International Living Mag list DR as 19th best place to retire in 2016....Not to shabby imho...
https://internationalliving.com/2016/01/the-best-places-to-retire-2016/
https://internationalliving.com/2016/01/the-best-places-to-retire-2016/
- Thread starter Tom Gato
- Start date
DR 19th
I have been receiving information from this publication for some years and what surprises me is how the position of countries change relatively quickly ..how can a place be number one for a year and suddenly number 10 or worse..do they want us to be moving all the time to seek perfection .
The entire basis of rating is flawed and much of the information is totally incorrect .Further more what is a good retirement place for low or middle income people may be totally wrong for people with higher retirement incomes. Also, different people look for different things but the common thing I believe in retirement is to have a variety of interests .
Before I retired I had two positions that involved me visiting many countries every year and shortly before retiring I had drawn up a short list of countries and I visited them before deciding on the DR. Each country had pluses and minuses but the DR ticked more boxes than the others at that particular time . It probably still does.
The entire basis of rating is flawed and much of the information is totally incorrect .Further more what is a good retirement place for low or middle income people may be totally wrong for people with higher retirement incomes. Also, different people look for different things but the common thing I believe in retirement is to have a variety of interests .
Before I retired I had two positions that involved me visiting many countries every year and shortly before retiring I had drawn up a short list of countries and I visited them before deciding on the DR. Each country had pluses and minuses but the DR ticked more boxes than the others at that particular time . It probably still does.
great post!!!
all these biggest, baddest, and best articles are horse manure. i remember one year the DR was rated the Happiest place on earth. two years later, it was not on the charts. just last week, some guy on CNN rated it the greatest snorkeling tourist destination on earth. i checked other opinions, and could not find it anywhere else. i looked at the list of the 25 best destinations on earth, and it is not on that list.
heck...you have to fill up print space in magazines. half these writers have never been to the places they list.
I am the person who contributed to the "horse manure". I usually provide information - there are around 80 questions, on four different locations as the island is so different depending on where you live. I usually do it for north coast - Sosua/Cabarete/Puerto Plata then the east and north east coasts - Las Terrenas/Samana/Punta Cana/Bavaro, the main cities Santiago/Santo Domingo and a more purely Dominican location - such as San Francisco de Macoris, Mao, etc. The variation is immense from availability of health care, international groceries, entertainment, property prices, number of expats, to name but a few. This year they wanted them all lumped together and to do an average. The DR is a very different country depending on what you need/want and where you want to live. The weather changes depending on where you live - mountains or beaches, north or south, likelihood of hurricanes. The only thing which is more or less constant is how to get residency.
Matilda
Matilda
They rate healthy living, but seem to me that's an individual thing based on your own lifestyle choices.
The questions on healthy living were how easy it is to have a healthy lifestyle. In my opinion it is easy here as there is fresh fruit, veg and meat. You can even eat it straight from the ground or the tree or grow it yourself. You can choose to walk, hike or swim. The questions were the availability of a healthy lifestyle but yes each to his own.
Matilda
Matilda
A couple of big plusses for the DR are it's proximity to North American and the Winter weather. Some countries may have less of a cost of living but are on the other side of the world and expensive to fly to.
I can vouch for that Matilda.
Both my and wife's 'vital signs' have improved dramatically after 7 yrs of an RD diet for 7-8 months a year.
Cholesterol, etc are much improved by the fresher, more natural diet.
It's marketing paid for by advertising. Accuracy in content isn't part of the equation. I'm retiring in the DR because I can live without some essentials and I like mi esposa. For a couple in their 60s or 70s, the DR usually isn't a top choice.
There are hundreds of pluses and minuses and what works is completely arbitrary.
Meanwhile another retired couple was just murdered in their home last week...
There are hundreds of pluses and minuses and what works is completely arbitrary.
Meanwhile another retired couple was just murdered in their home last week...
ain't that the truth !!!
my golf club in Canada has hosted every major tournament possible but is never ranked in the 'TOP 10' courses in Canada.
The magazine in charge of that ranking uses their good advertisers to fill those spots.
As a private club, why would mine advertise ?
Very little to do with anything except revenue dollars - these "Best of..." lists
Ratings in these polls are often motivated by ad revenues. Forbes magazine has been caught doing this at least once with mutual fund stats.
Each person is unique, and so is each location. What is perfect for one might be horrible for someone else.
Each person is unique, and so is each location. What is perfect for one might be horrible for someone else.
The practice is called embedded advertizing. Most trade magazines are based on it and the internet is full of it. See also *Dr* Oz pushing miracle cures.
yes and the best in the DR is Casa de Campo ...they claim they have won many awards on their merits but everyone knows it is the result of advertising dollars...they only fool themselves..
I worked for a restaurant where they paid for one of those Best Of plaques. My boss decided to have some fun after that, so he sent the general manager a fake James Beard award he made on his computer and had a friend send it from NYC with a phony return address. The GM thought it was real of course and blew $50 to have it framed and put on the wall by the entrance. We were laughing for months because she would point it out to the customers. As far as I know, it's still there. You can buy award templates at any Staples.
Forgetting The Peninsula in Samana, Gansevoort & The Colonial on the north coast.
Fooling themselves is right......
it's not all it's cracked up to be............agreed Kipling
Casa de Campo, I read the other day, now belongs to the Fanjul Brothers, the ones that grow sugar in Florida and seem to own Marco Rubio.
I visited Altos de Chavon many years ago and thought it was really nice.
Speaking of endorsements: who pays attention to those beer and wine medals that they put on their labels about some contests they won in 1889?
I wonder why they bother. All the grandchildren of the judges are pushing up daisies. The record was seven medals on some cheapo wine I bought from an insurance claim place in Hialeah. The wine was from Morocco.
It tasted about the way you might expect wine from an officially teetotaling Muslim country might taste. Perhaps it would have been better with a spot of Kosher ham.
I visited Altos de Chavon many years ago and thought it was really nice.
Speaking of endorsements: who pays attention to those beer and wine medals that they put on their labels about some contests they won in 1889?
I wonder why they bother. All the grandchildren of the judges are pushing up daisies. The record was seven medals on some cheapo wine I bought from an insurance claim place in Hialeah. The wine was from Morocco.
It tasted about the way you might expect wine from an officially teetotaling Muslim country might taste. Perhaps it would have been better with a spot of Kosher ham.
They keep those sugar subsidies coming into the DR as well. The DR could be raising cattle on those lands or numerous other crops with more value, but the US considers sugar an essential crop due to ongoing heavy lobbying. Not much of the sugar money makes it to the masses, but it looks good on paper as part of the GDP. Non food ag is a topic for another thread...
I was at the market one day and they were selling sugar out of a 50 kilo bag. Imported from Brazil!
I was at the market one day and they were selling sugar out of a 50 kilo bag. Imported from Brazil!
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The Fanjuls own Redpath in Canada
Might be second only to Hudson's Bay Co in Cdn corporate longevity.
A very old Cdn company..
They are vertically integrated.
Might be second only to Hudson's Bay Co in Cdn corporate longevity.
A very old Cdn company..
They are vertically integrated.