I know this is covered but I might be in a different catagory.

Your budget is "Doable" for a simple living single guy, BUT, only if you eliminate the "Women" part!!!!
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You can do it if you move to a normal city like Santiago or La Vega. If you move to Sosua or Cabarete you will have to live in rat infested conditions at that budget. A weird thing in the DR that you will notice, 1 bedroom apartments are not common at all, I rarely see them at all. I think this has to do with most children staying with their parents until they get married or sometimes even until their parents croak. Growing up in the US it's one of the odd cultural things I've noticed here but I've grown to understand why.

It's way cheaper than the US but if I was your age (I was 3 years ago) , I would focus more on making more money and expanding your lifestyle. Funny thing is I also have a military background (navy) and work in the internet marketing field. Honestly any decent programmer can triple that income you're proposing just hawking his wares on freelancer/elance, I know because I have a philipino programmer that I found from there that charges 15$ an hour.. Good luck and if you have any more specific questions feel free to ask.

Agree with CC. You'd also have to mostly cook for yourself which isn't as easy as in the US. A young fit guy like you would prob like Cabarete more and with your background, you could pick up an cute European surfer girl at one of the beach bars.

Still plenty of hotels/restaurants on the north coast without web pages.. At one point I was working on a GIS type program that would have a map of Sosua with links to all the hotel sites and menus for all the restaurants. A good digital camera might be useful.

If you can do POS systems, there is a potential market for that. Jose O'Shays has one but it's ancient, according to Frank12. There are plenty of retail stores that could use them.

I will with the rest of the guys, north coast is probably more do-able for you as here in Punta Cana everything is more expensive (electricity, food, travel, restaurants etc). And if you do like the cute women, please be careful, they do have a habit of falling pregnant and latching on to any foreigner.

Glad you decided to join us, I am sure you will have fun. Good luck with the studies and let us know how you get on

It there a sticky thread on moving to the DR? Seems like there should be.

Colonial Zone Santo Domingo, Cheap 1 bedrooms, everything you need/want in waking distance , easy transportation. Safe, unless you try to steal bread.

boknows said:

Safe, unless you try to steal bread.

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Indeed!!

I met a former Johnson & Johnson exec, who retired from J&J two years ago. He was an accountant, and I met him in the Caf? Melo in Barahona (the only restaurant that has WiFi and no constant music) over breakfast. He invited me to go swimming with him at the Cayo (a peninsula that sweeps around the harbor out past the sugar mill.He claims that he checked out a lot of places and found Barahona to be the best place for him to retire. It is cheap, the people are really nice, and it has a sort of raffish decadent charm, since its glory days were back in the times of the Dance of the Millions Sugar Boom of the 1920's. I know I like Barahona a lot. There are prettier beach towns, but Barahona has most of the conveniences of a modern city. There are no banks or ATMs between Barahona and Pedernales. Werner (who everyone calls Bruno) says that the main thing lacking is a branch of Scotiabank. The nearest is in Azua, which is not all that far.

Barahona has an International Airport, but there are no regular flights. There is good bus service (large buses) from Caribetours and Sinchomiba. The latter has a station between SDQ and the Parque Enriquillo, and a whole swarm of guaguas.

Local transportation is mostly by motoconcho, though taxis can be called and are cheaper than most other places.

umm, i know some places in POP at 500 dollars a month, furnished, for long term rental. so it is possible. your budget seems good to me and doable in every city in DR with slight differences in the quality of the lodgings and money left for extras.

as far as getting a woman who ain't a pro. if you cannot find a decent woman wherever you come from you will not find her here either. you may leave the environment behind when you move to DR but you still drag with you the biggest factor in getting a relationship - yourself. professional hos are not that many, women who will want something from a man constitute 100% of female population anyways.

Being in the Cabarete area is certainly possible on your budget.

When you get to Cabarete, come into the Irish bar on the beach and ask for Frank (the bartender, not the owner). More then likely, i'll be sitting at the bar telling a group of obese French Canadian women lies about our calorie free "diet" deep fried fish and chocolate cake.

Trust me, if you're young, you want to be on the beach, in a beach town, surrounded by surfers and bikinis. You don't want to be in the middle of the country surrounded by mountains, rain, ugly women, and gonorrhea.

You will need a little education about what to avoid and look out for. That's where i will help you for a small fee of one coffee and some dark chocolate--which you will need to bring with you from the states.

I'm cheap, but i'm chalk full of useless information.

Frank

Stephen Brush said:

Haha that was funny Frank. Im thankful for your help you must certainly see me there. Ill be in the area for 4 days and im sure ill run into you ill make sure of it.

Ill let you know the dates im coming and ill ask what chocolate you want lol.

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Cabarete is one of the coolest places on the island, I lived there for a year. The only issue for me was it is literally a year round tourist hotspot. You rarely see the same people around for more than a short stay, there are virtually no real non-tourist related businesses, locals all assume you are a tourist or temporary ex-pat so they try to rip you off a bit when they can (I'm half Dominican too so I imagine for a complete gringo it has to be hell). Those are the only reasons I would suggest a larger city, obviously Cabarete is beautiful and awesome, and aesthetically I think the beach at Sosua is one of my favorites on the island.

I personally needed to move for more of a social life, business connections, and better schools/facilities for my family/children. If none of these matter to you, get ready for a wild ride in Cabarete, it's an awesome surf destination and definitely the "in" place to live for euro surfers/californian world travelers! Good luck no matter where you choose and thanks for the contracting recommendation, but living here is dangerous enough. HAHA