Why I Left the US for Mexico (And Never Looked Back)

Subscribe to the substack here for weekly episodesOn May 1st, 2025, I arrived in the mountains of central Mexico. Sleepless. Covered in cat urine. Stressed like I’ve never experienced before.It was arguably the best day of my life.My origin storyWhen I was 23, I read a book that planted a dream deep into my consciousness. Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Work Week launched my journey into entrepreneurship and made me want something beyond a career — a life engineered to my own idea of perfection, where the business served the lifestyle, not the other way around.I became a man possessed.I withdrew socially to focus on working and learning. Teaching myself new skills. Sacrificing time and dumping money into building, experimenting, and learning.Finally, piece by piece, everything came together. But even when I could have done it, I didn’t. I was paralyzed by the unknown and the immensity of the change this dream would bring.The pivotspent years in a limbo state. I got stagnant and comfortable. I knew I wanted to shake things up, but nothing inspired me. I hunted for jobs. I signed consulting clients. I tried to find something — ANYTHING — that would be my next thunderbolt of certainty and purpose, but nothing ever hit.This was a very low moment for me. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know what to do next. It was the gnawing feeling that I was built for something else — and I was actively betraying that.I was at a crossroads with two job offers, and I took the lower-paying, lower-stress gig so I could reclaim my brain space and have time to build something new. But the inspiration never came.It was one of the bleakest periods of my adult life. I was stuck in the ultimate rut. I had no passion for anything I considered doing. I roamed around the country for years, looking for a place and a purpose, and found neither.Thank you for firing meI got the texts from my employer on a random Tuesday when I was home sick with pinkeye (lmao). I was getting laid off. The company had lost a big project, and my salary couldn’t be justified anymore.Turns out it was exactly what I needed.Over the coming days, my mind began to do what it does best: solve problems.I had a couple of consulting clients, so it wasn’t panic about money driving the change. It was getting set free.I’d been back in the Pacific Northwest for about a year, growing more dissatisfied by the day. It had been wonderful to reconnect with family and friends, but there’s a home for me out there somewhere, and I know definitively it isn’t in Seattle. This was the push I needed to hit the eject button. To get back to wandering. And this time, I set my sights on something more adventurous."You should go to Mexico”It’s a text I know for sure my mom regrets sending me to this day.A brief idea had flitted into my mind — moving abroad. Something I hadn’t considered in many years.Buenos Aires was my initial idea. But there was a BIG problem.I have two cats, you see.Flight time to Argentina from Seattle wasn’t viable with two cats.These are not ordinary cats. They’ve been moving around with me their whole lives, but always by car. I knew their limits. Argentina couldn’t work.But Mexico could.“Plans are worthless but planning is everything.” - Dwight D. EisenhowerI had a plan. But like any great plan, it didn’t survive first contact with reality.The plan wasn’t to travel the world — it was to move to Mexico. To live in the country. To deeply experience the place. To learn Spanish.But when you make a plan, God laughs in Mexican federal bureaucracy.My plan had a couple of failure points, and one of them triggered: I didn’t get the temporary residency visa I needed to live in Mexico.I booked a hotel in Boise. I drove through snow in two mountain ranges. I had all my ducks in a row — anything they could possibly need, I had.For the unfamiliar, Mexican bureaucracy is enough to make even the most jaded anti-government extremist in the U.S. into a proud taxpaying patriot by comparison.The requirements vary from consulate to consulate. Policy depends on who you talk to. And ultimately, your visa is at the discretion of whichever consulate employee happens to be in front of you.When I arrived first thing in the morning, I wasn’t just denied — they wouldn’t even see me. I’d scheduled my appointment through the portal for Mexican citizens. There was no recourse. That was it.It should have been a dead end. Everything was already in motion. But I wasn’t ready to abandon the plan — not yet.Denied.I had the new plan formulated before I even reached the state line.I would go all-in. Put my life in motion and keep it in motion. START in Mexico, then drift through all the places I’d longed to visit.So that’s what I did.I sold everything. I researched and procured the gear I’d need to spend years in Airbnbs and hop between continents. And I laid the groundwork for the travel media company I finally pulled the trigger on launching.My life was suddenly supercharged with purpose again. I had a mission that actually mattered, a new certainty of action, and the clarity that it was finally time to chase a goal fifteen years in the making. I had never been happier.Six weeks later, my flight arrived in Mexico.I worked out the logistics of getting the cats to Querétaro, Mexico - and, importantly, learned their limits when Emma lost control of her bladder during the descent into QRO. In my lap.Now I know their ACTUAL limits.“I love it when a plan comes together” - Hannibal Smith, The A-TeamIt’s been six months in Mexico, and I haven’t had a single shred of regret since leaving the United States.Now I want to take you on my journey with me.I’m going to share my life and my experiences on the road with you here. To show you the journey of a guy who’d never left the country before becoming an effortless chameleon of the world — or dying a probably-hilarious death trying.If you’re here, you probably found my videos on social media or my (for now) daily vlog on YouTube. But this is where I’ll be the most raw, real, and unfiltered. A front-row seat to every struggle, challenge, and curiosity as I try to understand the world as it is.Six months ago I stepped off a plane in Mexico, exhausted and covered in cat piss. And I’ve never felt more alive.Thank you for your support. I look forward to sharing the world with you.- SheaP.S. Paid subscribers get weekly posts. Free subscribers get monthly updates. Get full access to Wayfinder Substack at sheamcvaugh.substack.com/subscribe