The thread from tjmurray with his move to Punta Cana from the capital, plus new posters asking always where they should look to live, made me start thinking as to where I would choose to live, knowing what I know now.
It would not be Juan Dolio, where I live now. The beach is really unimportant, when it is there 2 minutes away I only go when I have visitors. What was a bustling tourist resort is now a deserted ghost town. I have discovered I do not need to have expatriate friends nearby, the internet and DR1 serves for that! I have a pool, which I rarely use, only when it is very hot in the summer, so I would not need a pool again.
I appreciate the proximity to the capital, for all those administrative things and excellent medical care, the latter maybe now also available in Santiago, but I would not want to be much more than an hour away from those.
I think I would be happier more inland and in the countryside rather than on the coast, but would like close access to good supermarkets rather than just very basic Dominican produce. I would like to live somewhere which was more a typical Dominican town and not too big so that you could get to know lots of people.
Good electricity is a must - which we do have in Juan Dolio, almost 24/7, goes off many once every 2 or 3 weeks for a couple of hours. I suppose you could always have inversors and generators though. Also would need to be not impossibly far from an airport, to pick up the visitors who arrive.
So the things which I thought would be important, and which maybe were in the short term like the beach, other ex pats, just end up not being important at all.
Any thoughts where my ideal place might be???
Matilda
It would not be Juan Dolio, where I live now. The beach is really unimportant, when it is there 2 minutes away I only go when I have visitors. What was a bustling tourist resort is now a deserted ghost town. I have discovered I do not need to have expatriate friends nearby, the internet and DR1 serves for that! I have a pool, which I rarely use, only when it is very hot in the summer, so I would not need a pool again.
I appreciate the proximity to the capital, for all those administrative things and excellent medical care, the latter maybe now also available in Santiago, but I would not want to be much more than an hour away from those.
I think I would be happier more inland and in the countryside rather than on the coast, but would like close access to good supermarkets rather than just very basic Dominican produce. I would like to live somewhere which was more a typical Dominican town and not too big so that you could get to know lots of people.
Good electricity is a must - which we do have in Juan Dolio, almost 24/7, goes off many once every 2 or 3 weeks for a couple of hours. I suppose you could always have inversors and generators though. Also would need to be not impossibly far from an airport, to pick up the visitors who arrive.
So the things which I thought would be important, and which maybe were in the short term like the beach, other ex pats, just end up not being important at all.
Any thoughts where my ideal place might be???
Matilda