Hi all,
After having my spent my adult life in the SF Bay Area, I will probably be moving in a year or two, looking for somewhere that has both culture and nature, lower cost of living than the Bay Area. I am not a fan of heat, but think it will be impossible to replicate our climate anywhere that has both culture and nature. My husband and I planned to retire in a small city of 25,000 not much touristed on the Mediterranean Sea in Liguria. We had planned to spend the 2 hot months (July and August) in the Bay Area, stopping other travel. Although my Italian was once fluent, and my second school Spanish is long buried under French and Italian, Spanish, unlike Portuguese, seems possible to at least partially regain. San Miguel de Allende is the only place I'd consider out of the States now that I am on my own. Italy beckons, but is far. Canada wouldn't want me.

So I may take a weeklong trip midjuly through Early August. Would appreciate hotel and activity suggestions (a friend suggested Camrina Posada which looks lovely and very moderate, but only some rooms with air conditioned. A friend who is a travel guide in Asia will be there and doing some showing me around. I'd also welcome comments on the reliability of Volaris, which flies nonstop from Oakland, and the safety of spending my last night in a hotel near the airport in Leon to make an 8 am flight home. (I'm in my mid70s).

I'm also very interested in anything people have to say about living there as an expat, both the experience and the logistics. My financial situation is too limited to stay here but I do have some resources.

Thanks for your help.

How much time have you spent in Mexico? I ask this kindly and gently, and only because I originally had plans for retirement to Puerto Vallarta myself, but after 40+ vacation visits over decades since the early 90's (trips as short as 10 days and up to one-month) I realized it would not be for me on a full-time basis... after getting to know how things work, challenges unique to Mexico living, meeting and talking with ex-pats who have made the leap, etc.

I have zero experience in San Migel de Allende (prefer coastal towns) but would want to spend a LOT more than just one week in a place before considering a permanent move. Have you looked into residency paperwork, etc. already? SMdA is known as an ex-pat haven for Americans and Canadians so you would not be alone in the idea

I would also suggest more than a week's stay to make such an important decision. And also consider visiting at least one more community for comparison purposes.

I'm currently spending much of my time in Oaxaca. It has what I was looking for, not overwhelming numbers of expats but enough for my comfort and an English library with ties to both communities. I had 2 visits of a month each plus a month in San Cristobal de las Casas before making a decision. I was recently in Oaxaca for 5 months & will return next week.

I haven't been to San Miguel but from reports I was sure enough that it would likely not be for me for several reasons. But my point is that I felt it was worthwhile to have a look at more than one community. I consider the lifestyle a great value despite not being as inexpensive as it was several years ago.

Mexico certainly can be less money than the Bay Area. Even more affluent areas like SMdA.

Look at how apartments work. Or are you planning on purchasing property? That would be a bigger hurdle. Even things like getting your electric bill, propane tanks, water delivery, permanent address, etc. set up and furnishing a rental (as many come without appliances, etc.) may be more of a project than you envisioned.

How is your Spanish? Are you at least conversational? Or fluent enough so you can do business on your own? Of course you can always work thru a local agent to find a place for your first year just to get settled and started, paying them for translation, legal documents, explaining how things work.

My wife & I retired to San Miguel in 2011, so hopefully I can offer some useul insight.
Weather in August. August is the rainy season so evenings can be quite cool, if not downright chilly. Our very first visit was in August and our hotel had no A/C and we nearly froze. It was in the now closed Posada San Francisco right on the jardin. A/C *may* be useful to use for white noise since San Miguel can be noisy, especially in Centro.
Weather the rest of the year is mild, with average year round highs about 78 F. April & May are the hot months. Few homes, rental or otherwise, have A/C. We had a mini split in the master in the house we built, as my wife can't tolerate the heat either. We didn't use it that much. Some sort of heating in the winter is probably more of a need, whether a propane space heater or 2 or a gas fireplace. Temps can drop to the mid 30's in December & January.
Posada Carmina is in an excellent location, but will probably be noisy. Bring earplugs if you stay there. Good restaurant for breakfast. Lots of hotel options. Are wanting something with colonial ambiance or can more modern work? More modern are more likely to have A/C. Do you want to be right in the historic center, or are you OK with something a few blocks out?
I've only flown Volaris once, so I have little experience. Our flight from TIJ to BJX was on time. The airport hotels near BJX are safe; of course choose one with a shuttle. Another option to get to the airport is a Bajiogo shared shuttle, I think about $30 US? They're safe & reliable, but you'd probably need to be picked up about 300 am however. If you do stay near the airport, maybe look at Holiday Inn Express, they report to have a shuttle and there's a restaurant within walking distance.
Since you're asking about activities, and just 'perhaps' retire, I'm guessing this is just a look-see to see if it's somewhere you'd consider investigating further b4 moving to permanently. Some ideas might include a winery, (although there's plenty near where you're at now), one of the hot springs, the olive oil finca of finca Luna Serena, a day trip to Guanajuato, walking tour of Centro, a visit to the santuario de Atotonilco, the Fabrica Aurora for art, for starters. To meet other expats, try a happy hour at Hank's or lunch at La Frontera. Or just enjoy the restaurant scene.
As far as speaking Spanish, with your language background, you should get along just fine soon enough. At one time there were free language 'intercambios' at the library, don't know if that's still the case. But most restaurant & hotel staff speak some english.
It sounds like you've lost your husband? Condolences, if that's the case. But there are lots of 'merry widows' in San Miguel.
Suze mentioned things like getting an electric bill, water & propane delivery as being a 'project'. Not true at all. Propane & water delivery are all done by WhatsApp. Once you get a bank account, paying other bills is 'pan comido' (piece of cake). Services such as telcel & telmex can be set up for automatic recurring payments. Even if a rental has the electric bill in the landlords name, you can have the bill emailed to your personal email and pay with a couple clicks or through the CFE app on your phone. She mentioned looking at apartments, there are very few apartment buildings in San Miguel due to restrictions on height construction. I can think of maybe 2. It would also be very rare to find a rental with no appliances, with the exception of maybe not having a washer & dryer. Even then, a washer is typical if not a dryer, as laundry can be hung to dry due to the low humidity.
Other logistics, etc. Amazon & Mercado Libre have a strong presence in Mexico. There are mailing services where you can have your US mail & parcels sent to Laredo and then couriered to sma. There 3 major supermarkets in sma, Soriana, La Comer & City market, although the latter 2 carry pretty much the same stuff and are located only a block from each other. There are services that will do a Costco or Sam's run to Queretaro or celaya for a fee. Many people opt to do without a car, we have our own but taxis & Uber are cheap. Temporary residency requires you to prove about $4500/month in income, or have a certain amount of cash in the bank or some combination of the 2. Health care is excellent, even when you pay out of pocket. A good number of English speaking doctors & dentists. Many expats schedule a trip to Houston to do their Medicare things. We opt to drive to McAllen TX for ours. TV. Many of the US based streaming services, are restricted in Mexico by IP address. Netflix works, but has different content than in the US. We use a router with VPN firmare that gives us a US IP address, Express VPN.
We, like Mme, strongly considered Oaxaca as we had actually spent more time there than sma before our move. But for our needs we needed/wanted to be closer (a day's drive) to the border and San Miguel has a cooler climate. Plus San Miguel's proximity to other cities such as Leon, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí & cdmx was more attractive to us. I think the health care options are better in the San Miguel area are better than in Oaxaca.
Search Facebook for one of the San Miguel Civil Lists.
Sonia Diaz's website is an excellent resource, she also handles our residency stuff. I've not read her book, 'The Move to Mexico Bible' but I imagine it'd be helpful. She's a treasure.
https://soniadiazmexico.com/
Apologize for the lengthy reply.