First-hand notes from the borderlands
Alternative Lives
First-hand notes on living, volunteering, building and raising a family between Guatemala and Mexico, for people imagining an alternative life anywhere.
This is a record of real life in non-tourist Guatemala and southern Mexico: the ordinary, complicated, useful details that rarely make it into guides.
I left the UK as a backpacker and never really went home. Two decades later, I have helped run community projects, raised a bilingual family, self-managed a house build in Chiapas, and learned most things the slow way: by doing them.
Everything here is practical and first-hand: what I paid, what worked, what went wrong, what I would do differently, and what life feels like once the romantic idea becomes the daily routine.
The wider map
One place to explore many ways of living differently.
The build guides are the first published series, but the larger story is about choosing a life outside the expected path and then learning how to make it work.
Living Between Countries
The ordinary reality of making a life across borders — visas, language, money, local ties, belonging, and the parts no one explains before you arrive.
Volunteering and Community Work
What long-term community work actually looks like when you stay past the short project, build trust, and become accountable to people.
Building a Home
Land, permits, materials, masons, water, mistakes and decisions — what building a home teaches you about a place.
Raising a Family Abroad
Bilingual childhoods, mixed identity, language, school and culture — the quiet choices that shape children growing up between worlds.
Start here · the most practical guide
What It Costs to Build a House in Mexico
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas · 2026 pesos · real project numbers
A line-by-line breakdown from my own self-managed build: land, permits, structure, finishes, water and the extras people forget. It is one house in one region, not a universal answer, but it gives the kind of grounded numbers most guides leave out.
Read the cost breakdown →Current guide series
Building in Mexico, from the ground up.
Building my own house is where a lot of these questions first became concrete — land, money, neighbours, work, family, water, mistakes — so it is the most developed series on the site right now. More life, family and volunteering pieces are coming alongside it.
Costs
What It Costs to Build a House in Mexico
The full cost of a self-managed build, broken down line by line: land paperwork, structure, water, finishes, and the extras people forget.
Cost to build a house in Mexico →Managing the build
Managing Your Own House Build in Mexico
Self-managing saved me money but made me responsible for everything. The 10 practical lessons I wish I had known before starting.
Managing your own house build →Who runs it
Architect, Maestro de Obra or Self-Manage?
Three ways to run a build, and the real difference is not just cost: it is who notices the problems and who pays for the mistakes.
Who should run your build? →Roof
Tin Roof vs Concrete Roof in Mexico
My tin roof cost more than concrete, which surprised me. After living under both, it is still the one I would choose again.
Tin roof vs concrete roof →Land & legal
Buying Land in Mexico as a Foreigner
Deeds, ejido land, SRE paperwork, water and subdivision, plus the one mistake that can put your whole investment at risk.
Buying land in Mexico as a foreigner →Water
Water System for a House in Mexico
Cistern, pump, roof tank and gravity feed: how water reaches the taps, what it cost, and the pipe choice I would make again.
Water system for a house in Mexico →Walls
Brick, Block or Thermal Block in Mexico
I used four wall materials in the same house. What each cost, how each feels to live with, and where I would use each again.
Brick vs block vs thermal block →For people building a life, not just a house.
Alternative Lives is about what happens when people trade comfort and routine for something less predictable: moving countries, living near borders, raising children abroad, working with rural communities, and learning how daily life actually works in places most guides barely mention.
It starts with the house because that is the most documented part of the story — but the real subject is everything around it: land, work, neighbours, language, weather, bureaucracy, mistakes, and learning how to make a life through all of it. The focus begins in the Guatemala–Mexico borderlands because that is where my experience is deepest; the questions are wider.
More field notes, guides and personal essays are coming.
Latest field note
Camping in Mexico with two children
Ten things we always carry on a family camping trip in Mexico — four of them about food — plus what five years of trips to a thermal river in Chiapas taught us, including the winter the tent froze over.
Read the field note →Field note
The stove I built to leak heat
In the cold highlands of Guatemala, the most efficient cookstove was not always the best one. A field note on firewood, warmth, local design, and what you only notice after spending enough time inside the homes you are trying to help.
Read the field note →Follow along
Get new field notes and practical guides.
I send new pieces on building, borderland life, volunteering, family and the practical decisions behind alternative living. No polished fantasy, just useful experience from the ground.
Who’s behind Alternative Lives?
I’m Luke Burchell, originally from the UK, but I have lived and worked for many years in Guatemala and Mexico, mostly outside the tourist areas: community projects, a self-managed house build, and raising a bilingual family.
Read my story →