Retiring in Mexico: Why a Retired Command Sergeant Major Chose Mérida

One of the things I enjoy most about the Story Couch is hearing how people actually end up here. Some people have dreamed about living abroad for years. Others come to Mexico on vacation, fall in love with the place and start wondering what it would be like to stay. Dwalyn Dasher came to that decision after more than three decades in the military. Dwalyn is a retired Command Sergeant Major, husband, father, author and man of faith. When we sat down together, there was one question I really wanted him to answer. After spending decades in the military going where the military told you to go, what happens when you finally get to choose for yourself? For Dwalyn and his wife, that choice eventually became Mérida, Mexico. They wanted to experience life outside the United States, improve their Spanish, remain relatively close to home and live somewhere that still gave their family access to the conveniences of a major city. After looking at Mexico along with places such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, Mérida became the place that made sense for the life they wanted to build. I first met Dwalyn and his wife during a Roadmap consultation when moving to Mexico was still something they were planning. Almost a year later, we were sitting together as neighbors in Mérida. I met them while the move was still a plan, and now I get to see how that plan actually worked out.

Retirement Gave Him Something the Military Rarely Did: A Choice

Dwalyn and his family know something about moving. During one five-year stretch of his military career, they went from Killeen, Texas, to Washington State, Georgia, New York and then back to Texas. That was just one period in a military career that lasted more than three decades. But there is a difference between moving and choosing where you want to live. As Dwalyn explained it, you may get some input when you're in the military, but most of the time you're ultimately going where you're told. Retirement changed that. For the first time, he and his wife could really ask where they wanted to live instead of where they needed to be. I think that question goes well beyond the military. A lot of people eventually reach a point where the old reasons for staying somewhere don't apply anymore. Maybe you've retired. Maybe your kids are grown. Maybe your job has changed. Maybe you simply realize you have more choices than you thought you did. Then the question becomes: if I really could live somewhere else, what would I choose? That's also why I tell people not to start by asking for a list of the “best” cities in Mexico. A better question is whether a city actually supports the life you want to live. I wrote more about that in How to Decide Where to Live in Mexico.

How El Paso Changed the Way They Looked at Mexico

The Dashers didn't retire and immediately move to Mexico. Dwalyn retired in 2021, and the family remained in El Paso for several years. But living there began changing the way they thought about Mexico. What stood out to him wasn't simply the food or the fact that they were living close to the border. He talked about the culture, the importance of family, the way older people were treated and how people interacted with one another. It also challenged some of the things he had heard about Mexico before living so close to it. Eventually, he and his wife decided they needed to see Mexico for themselves. Living in El Paso had already challenged some of what he'd heard about Mexico. Now they wanted to find out what living there might be like for their family.

Mexico Wasn't Their Only Option

Mexico wasn't automatically the answer. He and his wife considered Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and other possibilities before deciding on Mexico. Language became one of the factors that helped narrow the decision. His wife already spoke Spanish, and he wanted to become fluent. Being relatively close to the United States also mattered. That still left them with another big question. Mexico is a huge country. So why Mérida?

Why Did They Choose Mérida, Mexico?

Dwalyn told me that one of the things they wanted was the experience of living in Mexico without giving up all of the conveniences they were accustomed to having. That's something people sometimes misunderstand about Mérida. This isn't a little beach town. It's a major city with shopping, restaurants, hospitals, familiar stores and many of the things people use in everyday life. For the Dashers, Mérida offered a balance. They could live in Mexico, work on their Spanish and experience a different culture without feeling like they had given up everything familiar. Dwalyn was also moving with his wife and two sons, so he paid close attention to how people behaved in the community after they arrived. He wasn't simply relying on a statistic or something somebody told him. He paid attention to what people who actually lived in the community were doing. Were older people walking around in the evening? Were women walking at night? Were children outside? Did the people who lived there behave as though they felt comfortable in their own neighborhoods? His military background taught him to pay attention to the environment itself. Once he explained it that way, I realized I see the same things every day. I see older women walking to church. I see kids walking to the tienda. I see people outside early in the morning and later in the evening. Those little everyday things tell you something about a community that doesn't always show up in a ranking.

How a Military Family Planned an International Move

When I asked Dwalyn how his military career affected the way he planned the move, his answer was exactly what you would expect from a retired Command Sergeant Major. Logistics. He described himself as very Type A. During earlier military moves, he and his wife would plan hotels, driving distances and schedules in detail. They brought that same approach to their move to Mexico. His wife handled much of the documentation. Dwalyn handled many of the larger moving pieces. They coordinated the needs of their sons, their cats, medical records, transportation and the logistics of an international move. What I liked most about that part of the conversation was the trust between them. If she said she had something handled, he didn't need to go behind her and check it again. The same was true for him. Of course, even the best planning doesn't eliminate surprises. One of their cats managed to get out of its carrier on the airplane and ended up sitting on his wife's feet. You can have everything mapped out and something is still going to happen. Being prepared gives you a better chance of handling it without throwing off the rest of the move. If you're working through your own move, my Moving to Mexico Checklist lays out the major decisions and the order in which you should start thinking about them.

The Roadmap Was Part of Their Preparation

I met Dwalyn and his wife before they moved through Roadmap to Expat. At that point, Mérida wasn't their everyday life yet. They were still researching, asking questions and trying to understand what they didn't know. They later made an exploratory trip before completing the move. An exploratory trip gives you a chance to look beyond whether you like a destination and consider how your family would actually live there. That includes finances, healthcare, housing and how everyone feels about the move. You have to figure out transportation, what you're bringing, what you're leaving behind and what you don't even know to ask about yet. Dwalyn's advice on that was straightforward: use subject-matter experts. He said his military background taught him not to reinvent the wheel just to prove he could figure something out himself. If someone knows a subject better than he does, he'll ask questions, take notes and then execute. That approach makes a lot of sense to me. You don't get extra credit for making the move harder than it has to be. If you're trying to determine whether your own plan is actually ready, start with Are You Ready to Move to Mexico? A Relocation Readiness Guide.

What Was Living in Mérida Actually Like Six Months Later?

When we recorded this conversation, the Dashers had been living in Mérida for about six months. So I asked Dwalyn what had gone according to plan and what hadn't. His answer was basically that most things had worked out the way they expected. That doesn't mean everything here works like it did in the United States. They've dealt with power outages. They had to adjust from central air conditioning to mini-split systems. They've learned different processes and different ways of handling everyday things. Dwalyn described those adjustments as part of learning to live here. If you compare everything to the way it worked back home and decide the old way was automatically better, you're going to make the transition much harder on yourself. Sometimes you just have to learn how things work where you are now. Dwalyn described much of that process as an adventure. Even something like a power outage becomes something the family works around instead of evidence that the move was a mistake. I like that approach.

What Is Moving to Mexico With Kids Actually Like?

I was also interested in how Dwalyn's sons were adjusting. They were already homeschooling before the move, and the family continued that after coming to Mérida. The difference now is that they're doing it in an environment that gives them new experiences. They participate in a local homeschool group and activities involving theater, music and art. They have neighborhood friends, and the family is intentionally incorporating Spanish into their learning. Dwalyn talked about reading in both English and Spanish and working on vocabulary and comprehension together. Then there are the small things that tell you a family is beginning to settle into a community. He talked about letting his son walk to the local tienda. As a parent, being comfortable letting your son walk to the local tienda says something about how settled you feel in a neighborhood. I've written about our own experience raising a family here in Raising a Black Family in Mérida, Mexico, because moving abroad with children involves much more than simply choosing a school or finding a house.

Family, Faith and the Next Chapter

If you ask Dwalyn who he is, he doesn't begin with his military rank. He told me that he is a husband and a father, in that order. That tells you quite a bit about him. He's also an author and a man of faith, and those parts of his life came up naturally during our conversation. One of the most interesting things he told me was about writing. His first book took 12 years to complete. His second took about six months. He connected some of that difference to the amount of mental energy he feels like he's using now compared with when he lived in the United States. He talked about feeling more at peace, sleeping better, slowing down and having more room to sit with his thoughts. I understood exactly what he meant. I've talked before about how moving can affect the way you experience everyday life. Sometimes you don't realize how much energy you're spending navigating your environment until you leave it. Then you start noticing things again. You notice the birds and the flowers. You sit down and actually have conversations. You spend more quality time with people. You slow down. It's difficult to put a dollar value on that, but it is absolutely part of quality of life. Dwalyn connected that sense of peace with having more room to write.

What Does It Cost to Move to Mexico vs. Live in Mexico?

Dwalyn has a background in financial literacy, so naturally money came up. There was one distinction from our conversation that I think everybody planning an international move should understand. The cost of moving and the cost of living are two different things. People spend a lot of time researching monthly expenses in Mexico. They want to know what rent costs, what groceries cost and how much they'll spend eating out. Those things matter, but before you ever reach a normal monthly budget, you have the move itself. You may have deposits, transportation costs, a vehicle, shipping, flights, household setup and all kinds of upfront expenses. The Dashers planned for that and intentionally came with more financial cushion than they ended up needing. Dwalyn said the preparation was worth it. I'd much rather see somebody make that mistake than the opposite one. Then, once you're settled, your lifestyle starts determining your monthly costs. That's something I say all the time. You can live fairly inexpensively in Mexico, but you can also run it up. If you want to eat out several times a week, that's part of your budget. If you want a certain type of house, that's part of your budget. If you travel often, that's part of your budget. The useful question isn't simply, “Is Mexico cheap?” A better question is, “What does it cost to live the way I actually like to live?” That's the number that matters. If you're building your own numbers, Can You Afford to Move to Mexico? walks through the difference between relocation costs, ongoing expenses and the financial cushion you may need during the transition.

What Would He Do Differently?

When I asked Dwalyn what he would change if he were doing the move again, his answers weren't about regretting Mérida. They were mostly about logistics. He wishes they had started working through the vehicle question earlier. They had an F-150 and an Explorer and spent time figuring out whether to bring a vehicle before eventually selling them. He also wishes he had investigated the shipping options for some of his larger backup-power equipment earlier. And yes, he's a prepper. Batteries, generators and backup systems. My kind of guy. The vehicle decision and shipping research were the two things he wished he'd started earlier. Both take time, and waiting limits the options you have before the move.

Advice for Military Retirees Considering Mexico

This is probably the part of Dwalyn's story that will speak most directly to military families. When you leave the military, you go from a system where there is a process for almost everything to suddenly having to make a lot of decisions for yourself. Where will you live? What are you going to do next? How will you spend your time? What does the next chapter even look like? Dwalyn's advice was simple: ask for help. People in the military are accustomed to solving problems and being self-reliant, but that doesn't mean you have to figure out every part of a major life transition on your own. There are people who have already walked the road. Talk to the people at your installation. Talk to people who understand the logistics. Talk to people who actually live where you're considering moving. Dwalyn said there are subject-matter experts in almost every area, and using them allows you to spend your energy on the decisions that actually require you.

You Can Love More Than One Place

After we had pretty much finished the interview, Dwalyn wanted to make one more point. Falling in love with another country doesn't mean you've stopped loving the country you came from. Both things can be true. That resonated with me. I've lived in Mexico for years. I'm a permanent resident, and I've talked openly about wanting Mexican citizenship one day. Mexico is home for my family. None of that requires me to dislike the United States. You can appreciate where you came from and still discover another place that fits who you are now. For Dwalyn and his family, after decades of military life and years of going where the assignment required, they finally got to make that choice for themselves. They researched, visited, planned, asked questions and then moved. Six months into the experience, Mérida is no longer just the place they were thinking about moving to. It's home.

Pressure-Test Your Own Move

If you're thinking about your own move abroad, that's the part of Dwalyn's story I want you to take away. You don't have to have blind spots in your plan. The internet is useful. YouTube is useful. AI is useful. But there are still things you simply don't know to ask until you've lived through them or talked with somebody who has. That's what Roadmap to Expat is designed to help you uncover. Before you make the move, pressure-test the plan. Test My Plan