The first time I witnessed Día de los Muertos in San Miguel de Allende, I stood on the cobblestone streets with tears streaming down my face, my camera hanging forgotten around my neck. I'd come to Mexico searching for creative inspiration, chasing better light and more colorful subjects for my photography. What I found instead was something I'd been missing without even knowing it: a sense of home, wrapped in marigold petals and the sweet smoke of copal incense.

As someone who'd spent years capturing images across dozens of countries, I thought I understood the power of cultural celebrations. But nothing—not Carnival in Brazil, not Holi in India, not the Christmas markets of Europe—had reached into my chest and rearranged my understanding of life, death, and belonging the way Mexico's Day of the Dead did. That first November in 2023, surrounded by families building elaborate altars and sharing stories of their departed loved ones, I realized I wasn't just visiting Mexico anymore. I was coming home.

It's ironic, really. I'd arrived in San Miguel de Allende in late October specifically to photograph Día de los Muertos. I'd researched the best locations, studied the lighting at different times of day, and planned my shot list with the precision of a military operation. I was going to capture the festival that everyone talks about, but few truly understand.

What I didn't plan for was the feeling that overtook me when I watched my neighbor, Rosa, carefully arrange her deceased husband's favorite foods on their home altar; his preferred brand of beer, the specific way he liked his tamales prepared, his worn leather work gloves placed beside a framed photograph where his eyes seemed to sparkle with the same mischief she'd just described to me. The intimacy of it, the tenderness, the absolute lack of fear or sadness; it stopped me in my tracks.

For the first hour of November 1st, I didn't take a single photograph. I just stood there, absorbing the colors bleeding into the morning light; the electric orange of cempasúchil flowers (marigolds) creating paths for spirits to find their way home, the purple and gold of papel picado (decorative paper banners) dancing in the breeze, the deep amber glow of candles reflected in the eyes of children who spoke about their great-grandparents with the ease of discussing yesterday's breakfast.

Growing up in Austin, Texas, death was something we whispered about, something that happened behind closed doors and drawn curtains. We 'lost' people. They 'passed away.' Even the language we used tried to soften the reality, making it more palatable and distant.

In Mexico, death walks beside you in broad daylight, grinning with a skeletal smile, dressed in colorful clothes, sometimes holding a guitar or a bottle of tequila. La Catrina, the elegant skeletal lady who has become the icon of Día de los Muertos, doesn't frighten children here; she fascinates them. They dress up as her, paint their faces to resemble her, and laugh and dance in her honor.

This wasn't morbid. It was liberating.

As I began to photograph the celebration—really photograph it, not just document it—I found myself drawn to the moments of joy. A grandmother teaching her granddaughter to fold papel picado, both of them laughing as the delicate paper tore. A group of men carrying an enormous altar through the streets, stopping every few blocks to rest and share mezcal with onlookers. A young woman arranging photographs of her mother, her expression not one of grief-stricken sorrow but serene, almost smiling, as she placed fresh marigolds around the frame.

One of my favorite aspects of living in San Miguel de Allende is the daily rhythm of the markets. However, in the weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the markets undergo a significant transformation. They transform into something almost mystical.

Mercado Ignacio Ramírez, where I usually buy my weekly vegetables and practice my still-imperfect Spanish, becomes an explosion of orange and yellow. Vendors stack cempasúchil flowers in mountains so high they seem to glow in the morning sun. The smell is intense, earthy, sweet, and slightly bitter all at once. A scent I now associate with home.

I spent three mornings photographing the flower vendors, watching how they arranged their blooms and interacted with customers who came not just to buy, but to discuss which flowers their loved ones preferred, to share memories, and to seek advice on altar construction. These weren't transactions; they were rituals, small ceremonies that built toward the larger celebration.

The sugar skulls appeared next; calaveras de azúcar in every size imaginable, from tiny ones meant for children's altars to elaborate creations with intricate frosting designs and names written across their foreheads in vibrant icing. I bought one with 'Roberto' written on it, the name of Rosa's husband, and presented it to her for their altar. The hug she gave me felt like acceptance, like a family embrace.

Pan de muerto, the special bread baked only for this season, filled bakeries throughout the city with a scent that made me want to shoot exclusively in food photography. The orange blossom flavor, the bone-shaped decorations on top, and the slight sweetness. Even the bread was part of the celebration, meant to be shared between the living and placed on altars for the dead.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for the cemetery on the night of November 1st.

I'd secured permission to photograph at one of San Miguel's historic cemeteries, expecting something solemn, something quiet and respectful. What I found instead was a festival of light and life that made my heart race and my shutter finger work overtime.

Families had set up elaborate picnics on the graves of their loved ones. Not near them, on them. They sat on blankets spread over the burial plots, eating the deceased's favorite foods, drinking their preferred beverages, and playing their favorite music. Children ran between the tombstones playing tag, their laughter ringing out in the night air. Mariachi bands moved from grave to grave, hired by families to play for their departed.

The visual symphony was overwhelming. Thousands of candles created pools of warm, flickering light. Marigold petals covered the ground like a golden carpet. Every grave, every tomb, every mausoleum was decorated with flowers, photographs, favorite objects, bottles of tequila or mezcal, cigarettes, toys, books—intimate details of lives lived and remembered.

I photographed until my camera battery died, then sat and simply watched. A woman next to me offered me a tamale from her basket. 'Para mi papá,' she explained, 'pero hay suficiente.' For my father, but there's enough. I ate that tamale sitting on her father's grave, listening to her stories about him, and felt something inside me shift permanently.

As a photographer, I've always believed in the power of images to tell stories, to connect people across cultures and distances. But Día de los Muertos taught me that some experiences transcend what a camera can capture. The feeling of belonging, the sense of being welcomed into something sacred and joyful, simultaneously. These things live in the spaces between frames.

I did eventually create a photo series from that first Day of the Dead in San Miguel. It was published in several travel magazines and helped establish my career as a photographer documenting Mexican culture. But the real value of those images, to me, is that each one represents a moment when I felt my roots growing deeper into Mexican soil.

The portrait of Rosa placing marigolds on her altar reminds me of the afternoon she taught me how to make mole from scratch. The image of children painting their faces as calaveras takes me back to the day I joined them, letting a ten-year-old artist transform me into La Catrina while her mother laughed and corrected her technique. The photograph of the cemetery at dawn, candles still burning as families packed up their picnics, captures the moment I realized I never wanted to leave.

For anyone considering moving to Mexico, particularly creative professionals and artists, it's worth understanding that experiences like Día de los Muertos aren't tourist attractions here; they're part of life. This is the daily texture of existence in places like San Miguel de Allende, Oaxaca, or any of Mexico's cities where tradition and modernity dance together like partners who've been waltzing for centuries.

Real wealth isn't measured in pesos or dollars. It's measured in moments like Día de los Muertos, in the way neighbors become family, in the way you can walk down the street and greet a dozen people by name, in the way children will spontaneously grab your hand to show you something amazing they've discovered.

One of my biggest fears about moving to Mexico as a solo traveler was the prospect of loneliness. I worried about being the perpetual outsider, the gringa with the camera who documented but never truly belonged. Día de los Muertos obliterated that fear.

During my first Day of the Dead, I was invited to add photographs to three different family altars. Not pictures of their family members, but photographs of my own deceased loved ones. 'Los muertos no tienen fronteras,' Rosa told me. The dead have no borders. My grandmother's photo sat on her altar, beside images of her own ancestors, surrounded by marigolds, candles, and love.

The expat community in San Miguel is vibrant and welcoming, but it's the integration with local Mexican families that has made this place feel like home. I've been invited to weddings, quinceañeras, baptisms, and numerous birthday parties. My Spanish has improved not through apps or classes alone, but through hours spent in kitchens learning to make traditional dishes, through late-night conversations on rooftops under stars so bright they seem artificial, through the patient corrections of friends who want me to get it right.

Mexico has been feeding artistic souls for centuries, and it's not hard to understand why. The color palette alone is enough to make a photographer weep with joy. The dusty pink of colonial buildings, the cobalt blue of traditional doors, the rainbow explosion of market stalls, and the gold and orange sunsets that paint the mountains every evening.

But it's more than just visual beauty. There's a palpable creative energy here, a sense that making art isn't a luxury or a hobby, but a fundamental expression of being human. The shoemaker decorating his shop window with intricate arrangements of leather and tools is creating art. The woman selling flowers who arranges each bouquet like a painter composing a canvas is making art. The way people dress, decorate their homes, and celebrate ordinary Tuesdays is all infused with creativity.

San Miguel de Allende has one of the highest concentrations of artists per capita in the world, and it shows. Galleries line the streets, studios occupy converted colonial homes, street performers and musicians provide a constant soundtrack, and workshops teaching everything from traditional pottery to contemporary painting are perpetually full.

For creative professionals working remotely, the cost of living allows you to actually live like an artist rather than constantly scrambling to pay rent. My writing and photography work provide a modest income, but it's enough for me here. I'm not wealthy, but I'm rich in time, in experiences, in the ability to say yes to opportunities without checking my bank balance first.

I'm approaching my second Día de los Muertos in San Miguel now, and I'm already preparing my altar. This year, I know what I'm doing. I've learned the traditional songs, practiced the papel picado cutting technique, and mastered the art of making the perfect hot chocolate to serve to visitors who come to see my ofrenda.

But more importantly, I'm preparing to welcome Rosa's family to my apartment for the first time, to share the food I've cooked, and to tell stories about my own departed loved ones in Spanish that are dramatically better than last year's attempts. I'm ready to participate not as a photographer documenting a foreign celebration, but as a member of a community honoring shared traditions.

The camera will still be there, of course. Photography is how I process the world and share these experiences with others who might be considering a move to Mexico. But this year, I know that the most important images aren't the ones I capture with my camera. They're the ones etched into my memory and heart.

Día de los Muertos didn't just make Mexico feel like home. It redefined what home means to me. Home isn't just where you live; it's where you're truly seen, where your presence matters, where you belong to something larger than yourself.

In Texas, I was a freelance photographer trying to make ends meet, competing for assignments, constantly hustling, and perpetually stressed about money, relevance, and whether I was 'making it' in my career. Here in Mexico, I'm Jessica, who takes beautiful pictures, who's learning to make proper salsa verde, who can be counted on to help decorate for every festival, who the neighborhood kids have adopted as their unofficial tía.

The celebration that honors the dead taught me how to truly live. It showed me that joy and sadness aren't opposites but partners, that remembering those we've lost is an act of love and celebration rather than just mourning, that community is built through shared rituals and the willingness to show up for each other; even across cultural divides, even when you don't speak the language perfectly, even when you're the newcomer still learning the traditions.

If you're a photographer, writer, artist, or any kind of creative professional considering a move to Mexico, here's what I wish someone had told me:

First, come during a major celebration. Día de los Muertos, Semana Santa, or any local festival will give you a glimpse of the soul of Mexican culture in ways that regular visits never can. You'll either feel that pull toward belonging, or you'll know it's not the right fit. Both are valuable pieces of information.

Second, learn Spanish. I can't emphasize this enough. Yes, you can get by in places like San Miguel with English alone, but you'll miss so much of the richness, the humor, the depth of connection that comes from speaking directly with people in their own language. Your Spanish doesn't need to be perfect (mine certainly isn't), but making the effort shows respect and opens doors.

Third, bring less stuff than you think you need. I arrived with two suitcases and a camera bag. Everything else I've acquired here, often second-hand from other expats or from the incredible furniture makers and artisans in town. The lightness of having less has been unexpectedly freeing.

Fourth, budget realistically, but don't let fear hold you back. Yes, you need savings as a cushion, but the cost of living is genuinely much lower than in most U.S. cities. Healthcare is affordable and excellent (I pay about $100 USD monthly for comprehensive private insurance). Housing is reasonable. Food is cheap if you shop at markets rather than imported-goods stores.

Finally, embrace the cultural differences rather than trying to recreate your previous life. The whole point of moving to Mexico isn't to find a cheaper version of Austin, Denver, or Seattle. It's to experience a fundamentally different way of being in the world. That means accepting that things run on 'Mexican time,' that bureaucracy can be Byzantine and frustrating, that life is louder, more colorful, and more connected to community than what many of us grew up with in the United States.

If you're considering making Mexico your home and want comprehensive guidance on everything from visa requirements to finding the perfect neighborhood for your lifestyle, the Move to Mexico Masterclass online course offers invaluable insights from expats who've successfully made the transition. It's an investment in making your move smoother and avoiding common pitfalls.

When I look back at the Jessica who arrived in Mexico eighteen months ago, she feels like a different person. That Jessica was burned out, creatively blocked, unsure of her purpose, and desperately lonely despite being surrounded by people in Austin's bustling creative scene. She was successful by conventional standards but hollow inside.

The Jessica writing this now is more herself than she's ever been. She wakes up excited about the day ahead. She has friends she considers family. She's creating the best work of her career not because she's trying to impress anyone, but because she's inspired daily by the beauty, complexity, and warmth of life here. She's learning, growing, stumbling through Spanish conjugations, burning dishes while learning to cook traditional recipes, and loving every imperfect moment of it.

Día de los Muertos was the doorway through which I walked into a new understanding of what life could be. It showed me that home isn't something you're born into. It is something you choose, something you build, something you create through showing up and being willing to belong.

The celebration that honors death taught me how to live. Mexico has given me everything I was searching for, and so much more than I even knew I needed. Every morning when I open my shutters to the pink light washing over San Miguel's colonial rooftops, every afternoon spent in the market choosing perfect avocados and practicing my Spanish with patient vendors, every evening gathered with friends sharing food and stories on a rooftop under impossible stars. This is home.

And when November comes around again, when the scent of marigolds fills the air and the markets overflow with sugar skulls and pan de muerto, when my neighbors start building their altars and the city prepares to honor those who've passed, I'll be ready. Not as a photographer chasing the perfect shot, but as someone who belongs, who has found her place in this beautiful, complex, joyful celebration of life and death, and everything in between.

That feeling, that sense of finally being home, is worth more than any photograph could ever capture.