How did I end up in Antigua you ask? When well-known Guatemalan author and international journalist Julie Lopez, now my fiancée, asked me to visit nearly three years ago, I chucked everything, packed up Mutt and moved to Antigua. It was like discovering paradise compared to Colorado. It seldom gets below 65° even in the dead of winter, and it stays around 85° all year round. Mutt, my fifteen pound Maine Coon cat, loves the mild winters here.

Antigua is the perfect place to live. A large ex-pat community, lots of restaurants, hotels, and it’s cobblestone streets make it the most cosmopolitan city in the country. Hordes of tourists regularly flock here from cruise ships that dock only an hour away. There’s always something to do here, and despite the violence, crime and corruption common in the rest of Guatemala, it’s safe.