Puerto Vallarta is an easy place to love. Just ask the nearly 2 million people who visit this popular international beach resort city every year. Wedged between the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains and the beaches of Banderas Bay, PV or Vallarta, as the locals call the city, is on the checklist of many aspiring expats who are thinking about making Mexico their home.

Who better to tell us a little about why so many expats choose Puerto Vallarta as their new home than an expat who has lived half her life in this self-described "Jewel of the Mexican Riviera?"

Born and raised in Chicago, Maria O'Connor, 52, moved to Puerto Vallarta when she was just 26. "I really hated Chicago weather, and, as trite as that sounds, it was the impetus for my relocation to Puerto Vallarta," O'Connor said.

Raised in the affluent northern suburbs of Chicago, her father was an investment banker and her mother a concert violinist and schoolteacher. After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in history, she worked as a para legal in Chicago while attending law school at night.

O'Connor visited Puerto Vallarta for the first time in 1985. "When I saw the mountains and the jungle for the first time it was amazing," she said. "I was absolutely floored. After I graduated from law school in 1990 I knew there was only one place I wanted to live."

The night before she left for PV, she went out on the town with her two brothers and, she told us, it was 20 degrees below zero. "I almost overslept the morning I was to leave. I did not have time to dry my hair so it froze on the way to the airport. I knew then that I had made the right decision," she laughed.

Soon after arriving, O'Connor taught English to hotel workers for a while before working in the local real estate business. Along the way she earned a Mexican law degree at a local university and found her niche handling real estate transactions at Tropicasa Real Estate, becoming the company's full-time in-house attorney in 2007.

"I am an independent contractor now but I am also still a business partner with Tropicasa," she said. "I handle transactions for many different real estate firms but I cannot represent a client that is buying real estate through Tropicasa because it would be a conflict of interest," she added.

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Since 1997, Wayne Franklin and his team at Tropicasa Realty have been a trusted name in Puerto Vallarta real estate. Tropicasa Realty is the region's representative for "The Leading Agents of the World" and with over 100 years of combined experience in real estate, all agents of the company are affiliated with AMPI. Wayne Franklin or any member of his knowledgeable team can be contacted in-person at their Romantic Zone Office - Pulpito 145-A at Olas Altas. While in PV they can be reached at (322) 222-6505 or by calling 866-978-5539 (Toll-Free) from the U.S.

Click HERE to learn more about Tropicasa Realty, or visit tropicasa.com.