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After 30 Years at Sea, He Chose La Paz

After 30 Years at Sea, He Chose La Paz
After decades at sea, Ian Wilson found the home he’d been searching for in La Paz.|©iStock/Victor Yee

Ian Wilson had been everywhere.

He spent 30 years seeing every port in the world while working on a cruise ship. When his parents moved to La Paz in 2014, he wasn’t super jazzed. He had pulled into Cabo more times than he could count and assumed a town two hours north of it would be much the same.

Between work and not really wanting to go back to the Cabo area, he didn’t visit often.

After decades at sea, Ian (55) had traded the ships for a corner office in Miami, running departments for Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises. It was a good life. A condo on the JFK Causeway between South Beach and downtown, a big job, 110 people reporting to him.

In 2020, when the cruise industry collapsed and he had to tell those 110 people it was shuttered indefinitely, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. So, he packed all his belongings, along with his then-girlfriend, into his car and drove from Miami to La Paz to visit his parents. Because, why not?

It only took Ian two months in La Paz before he looked at his girlfriend and said, "I'm getting more anxiety thinking about going back to that corporate life in Miami than I am about starting over completely here."

“She didn't know we were moving to Mexico,” Ian said, “so that relationship ended.”

But La Paz ambushed him in the best way possible. He'd seen it all and still picked La Paz.

As the capital of Baja California Sur, La Paz has a secret weapon that changes the entire vibe of the place. It’s government first, not tourism. “When I got here, no one looked at me like an ATM. Not once. No one chased me down the street with a flyer. Or tried to pull me into shops. I could just be here.”

“I have experience with so many places, and La Paz is the sort of perfect synthesis of having the amenities that you want on vacation, the Sea of Cortés, this beautiful downtown area, but not having a lot of the detriments of tourism being the number one industry.”

Ian has this wonderfully peaceful life outside the stressors of work. His neighborhood, El Conchalito, sits at the edge of a mangrove preserve. At high tide, water creeps up to the edge of the street. The other side is open ocean and a sprawling dog-walking path that leads straight to the Sea of Cortez. "You can't throw a rock without hitting one of the most beautiful secluded beaches in the world down here," he says.

The Town That Changed His Mind

But the Sea of Cortez wasn't the only thing that kept him there. And although he only spends $2100 per month for all of his living expenses, including rent, it wasn’t the cost of living either.

Ian's dad passed away in 2022. In the two years before he died, Ian saw him every day. After decades of missing birthdays, holidays, and just sharing a glass of wine, those two years became something he never expected to get back. That time alone was worth everything he left behind in Miami.

His 84-year-old mom lives downtown, owns her home, drives herself around the city, and has a busier social life than Ian. She cooks him adobo chicken on special occasions, though she'd rather he do the cooking. She has a housekeeper twice a week, a gardener, and a pool guy (all for $450/month), and she does it all on $1200 a month.

“She feels totally secure and safe here,” says Ian. “I could be anywhere in La Paz at 4 a.m. after an irresponsible number of margaritas and still be safer than crossing the parking lot in Miami to get to the Shell station.”

What started as a visit quietly became a life.

Ian got his real estate license and began building the kind of life in La Paz that he never had time for while circling the globe.

Building a New Life in Baja

After four years of learning the La Paz market, Ian opened Dream Baja Realty in January 2025. He has a team of 10 people and runs it out of a former art studio, with weird art still on the walls, and a semicircular antique couch in the corner. It looks nothing like a real estate office. And he likes it that way.

Ian Wilson traded Miami’s corporate life for a slower pace—and a growing business—in La Paz.
Ian Wilson traded Miami’s corporate life for a slower pace—and a growing business—in La Paz.

The opening was harder than he expected. Navigating the Mexican bureaucracy to incorporate the business and open a bank account took much longer than expected. "You're going to get things done when they let you get things done. I don't know if I'd make the decision again," he laughs and adds, "but we're going with it.”

The longer he’s lived in La Paz, the more he’s seen a demographic shift in the people who are moving there. Buyers are getting younger, and families are moving down with school-age kids. It’s not just for retirees anymore.

For those looking for an easy landing, El Centenario is the neighborhood about 10 miles north where Ian leads them. “It’s the most dense population of expats in the area, probably 90%, split pretty evenly between Canadian and American.” And you can find small two-bedroom houses with a dipping pool from $160k there. In the center of La Paz, condos start around $263k.

La Paz works best for people who are looking to integrate into the community. “The best places here are very mixed population-wise. It makes life very enriching. People get involved with local causes. They work with dog rescue groups and help at Mama Benita’s safe house and the orphanage. I think that's a beautiful thing."

For anyone seriously considering a move, Ian's advice is consistent: rent for six months first. Get to know the neighborhoods, figure out what daily life actually feels like before signing anything. And get a facilitator for the paperwork. Between setting up utility accounts, getting a driver's license, and anything bureaucratic, having someone who knows the system and the language isn't a luxury. It's just smart.

Ian had seen it all. But five years in, his mom is down the street, his business is growing, and his old corner office in Miami feels like someone else's life.

The surprise wasn't that he fell in love with La Paz. The surprise was that after seeing so much of the world, he stopped looking for somewhere better.

He's not going anywhere.

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