500-acre Punta Mita penin­sula, offers sev­eral good beach­front restau­rants and shops. The Four Sea­sons Resort’s exclu­sive bou­tiques and restau­rants are also avail­able to nonguests.

At least one evening in Puerto Val­larta is a must. It’s about an hour’s drive through heavy traf­fic on the wind­ing coastal road. But Puerto Vallarta’s quaint cob­bled streets and bustling, mile-long board­walk, known as the Male­con, are worth the effort. They offer an invig­o­rat­ing mix of sculp­ture, shops, gal­leries and restaurants.

Just off the Male­con find tra­di­tional Mex­i­can fare at El Arrayán (at 344 Allende). Try fam­ily recipes like Aun­tie Chiquis’ tomatillo-pasilla chicken next to the restaurant’s own arrayán tree, which pro­duces the sweet, fleshy fruit used in the house margaritas.

For more celebrity spot­ting, try the exquis­ite Café Des Artistes. The unas­sum­ing white exte­rior gives way to a cav­ernous assort­ment of beau­ti­fully designed din­ing areas. From the all-white min­i­mal­ist din­ing room to the stun­ning, jungle-like, mul­ti­level out­door gar­den, the restau­rant has attracted such stars as Nico­las Cage and Robin Williams.

The French– and Polynesian-inspired menu rotates sea­son­ally, and chef Thierry Blouet’s unbeat­able choco­late desserts will send you to heaven, should there be any doubt you’re already there.

Cana­di­ans long­ing for end­less beaches and friendly peo­ple are increas­ingly head­ing south.

When Christina and Robert Sto­bbs of North Van­cou­ver first vis­ited Mex­ico 20 years ago, they fell gob­s­macked in love with its white-sand beaches, rich cul­ture, cli­mate and, most of all, Mexico’s “won­der­ful, friendly people.”

Like other frost-bitten Cana­di­ans, they began fly­ing south reg­u­larly to seek warmth in the win­ter. While soak­ing up the country’s his­tory and tra­di­tions they checked Mex­ico out from stem to stern so when the ques­tion of retire­ment started to loom in their lives, Mex­ico looked as if it might be more than just a tem­po­rary escape from the weather.

“About five years ago we started think­ing about buy­ing some­thing there instead of just being snow­birds,” says Christina. “Every time we left to come home we were sorry because we love the peo­ple and the culture.”

Last week­end, the Sto­bbs were among more than a hun­dred other Van­cou­verites look­ing for answers at the first “Canada2Mexico” sem­i­nar held in Van­cou­ver for peo­ple con­sid­er­ing Mex­ico as a retire­ment des­ti­na­tion. Event plan­ners say that the sem­i­nars at Simon Fraser University’s down­town cam­pus Sept. 30 were the first in what will be a series of annual sem­i­nars in major cities across Canada to exam­ine the options and ben­e­fits of retir­ing to Mexico.

Sem­i­nars on a vari­ety of sub­jects were headed by experts in the fields of finance, tax­a­tion, immi­gra­tion, real estate and health with a look into all the prob­lems, ben­e­fits and for­mal­i­ties that need to be con­sid­ered before head­ing for “off­shore” retirement.

Gar­reth West­wood, a spe­cial­ist in inter­na­tional relo­ca­tion con­sult­ing, unrav­elled a web of visa for­mal­i­ties any­one think­ing about lengthy or per­ma­nent res­i­dence in Mex­ico needs to consider.

There are essen­tially three types of visas; the FMT, the FM2 and FM3. “Snow­birds” only require the FMT tourist visa which allows a 30– to 180-day visit, but lim­its the amount of house­hold goods that can be brought across the bor­der. For retirees, the FM3 visa renew­able annu­ally is the most flex­i­ble allow­ing long-term res­i­dence and the pos­si­bil­ity of con­vert­ing to Mex­i­can cit­i­zen­ship after five years in the country.

There are a num­ber of cat­e­gories and sub-categories, each with its spe­cial require­ments depend­ing on the pro­fes­sional sta­tus of the new res­i­dent, if he wants to invest in the coun­try or estab­lish a busi­ness. The FM2 visa is pri­mar­ily for investors.

Reg Cyr, a Toronto-based finan­cial plan­ner, pointed out that by retir­ing in Mex­ico you not only get a warmer cli­mate you can also reduce your cost of liv­ing and taxes. “Mex­ico is one des­ti­na­tion where this works for many Cana­di­ans because Mex­ico can be called a tax haven,” he says. “By mov­ing to Mex­ico the bot­tom line is that you can elim­i­nate or mit­i­gate most taxes while still col­lect­ing RRSPs, RRIFs, CPP and OAS.”

While Canada will with­hold 15 per cent from these pay­ments as a non-resident tax, Cana­di­ans on an FM3 visa are not required to fill out tax forms in Mexico.

“Mex­ico wants us there,” says Cyr. “Because they’re devel­op­ing and grow­ing their coun­try, they want for­eign currencies.”

Cyr said it was manda­tory to plan care­fully (espe­cially when your net worth and assets are high) and to work with an expe­ri­enced finan­cial plan­ner in prepar­ing your exit. Rev­enue Canada has a long list of require­ments that need to be met to avoid later complications.

One of the major con­cerns with vis­i­tors to Mex­ico is reli­able health care since lan­guage bar­ri­ers and cul­tural dif­fer­ences can make ill­ness a fright­en­ing expe­ri­ence for any­one trav­el­ling out­side his own country.

Dr. Robert Page, an Arizona-based physi­cian, has lengthy expe­ri­ence and an under­stand­ing of med­ical issues in Mex­ico from which he has built Med­ToGo, an advi­sory web­site (www.medtogo.com) and series of books for trav­ellers who want trust­wor­thy advice on hos­pi­tals and physi­cians in Mex­ico. In his talk, Dr. Page cov­ered a vari­ety of issues includ­ing health insur­ance avail­able to long-term res­i­dents in Mex­ico ($250 US a year), cited exam­ples of seri­ous prob­lems that have occurred and how they were dealt with by Mex­i­can doc­tors and gave spe­cific “dos and don’ts.”

For snow­birds who have decided to put down roots, Luis Bras­de­fer, a con­sul­tant based in Canada with exper­tise in acquir­ing Mex­i­can real estate, out­lined how to buy prop­erty legally and safely. Among a num­ber of dif­fer­ences involved in land pur­chase in Canada and Mex­ico is the legal require­ment that Cana­di­ans look­ing to buy near Mexico’s beaches or bor­ders do so through a bank trustee. Bras­de­fer cau­tioned that buy­ers should do their home­work and laid out some of the pro­ce­dures to fol­low, the legal issues involved and cau­tions about pur­chas­ing spe­cial land cat­e­gories that affect title.

Safety on the road is one of the major con­cerns for Cana­di­ans who drive to Mex­ico and sto­ries galore cir­cu­late about ban­di­dos and cor­rupt traf­fic police.

Rocio Morales with Sanborn’s Insur­ance described in detail what vis­i­tors need to do or take with them before cross­ing the bor­der with the fam­ily car, road con­di­tions, insur­ance and safety. He also intro­duced a Van­cou­ver cou­ple, Lau­rie Mof­fat and her hus­band Wal­ter, who are reg­u­lar vis­i­tors to Mex­ico and always drive.

“There are just so many mis­con­cep­tions about Mex­ico,” said Mof­fat. “We’ve never had any prob­lems and we’ve never felt unsafe, even walk­ing around town at night.”

Morales ended with a final assur­ance: “If you do get into trou­ble at night on the high­way, you’ll have Green Angels to help.” These are trained mechan­ics who patrol at night on all major toll roads and always help motorists.

For more infor­ma­tion on the spe­cial­ists who were speak­ers or future sem­i­nars, con­tact Canada2Mexico Mar­ket­ing Inc., 400 — 1681 Chest­nut St., Van­cou­ver V6J4M6. Tel: 604–733-8242; www.retire2mexico.info.

Helena Zukowski is a West Van­cou­ver free­lance writer.

RETIREMENT TO MEXICO

Cana­di­ans think­ing of retir­ing to Mex­ico need to consider:

- Visas: “Snow­birds” need one kind of visa, the FMT, while those liv­ing there year-round need another, the FM3.

- Taxes: Experts say most Cana­di­ans mov­ing to Mex­ico will save on taxes, as Canada charges only 15 per cent on income and Mex­ico col­lects nothing.

- Health care: Health insur­ance and direc­to­ries of English-speaking doc­tors are avail­able. Visit www.medtogo.com.

A grow­ing num­ber of U.S. cit­i­zens are look­ing across their nation’s south­ern bor­der, search­ing for a home or invest­ment prop­erty in Mexico.

“There are now about 1.5 mil­lion for­mer U.S. res­i­dents liv­ing in Mex­ico, and that num­ber is increas­ing,” said Adrian Arriaga, a Texas-based bro­ker and con­sul­tant spe­cial­iz­ing in prop­er­ties in Mex­ico. “Mex­ico is the No. 1 des­ti­na­tion choice for U.S. buy­ers of prop­erty in for­eign countries.”

Com­pared with prices of U.S. real estate, prop­er­ties in Mex­ico are bar­gains, and there are other incen­tives for buy­ing a prop­erty in Mex­ico. Cities are rapidly devel­op­ing. Infra­struc­tures have improved dra­mat­i­cally dur­ing the past cou­ple of years, and such devel­op­ments are con­tin­u­ing. Many growth areas offer out­stand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for real estate investors.

One of the first con­cerns expressed by prospec­tive buy­ers relates to legal struc­tur­ing of Mex­i­can prop­erty pur­chase transactions.

“Gen­er­ally, the laws of Mex­ico regard­ing the pur­chase of real prop­erty are sim­i­lar to those of the U.S.,” said attor­ney John Ver­non. “For exam­ple, Mex­i­can law rec­og­nizes real estate mort­gages and var­i­ous types of secu­rity inter­ests in per­sonal prop­erty. Also, in most real estate trans­ac­tions, Mex­i­can banks can act as escrow agents or trustees.

“How­ever, there are some dif­fer­ences. When Amer­i­cans par­tic­i­pate in their first real estate pur­chase in Mex­ico, they are often sur­prised to learn that title insur­ance is not widely avail­able. For­eign pur­chasers should take steps to ensure they have full title insur­ance. And there is no wide­spread use of pur­chase and sale agree­ments as such doc­u­ments are under­stood in the U.S.”

It’s always a good idea to work with a Mex­i­can Real­tor and/or attor­ney in struc­tur­ing a real prop­erty purchase.

“The good news for investors is you can own prop­erty in Mex­ico free and clear, eas­ily and for­ever,” said Dave Ash, author of “The Boom in Mex­ico Real Estate.” “Hav­ing lived in Mex­ico for six years, I am amazed at the changes and mod­ern times that seem to have flooded into this area. Small fish­ing vil­lages have evolved into mod­ern cities with American-style life and mega shop­ping centers.”

For indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies who are inter­ested in relo­cat­ing to Mex­ico, some inten­sive edu­ca­tion in the lan­guage and cul­ture of the tar­geted area is wise before mak­ing a prop­erty pur­chase and move. Many of these buy­ers are look­ing for a rea­son­ably priced per­ma­nent home in a scenic area with mild cli­mate — some for a retire­ment home. Oth­ers want a Mex­i­can res­i­dence for part of each year.

There are schools that offer spe­cial courses and pro­grams that address those needs. For exam­ple, Uni­ver­sal Cen­ter for Lan­guage and Social Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, based in Cuer­navaca, Mex­ico, is oper­ated by a group of lan­guage instruc­tors seek­ing an inno­v­a­tive way to teach Span­ish within a cul­tural con­text. They offer inten­sive Span­ish pro­grams com­bined with a local home­s­tay. Pro­grams are designed for adults and children.

In addi­tion to lan­guage instruc­tion, this school offers com­mu­nity involve­ment pro­grams and oppor­tu­ni­ties for inde­pen­dent field work, pri­mar­ily in Cuer­navaca and its sur­round­ing valley.

“Many peo­ple who take classes at Uni­ver­sal are think­ing about own­ing a home and liv­ing in Mex­ico,” said one of the school’s teach­ers. “One man from San Diego is doing just that. He is retired and wants to buy prop­erty in the Cuer­navaca area. He was ini­tially inter­ested in coastal prop­erty, but now wants to stay in this area.

“A woman stu­dent in her 70s is plan­ning to move to Mex­ico with her hus­band after pur­chas­ing a home here. She’s a teacher from Min­nesota. They want a warm place where they can retire in com­fort. There are many other such examples.”

South of the bor­der? How about north? Second-home shop­pers who want some­thing more exotic than their friends’ moun­tain bun­ga­lows and beach con­dos have two easy options: Mex­ico and Canada.

Amer­i­cans have been buy­ing vaca­tion prop­er­ties in Canada since the days of the Roo­sevelts and Cam­po­bello Island. Many new devel­op­ments in Mex­ico are aimed squarely at Amer­i­cans, and in other areas, 19th cen­tury vil­lages are becom­ing vaca­tion home hot spots.

The trick is to find the right region, the right real estate bro­ker and the right property.

Whether you’re look­ing in Nova Sco­tia or in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, the best advice is to talk with peo­ple who own vaca­tion homes there or expa­tri­ates who live there full time. Ask about all aspects of own­ing: taxes, main­te­nance, bor­der cross­ings, avail­abil­ity of title insur­ance and rela­tion­ships with locals, as well as rec­om­men­da­tions on real estate agencies.

If you don’t speak Span­ish, you’re prob­a­bly lim­it­ing your search in Mex­ico to regions pop­u­lar with Eng­lish speak­ers. Start a con­ver­sa­tion with the English-speaking peo­ple at the next table in a cafe. Many will be eager to sell you on the area in which they are already invested and to warn you of problems.

Mul­ti­ple list­ings are used in Canada and Mex­ico, but that doesn’t mean that any agent can or will show you every­thing worth considering.

An agent who has worked with other Amer­i­cans may bet­ter under­stand your con­cerns, ques­tions and expectations.

If you’re begin­ning your house hunt at your com­puter, an Inter­net search of “real estate” and the name of the area that inter­ests you will almost always turn up plenty of pos­si­bil­i­ties. Invest in a few phone calls to find some­one who seems to under­stand what you’re look­ing for.

Marci Boone, an artist and teacher in Austin, Texas, met Jenny Her­ren, a real estate agent, at an open house while vis­it­ing Aji­jic, Mex­ico, with a friend. Aji­jic is at an ele­va­tion of 5,200 feet in the Sierra Madre and over­looks Lake Chapala.

“We vis­ited about what we had in mind to pur­chase,” Boone said in an e-mail mes­sage, and the con­ver­sa­tion led to her buy­ing a two-bedroom condo in a gated community.

Robert Stec, a bro­ker with Ideal Loca­tions in Chicago as well as Paz Pacific Realty in La Paz, Mex­ico, says the biggest mis­take peo­ple make is that they write checks payable to devel­op­ers of projects that are not yet built.

“You’ve got to make sure deposits go directly into an escrow account at a bank,” he said. Oth­er­wise, he said, you can be left high and dry if the devel­oper goes bust.

If the bor­der you’re cross­ing is Cana­dian, house shop­ping and the pur­chase process may seem more familiar.

In 2001, Russ Sitch, an elec­tri­cal con­trac­tor in Hon­olulu, and his wife, Suzanne, bought a condo at Big White Ski Resort near the wine town of Kelowna in the Okana­gan region of British Columbia.

“We liked the snow and what you get for the money,” Russ Sitch said. The cou­ple has since bought another condo at Cop­per Ket­tle Lodge in the same region and sold the first one.

“Every­thing was about the same” as buy­ing in the United States, Russ Sitch said, “except that we had to finance them through a Cana­dian bank.”

They use their condo about twice a year, he said, and have the resort rent it out when they’re not in residence.

Puerto Val­larta, located along the Mex­i­can Riv­iera on the Pacific Coast, is in the clos­est trop­i­cal area to the west­ern U.S. — which might sound appeal­ing to any Amer­i­can cur­rently suf­fer­ing through win­try weather.

It’s just a two-hour direct flight from Hous­ton and San Diego, and about three hours from Los Ange­les and San Fran­cisco. The best time to visit is from Octo­ber to May, when the tem­per­a­ture is usu­ally in the 70s and 80s Fahren­heit and it isn’t too rainy.

Where to Stay

There are sev­eral high-end places to stay in Puerto Val­larta, such as Villa Ver­ano, which over­looks the beaches of Con­chas Chi­nas and has hosted such lumi­nar­ies as the cast of the Drew Carey Show.

The prop­erty is near the air­port, has 12 bed­rooms and offers spa ser­vices. Each day, the meal menus (which guests can cus­tomize) are pre­pared by the exec­u­tive chefs using food pur­chased at local markets.

But don’t go unless you’ve got a big group, or a big bud­get to spend on extra rooms: Only one group rents out the entire prop­erty at a time. Guests must rent out at least eight of the bed­rooms, which are $300 to $500 each.

Another lux­u­ri­ous place to stay is the Westin ($150-$500) located in the Marina Val­larta area. The hotel, which over­looks the Ban­deras Bay, has nearly 300 rooms with ocean views and pri­vate bal­conies. It offers ameni­ties such as a pool, whirlpool, a sauna, spa, pri­vate beach and a kid’s club.