Three years ago, Hannah McGrath felt lower than ever before, unemployed and staying in a relationship just to help pay Los Angeles rent. “I felt very, very lost,” she said.
Now, hundreds of miles from the country where she was born, she says she has found herself.
“For me, and for many others, Mexico City is where dreams come true,” Ms. McGrath, 35, said. “There’s nothing but possibility and potential.”
Thousands of foreign women, many of them American, have settled in Mexico City since the pandemic, seeking opportunities, an affordable place to live or wholesale reinvention. Their journeys tend to mirror Ms. McGrath’s: unhappiness, crisis, followed by a leap of faith — with a plane ticket — then personal transformation.
“It’s like a modern, hipster version of ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’” said Jonathan Kalan, an American resident of Mexico City who co-founded Unsettled, a company that offers retreats for midcareer professionals.
The women say they have largely felt welcomed. But an influx of foreigners has also fueled anger among some residents, who say they have raised the rent and caused prices to soar.
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