The UNESCO-listed small city voted the best in the world

It’s early days, but one thing I can confidently predict is a tourist boom in Canada and Mexico. When we need our sugar hit for North America, we can simply divert to the two countries in closest proximity to the US – the hot one or the cold one.

Mexico is hot in so many ways, even though Smartraveller continues to advise that we “exercise a high degree of caution” there “due to the threat of violent crime”. But travellers find there’s little risk in most areas, especially if you follow a few precautions, such as not travelling at night outside the major cities, and sticking to the regions deemed safe, of which there are many.

It’s a bit like not going to New York because of the pickpockets in Times Square.

La Fragua Restaurant and Bar in San Miguel de Allende.Credit: Alamy

The UNESCO-listed city of San Miguel de Allende was voted the best small city in the world in respected US magazine Travel + Leisure’s 2024 World’s Best Awards. The picturesque baroque outpost now has a luxury Rosewood hotel. It’s also known locally as the city of gringos for the Americans and Canadians (and the smattering of Australians) who have moved there.

Often a destination’s popularity can be assessed by how many people are willing to relocate to it to live once they’ve visited as a tourist. Barcelona was hot, then it was Lisbon. Now, it seems it’s San Miguel de Allende.

I have two friends living in San Miguel, drawn to it in different circumstances.

Queenslander Ben Widdicombe, a writer and editor who has lived in New York for more than 25 years, has just finished building a house in San Miguel.

A mariachi band strolling the streets.Credit: Alamy

“San Miguel ticked the boxes for me – climate, culture and cost of living,” he says. “Its location in central Mexico is convenient for the New York time zone, so I can continue to work remotely. But its proximity to the Pacific coast also means I can get to Australia more easily than if I’d moved to some other popular expat destinations, such as Portugal.”

He says a big factor in relocating was the changing mood in the US. “Halfway through (former president Joe) Biden’s term, I just sensed a political and cultural tsunami warning – quite literally, like ‘get out now’. So I bought land in Mexico and started building.”

The Hotel Amparo in San Miguel de Allende.

There is some petty crime and much of the real violent crimes affect Mexicans, he says. “The Guanajuato, the state we’re in, has one of the highest murder rates in the country, although San Miguel is not the worst part. There was a double fatal shooting about 500 metres from my house a couple of weeks ago – but then, there were two or three murders in the park across from my Harlem apartment in the 11 years I lived there. So, I don’t feel unsafe.”

New Yorker cartoonist Victoria Roberts, who partly grew up in Sydney, moved to San Miguel with her mother in 1968 and has returned after years in New York. “There are so many interesting people here,” she says. “People who have remade their lives in a different culture and have the guts to move to Mexico.″⁣

Like Tangier in Morocco, the city attracted artists throughout the 20th century. Diego Rivera worked there as well as beat generation poets William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady (who died here on a drug-fuelled bender).

Roberts says people visit and then return to build or buy a house. Legend says there are pink crystals under the ground that make people feel good.

An estimated 20,000 expats have put pressure on house prices and rents, as with all rapidly gentrified places. But “it’s still a nice, colonial city”, Roberts says.

And it’s full of charm. She mentions Camino Silvestre, a vegan restaurant run by two friends who make glass hummingbird feeders. They grow all their own produce and if you go for breakfast, you can see the patio is full of little hummingbirds.

The recent change she’s noticed is that it has become quite a foodie scene. People from Mexico City are flocking here to dine in high-end restaurants that have flourished.

“We’ve been a bit Veniced,” she says.

Widdicombe says the city’s many picturesque churches make it a mecca for couples all over the world who want Instagram-able weddings. “I occasionally hear a best man’s speech in an Australian accent amplified from a rooftop bar’s PA system.”

But wedding guests and tourists should be careful if they’re thinking of only passing through. Those subterranean pink crystals may make it impossible to leave.