The reason we run luxury real estate round-up articles on this travel site is that many people end up buying where they’ve traveled. Or at least come back and rent long-term. How many times have you heard someone say, “We went there on vacation and just fell in love with the place.”

For me, it was my sometimes home of Guanajuato, Mexico. Down the road are about 10,000 foreigners who felt the same about San Miguel de Allende. We’ve run articles on places in Latin America many couldn’t stand to leave: Ambergris Caye, Mendoza, Zihuatanejo, Punta de Mita, Cuenca, Bocas del Toro…

They all sound more romantic and exotic than Naples or Scottsdale, right?

Moving to a foreign country or spending part of the year there isn’t as simple as just packing up a suitcase though, so it’s worthwhile to do your homework. Moon Handbooks has a lot of good guides out, written by authors who know them well. Living Abroad in Mexico, for example, or Living Abroad in Belize. These will answer all the questions you have and a lot that you didn’t know you should have. They cover visas, cultural issues, costs, real estate, and the most important question: why there? Follow either of those links and you can search for ones on Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and more.

You can find lots of free information on the web for specific locations and if you can dig up a good message board the expats use, that’s a great place to get nitty-gritty details. For authoritative information that is current and vetted, however, you can’t beat a paid subscription to International Living Magazine. They’re often running deals for $59 a year or $89 for two years, which is a small price to pay for expert advice on a major life change. They’ll save you a lot of headaches.

They spend a good bit of each issue focusing on Latin America since it’s close to the U.S. and Canada, most of the countries are welcoming to foreigners who aren’t broke, and it’s easy to buy real estate. Apart from a few outliers here and there, you’ll almost always get more for your money than you would where you live now—with far lower monthly expenses. Click here for more.

I’ve run some blog posts before on the most popular luxury hotel reviews on our site and which tour stories are getting the most action. It varies a lot from month to month depending on what’s getting press elsewhere and when it’s vacation time in a specific place.

February’s a month when a lot of people have getaways on their mind though, so I thought it would be fun to see which articles got the most action last month. It’s a mixed bag for sure – though quite a few of you have Ambergris Caye, Belize on your mind!

11) Luxury real estate in Cancun, Cozumel, and the Riviera Maya

10) Cliffs Preserve review – Chile

9) Getting pampered in the spas of Argentina

8) Trekking lodge to lodge to Machu Picchu in Peru

7) Playa Vik hotel review – Uruguay

6) Azul Resort review – Belize

5) Cayo Espanto review – Belize

4) Exploring the Coffee Triangle of Colombia

3) Mata Chica Beach Resort review – Belize

2) Hotel El Garzon – Uruguay

1) Luxury real estate in Cuenca, Ecuador

On the luxury real estate side of our online magazine, we’ve covered Mexico more than any other country and are returning to the Caribbean side for the third time. There’s a simple reason for both of these facts: Mexico is the most popular real estate investment country for Americans and Canadians and the Cancun/Riviera Maya region is the most popular area in all of Latin America when it comes to the number of vacationers landing there each year.

Even if only a tiny fraction of those visitors get tempted to buy property, that’s still a fraction of the 13 million people who came through Cancun’s airport last year. If I’m not mistaken, that’s several times more visitors than any other country in Latin America receives per year. To put it in perspective, about six times what Costa Rica receives.

Not all of those people who decide to buy their piece of paradise are luxury buyers, but those who do have plenty of money to spend are not spoiled for choice. High-rise condos, airy indoor-outdoor villas, American-style grand homes on golf courses, or eco-friendly bungalows surrounded by vegetation are all on the block here. The depth of choices might surprise you and since the real estate collapse to the north a few years ago, prices that were already reasonable by U.S. standards have dropped a bit (but are reversing direction now…) What you get for your money on this side of Mexico is generally more than you’ll get on the west coast in the hot tourism areas. Call it the “Silicon Valley Effect” or the “California Real Estate Boom Effect.” The Caribbean coast just never hit the same bubble level as the Pacific coast, so in many ways the market here is healthier.

Our latest story runs down some options, with details and pricing, on places stretching along the coast. See our full story on luxury real estate in Cancun, Cozumel, and the Riviera Maya.

We often feature real estate destinations that are all about the flash and prestige. Much of the Pacific Coast of Mexico and Costa Rica has turned into a game of one-upsmanship, which showed no signs of slowing until California’s real estate crash hit.

Mazatlan was always a bit removed from all that, despite its location closer to the U.S. than many other destinations. The bubble never got very big, so the real estate market didn’t grind to a halt. Prices are off a bit from the peak, but they were never much out of whack to start with. A million bucks goes a long way in this region.

There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that Mazatlan has not been a flashy, upper-crust resort city. There’s little reason for the paparazzi to hang out here watching for celebrities. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t find a luxury dream home or waterfront penthouse. It just means you’ll pay a lot less for it than you would in Cabo San Lucas or the Riviera Nayarit. Apart from Punta Mita, a golf and beach development like Estrella del Mar doesn’t even exist in those places: there’s not enough waterfront land available for such a grand scheme.

So if you want a luxury vacation or retirement home but you’re a value investor at heart, take a look at our latest real estate round-up. Pacific Mexico with Personality: Real Estate in Mazatlan.

It’s time for another luxury retirement home and vacation real estate story on a spot on the Pacific coast: the Riviera Nayarit of Mexico.

This is the catch-all marketing name for the coastal region starting at Nuevo Vallarta (just north of the Puerto Vallarta airport) and extending past the Punta Mita development to Sayulita and on up. In general, the further north you go, the less developed it is.

The cement trucks have been busy in this area, including one big eyesore failed hotel you’ll pass, but in general the projects here are less dense, more in tune with nature, and less about stripping away the beachside vegetation to build giant all-inclusives and high-rise condos. That means the homes in this area are aimed at the wealthy, those who can afford big plots of land with big villas on top.

One of our contributors wrote this story, not me, but I have to admit this is one of my favorite coastal areas in all of Latin America. Dramatic, scenic, and quiet, with big waves and small towns. The homes here are some of the most spectacular in all of Mexico and it’s pretty hard to top these views anywhere.

See our full story on luxury real estate in the Riviera Nayarit.

In case you missed it, here’s our earlier round-up on Punta Mita real estate and here are the best hotels in Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit.