Moving back to DR (north coast) when I retire: do or don't

[Kricke87]

Please help me understand what is wrong with NC? I realize that some posters here, living in NC, constantly complain, but perhaps that does not equal everyone's experience? Also good to point out that I don't know the whole NC, only really POP and Cabarete, but those are unfortunately included when people say that NC is s**t or something else...

Well I can only speak for the POP province, but as a few have already mentioned.

• Lack of supplies, you can prepare a list of groceries you want to buy and very often you can go to several "supermarkets" and they don't have the products for months.
• Lack of health providers, there are a few good doctors, but they all come from either STI or SD, and they only come here like 1 or 2 a week. If you want to have good medical care you have to go to either STI or better yet SD. There are a few private clinics, but in general they are not reliable to give you the assistance you need. I have too many stories to count. For example, a few years back I had "some" stomach issues, after about 1 week of every day going to the bathroom about every hour, I went to one of those clinics, they ran some test, couldn't find anything. The DR told me to just go home and relax, maintain hydrated. For about 1 more week of the same, I decided to go to STI instead, and there they did basically the same tests, and they found that I had amoeba and salmonella. Interesting that the clinic in POP didn't found that.
• Horrible traffic. This is a problem that you find all over the country, however the big difference between for example POP and STI and SD, is that there are only a few main roads or only one. For example, to go from Cab to POP there is ONLY 1 main road. So if something happens with that road, well then you're out of luck and you're basically stuck. That was what happened in 2022-2023 when the main bridge between POP and the airport had to be replaced, that was a REAL s**tshow. And from the looks of it, although the population is increasing in all the areas, there doesn't seem to be any REAL plans of any increase in the underlying infrastructure. So probably in a couple of years we'll have half a million to 1 million residents sharing the same road.
• Constant water and electrical issues. For the past I guess year or so, there are DAILY outtages, be it only between a few minutes to maybe an hour each time. But you still need to be aware of it. And then for the water, no need to go there, there are already multiple threads about that.
• General boredom. Depending on what you are looking for in general, if you think laying on the beach 24/7 is fun, then this is a GREAT area to be in with a lot of beaches that are just to die for. But if you feel like life is about more than just laying on the beach sippin piña coladas, then this area is quite boring. There are a few good restaurants, but in general food is overpriced and quality is lacking.

These are only a few of the issues.
So yes, if you don't HAVE to live on the NC (or at least in POP province, although from what I've heard these problems are basically all over the NC), I would vote against it. I'm basically only here because my wife's entire family is living here and I have hard time convincing here it's time to move, but who knows, soon enough.

 

[Lucifer]

Didn't know about Luis' house. I'll have to stop by sometime and say hey.

On your way to Abinader's house, lunch is on me... at Mila's.

 

[drstock]

Well I can only speak for the POP province, but as a few have already mentioned.

• Lack of supplies, you can prepare a list of groceries you want to buy and very often you can go to several "supermarkets" and they don't have the products for months.
• Lack of health providers, there are a few good doctors, but they all come from either STI or SD, and they only come here like 1 or 2 a week. If you want to have good medical care you have to go to either STI or better yet SD. There are a few private clinics, but in general they are not reliable to give you the assistance you need. I have too many stories to count. For example, a few years back I had "some" stomach issues, after about 1 week of every day going to the bathroom about every hour, I went to one of those clinics, they ran some test, couldn't find anything. The DR told me to just go home and relax, maintain hydrated. For about 1 more week of the same, I decided to go to STI instead, and there they did basically the same tests, and they found that I had amoeba and salmonella. Interesting that the clinic in POP didn't found that.
• Horrible traffic. This is a problem that you find all over the country, however the big difference between for example POP and STI and SD, is that there are only a few main roads or only one. For example, to go from Cab to POP there is ONLY 1 main road. So if something happens with that road, well then you're out of luck and you're basically stuck. That was what happened in 2022-2023 when the main bridge between POP and the airport had to be replaced, that was a REAL s**tshow. And from the looks of it, although the population is increasing in all the areas, there doesn't seem to be any REAL plans of any increase in the underlying infrastructure. So probably in a couple of years we'll have half a million to 1 million residents sharing the same road.
• Constant water and electrical issues. For the past I guess year or so, there are DAILY outtages, be it only between a few minutes to maybe an hour each time. But you still need to be aware of it. And then for the water, no need to go there, there are already multiple threads about that.
• General boredom. Depending on what you are looking for in general, if you think laying on the beach 24/7 is fun, then this is a GREAT area to be in with a lot of beaches that are just to die for. But if you feel like life is about more than just laying on the beach sippin piña coladas, then this area is quite boring. There are a few good restaurants, but in general food is overpriced and quality is lacking.

These are only a few of the issues.
So yes, if you don't HAVE to live on the NC (or at least in POP province, although from what I've heard these problems are basically all over the NC), I would vote against it. I'm basically only here because my wife's entire family is living here and I have hard time convincing here it's time to move, but who knows, soon enough.

I'm pleased to say that my experience, living on the North Coast, seems to be much better than yours.

1. Lack of supplies: I don't usually have any trouble getting what I want in supermarkets.
2. Health providers: I have had to go to Bournegal Medical Centre a few times, and so far been satisfied with the various doctors I have seen.
3. Traffic: I agree, that is one of my big complaints. They really need to build a highway all the way from POP airport to past Gasper Hernandez, but I don't see any sign of it happening in my lifetime.
4. Water and Electric: Water supply hasn't been a problem for me, although I know others who have suffered. Electricity - agree, it's far too unreliable.
5. I'm not bored and I don't lie on a beach all day.

I have travelled all over the country, North, South, East and West and have reached the conclusion that there is nowhere in the DR that I would prefer to live than Cabarete. However, as Windeguy says, there are really too many people and too much construction now.

It's a shame that people like you and Hijo de Mangu seem to be forced to live where you don't like due to personal reasons.

 

[Lucifer]

It's a shame that people like you and Hijo de Mangu seem to be forced to live where you don't like due to personal reasons.

The Dominican southern provinces have given us chenchén, Villa Mella los chicharrones, and Cabarete mashed plantain. Man... GOOD!

Larry "The Cable Guy": "I don't care who you are... that's pretty funny right there."

 

[Kricke87]

I'm pleased to say that my experience, living on the North Coast, seems to be much better than yours.

1. Lack of supplies: I don't usually have any trouble getting what I want in supermarkets.
2. Health providers: I have had to go to Bournegal Medical Centre a few times, and so far been satisfied with the various doctors I have seen.
3. Traffic: I agree, that is one of my big complaints. They really need to build a highway all the way from POP airport to past Gasper Hernandez, but I don't see any sign of it happening in my lifetime.
4. Water and Electric: Water supply hasn't been a problem for me, although I know others who have suffered. Electricity - agree, it's far too unreliable.
5. I'm not bored and I don't lie on a beach all day.

I have travelled all over the country, North, South, East and West and have reached the conclusion that there is nowhere in the DR that I would prefer to live than Cabarete. However, as Windeguy says, there are really too many people and too much construction now.

It's a shame that people like you and Hijo de Mangu seem to be forced to live where you don't like due to personal reasons.

Good for you
1. Obviously it depends on what you are looking for.
2. Good for you, I've had mixed results. I have problem with high blood preassure, went to one doctor who told me that I also had some minor heart issues, then shortly afterwards I went back as I had a blood clot in one of my legs, but he was on vacation so I had to consult with another Dr. Ran same tests, and now no heart issues at all. 1 month ago my FIL passed away because of heart issues. His Dr that has his office in Bournegal had told him(and my wife) that the procedure that he needed was not possible in POP, they had to go to STI instead. But when he was brought to the ER at the POP public Hospital, they told my wife that it was total BS, they would have done that procedure (it would sadly not have saved him, but he would have survived at least a couple of months without the suffering he experienced at the end). So no, totally disagree there. Probably acceptable for minor issues, but for anything more serious I have only horror stories.
3. Yeah, with all the resent flooding, the other day I started wondering what would happen if that small bridge between Sosúa Abajo and Marantha would collapse, Basically nobody east of that bridge would be able to get to POP as there are NO roads, not even any small dirt road.
4. That's also periodic, right now where I live, there's no water problem, but it can happen without any notice.
5. Good for you, I'm also not really bored, but not because there is a great variety of entertainment, I keep myself busy learning new skills online instead. I'm not surprised that basically no families come here except for the few AI visitors.

 

[Big]

On your way to Abinader's house, lunch is on me... at Mila's.

There is a pollo frito shop on Moya, you may be more comfortable

 

[AlterEgo]

There is a pollo frito shop on Moya, you may be more comfortable

 

[Lucifer]

There is a pollo frito shop on Moya, you may be more comfortable

Fear not, General Big:

The Restaurante Mila staff takes one good look at me, and they'll tell me the dishwasher position is already filled.

If I hadn't baptized Cobraboy with the "Jethro" moniker, I'd assign it to you. Too bad.
1/2 Jethro, maybe? As in, What's up, half Jethro?

¿KLK, medio Jethro? Dime a ver, Jethro Jr...

 

[MariaRubia]

Well I can only speak for the POP province, but as a few have already mentioned.

• Lack of supplies, you can prepare a list of groceries you want to buy and very often you can go to several "supermarkets" and they don't have the products for months.
• Lack of health providers, there are a few good doctors, but they all come from either STI or SD, and they only come here like 1 or 2 a week. If you want to have good medical care you have to go to either STI or better yet SD. There are a few private clinics, but in general they are not reliable to give you the assistance you need. I have too many stories to count. For example, a few years back I had "some" stomach issues, after about 1 week of every day going to the bathroom about every hour, I went to one of those clinics, they ran some test, couldn't find anything. The DR told me to just go home and relax, maintain hydrated. For about 1 more week of the same, I decided to go to STI instead, and there they did basically the same tests, and they found that I had amoeba and salmonella. Interesting that the clinic in POP didn't found that.
• Horrible traffic. This is a problem that you find all over the country, however the big difference between for example POP and STI and SD, is that there are only a few main roads or only one. For example, to go from Cab to POP there is ONLY 1 main road. So if something happens with that road, well then you're out of luck and you're basically stuck. That was what happened in 2022-2023 when the main bridge between POP and the airport had to be replaced, that was a REAL s**tshow. And from the looks of it, although the population is increasing in all the areas, there doesn't seem to be any REAL plans of any increase in the underlying infrastructure. So probably in a couple of years we'll have half a million to 1 million residents sharing the same road.
• Constant water and electrical issues. For the past I guess year or so, there are DAILY outtages, be it only between a few minutes to maybe an hour each time. But you still need to be aware of it. And then for the water, no need to go there, there are already multiple threads about that.
• General boredom. Depending on what you are looking for in general, if you think laying on the beach 24/7 is fun, then this is a GREAT area to be in with a lot of beaches that are just to die for. But if you feel like life is about more than just laying on the beach sippin piña coladas, then this area is quite boring. There are a few good restaurants, but in general food is overpriced and quality is lacking.

These are only a few of the issues.
So yes, if you don't HAVE to live on the NC (or at least in POP province, although from what I've heard these problems are basically all over the NC), I would vote against it. I'm basically only here because my wife's entire family is living here and I have hard time convincing here it's time to move, but who knows, soon enough.

100% agree with all of this. Last time I was in Cabarete we ran out of mushrooms and wanted some for breakfast. Janet's did have any, so the solution was to go without. That would never happen in SD, I have maybe 20 huge supermarkets within a 15 min drive. When I was in Cabarete I got ill and I began to worry about what would have happened if I'd needed a hospital. The healthcare facilities all seem extremely limited. A couple of trips back the vehicle had issues. It was under guarantee but the dealer said they preferred to tow it back to the capital than to risk a repair in Cabarete or Puerto Plata. And so it goes on and on and on. If you want a few weeks of R&R or if you're mad keen on windsurfing, I guess Cabarete is your place. But if you want to live something that feels like a normal western life with decent supplies, decent healthcare, security, entertainment, then you need to head to SD or Santiago. In my opinion.

 

[Kricke87]

100% agree with all of this. Last time I was in Cabarete we ran out of mushrooms and wanted some for breakfast. Janet's did have any, so the solution was to go without. That would never happen in SD, I have maybe 20 huge supermarkets within a 15 min drive. When I was in Cabarete I got ill and I began to worry about what would have happened if I'd needed a hospital. The healthcare facilities all seem extremely limited. A couple of trips back the vehicle had issues. It was under guarantee but the dealer said they preferred to tow it back to the capital than to risk a repair in Cabarete or Puerto Plata. And so it goes on and on and on. If you want a few weeks of R&R or if you're mad keen on windsurfing, I guess Cabarete is your place. But if you want to live something that feels like a normal western life with decent supplies, decent healthcare, security, entertainment, then you need to head to SD or Santiago. In my opinion.

And if you want to live a calm area that is also near nature, I'd rather choose Jarabacoa/Constanza or Jamao. Cabarete/Sosúa are for 2 things, one thing I'm not going to mention as I'm sure everyone knows what it is.. and the other are the many beaches. It's hard to deny but The NC and Samana have the country's best beaches.

 

[NanSanPedro]

I have enjoyed all my stays on the NC. Mostly in PP but some in Sosua. One day trip to Cabarete. Even Sosua on this most recent visit was cleaner than Boca Chica (yea I know, that bar is very low).

I did notice that BC has a much lower crime rate than PP. That's disappointing.

 

[bob saunders]

And if you want to live a calm area that is also near nature, I'd rather choose Jarabacoa/Constanza or Jamao. Cabarete/Sosúa are for 2 things, one thing I'm not going to mention as I'm sure everyone knows what it is.. and the other are the many beaches. It's hard to deny but The NC and Samana have the country's best beaches.

Bahia Las Aguillas is pretty damn nice and it is a long way from the north coast. Miches also has really nice beaches.

 

[MariaRubia]

I agree that there are some amazing beaches on the NC and Samana peninsula, and I agree that the countryside is stunning around the center of the island. Which is wonderful for a visit. But if you live there? With no shops, no hospital, problems with the water, problems with the electricity, sketchy policing, nothing much to do apart from walk up and down and up and down and up and down the beach, surely that's going to get tired pretty quickly. I guess it's a case of different strokes for different folks. Maybe a good half-way is Punta Cana / Bavaro, you have nice beaches but you also have safety, electricity, water, decent shops.

I'd also add that the weather in DR is often not suited to walking on the beach. Those days when it's torrential rain, hurricane season, or when it's just too hot. What do you do on those days in the beach paradise?

 

[josh2203]

Well I can only speak for the POP province, but as a few have already mentioned.
[*]Constant water and electrical issues. For the past I guess year or so, there are DAILY outtages, be it only between a few minutes to maybe an hour each time. But you still need to be aware of it. And then for the water, no need to go there, there are already multiple threads about that.
[*]General boredom. Depending on what you are looking for in general, if you think laying on the beach 24/7 is fun, then this is a GREAT area to be in with a lot of beaches that are just to die for. But if you feel like life is about more than just laying on the beach sippin piña coladas, then this area is quite boring. There are a few good restaurants, but in general food is overpriced and quality is lacking.
I'm basically only here because my wife's entire family is living here and I have hard time convincing here it's time to move, but who knows, soon enough.

I wish, when people complain about electricity, please post at least the city you are referring to. Saying that an entire province has daily blackouts that last hours simply isn't true. If it is, please post stats from EDE website or something (yes, they used to report these at least in the past). Of all the houses we have to deal with in POP, only my FIL has inverter, as others don't need it. Why? Lack of outages. Yes, there are, but perhaps 1-2 every 3 weeks or so... And they last a few minutes or so... Same with water, if the whole province was without water constantly, I hope there would be riots, but there aren't...

Portal de Circuitos Nacionales - Buscar - CDEEE

For general boredom, I really don't understand this as we had this thing called "normal life" living in POP... Working, studying, kids in school, kids hobbies etc... We sometimes even struggled finding time to go to the beach...

 

[bob saunders]

I wish, when people complain about electricity, please post at least the city you are referring to. Saying that an entire province has daily blackouts that last hours simply isn't true. If it is, please post stats from EDE website or something (yes, they used to report these at least in the past). Of all the houses we have to deal with in POP, only my FIL has inverter, as others don't need it. Why? Lack of outages. Yes, there are, but perhaps 1-2 every 3 weeks or so... And they last a few minutes or so... Same with water, if the whole province was without water constantly, I hope there would be riots, but there aren't...

Portal de Circuitos Nacionales - Buscar - CDEEE

For general boredom, I really don't understand this as we had this thing called "normal life" living in POP... Working, studying, kids in school, kids hobbies etc... We sometimes even struggled finding time to go to the beach...

Well, in Jarabacoa there is always water, except when it rains hard. Then it is either no water or dirty water. The source of the water is clean, in terms of no pollution, however when the rains come hard forget about clear water. No Electricity almost always Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning.

 

[Calos G-Diaz]

I wish, when people complain about electricity

I did mention that I would get Tesla PowerWall and solar panels to address this. I've experienced maybe 5 blackouts living in the Northeast US in about 40 years, and those were due to major events (Sandy, 2003 etc). I like electricity and I'm not trying to go back to the dark ages (pun intended). Second, I don't want to live in a city (done that) and I DO want to go somewhere where there is a lot of nature and great beaches. The NC has the best beaches imo.

I did notice that BC has a much lower crime rate than PP. That's disappointing.

Didn't this use to be the other way around? I have some great memories walking out into the ocean as far as I could in boca chica and looking back at how far away the beach looked (from the perspective of a little kid), but we most went to NC beaches.

 

[windeguy]

I wish, when people complain about electricity, please post at least the city you are referring to. Saying that an entire province has daily blackouts that last hours simply isn't true. If it is, please post stats from EDE website or something (yes, they used to report these at least in the past). Of all the houses we have to deal with in POP, only my FIL has inverter, as others don't need it. Why? Lack of outages. Yes, there are, but perhaps 1-2 every 3 weeks or so... And they last a few minutes or so... Same with water, if the whole province was without water constantly, I hope there would be riots, but there aren't...

Portal de Circuitos Nacionales - Buscar - CDEEE

For general boredom, I really don't understand this as we had this thing called "normal life" living in POP... Working, studying, kids in school, kids hobbies etc... We sometimes even struggled finding time to go to the beach...

The EDENORTE website is a joke. Stats, what stats? Most of the web site has been non-functional for probably a year.

 

[josh2203]

The EDENORTE website is a joke. Stats, what stats? Most of the web site has been non-functional for probably a year.

My bad, it's not EDEnorte, it's CDEEE. You can just basically supposedly see the downtime per circuit... I'm not saying that's very useful, just that I wish that people don't claim that half the country is without luz...

 

[MariaRubia]

I did mention that I would get Tesla PowerWall and solar panels to address this. I've experienced maybe 5 blackouts living in the Northeast US in about 40 years, and those were due to major events (Sandy, 2003 etc). I like electricity and I'm not trying to go back to the dark ages (pun intended). Second, I don't want to live in a city (done that) and I DO want to go somewhere where there is a lot of nature and great beaches. The NC has the best beaches imo.

The panels will not be enough to power a microwave, a freezer or an AC unit. The only way to power those is a generator.

Returning to your OP, you asked whether it is sufficient to go on vacation to the DR or whether you should live there full time. My opinion is still that if you should vacation, not live full time. If you vacation, your health issues can be treated in the US and you will enjoy the nature and the beaches. If you live full-time then you'll soon get bored of the beaches and the nature and have the eternal struggle of bad electricity, bad healthcare facilities, bad supermarkets and atrocious customer service at least if you live on the NC.

 

[slowmo]

If you live full-time then you'll soon get bored of the beaches and the nature

Sounds like advice from a city slicker.