About paladino

Status:

Expatriate  

Gender:

Male

Currently Lives:

Citizen Of:

United States

Advice for New Expats

If there is one piece of advice I would give other Americans who dream of moving offshore it is this. Turn the TV off and cancel your cable. You will never find the time to find your dream life offshore as long as you watch TV. TV in America is a mind sucking monster! Defeat the monster that is defeating your dream by doing without TV. Your life will be richer; I promise.

I would love to live in...

Beaches and bikinis...

Favorite Cuisine:

Seafood

Favorite Museum:

The Prado, Madrid [but only because I have not visited all the greats]

Favorite Movie:

Apacolyse Now [great writing, great directing, great production]

Favorite Book:

Red Harvest by Dashielle Hammett

Favorite Sports Team:

Scuderia Ferrari, Forumula 1

Some Forum Posts:

Dominican Republic: Commercial Fishing Ports/Markets:

My limited understanding is that the DR does not have any major commercial fishing industry, please correct me if I am wrong. That said does anyone have any knowledge of where there might be some successful [meaning they fish year around for sale] fishing ports in the DR [expecting there would be large fishmarket there] where I person can buy larger quantities and variety of fresh caught fish rather than buying from a local fishmonger?

Vietnam: Mail Deliveries:

Are there any mail box / forwarding businesses in Vietnam. For instance in the USA there are MailBox Etc and UPS Storesthat offer box rental / legal address and various services? Are there such operations in VNJ?

Vietnam: American/ French coming to Quy Nhon:

How has your ESL job in Quy Nhno worked out? I interested to know what school you working with and how things have gone. Best regards

Panama: Cost of Living Single:

If you rent your own apt. expect 750-1300 USD. If you rent / share an apartment the going rate is 500-700 for your part of the rent. On top of these figures you will have Cable, Internet, Elec., your cell phone so figure 140 more to cover all that. Now you are down to food, since you don't need a car to live in El Cangrejo...cooking at home a lot you will spend about 165 on food provided you don't eat the high end stuff like steak and fish. I spent the month of Abril in PC researching all this so I feel my numbers are pretty close to fact. If you you are living on the cheap then you will need to find a way to do it either savings are find a way to get a job in PC. It's doable but not easy if you re not fluent in Spanish as Spanish is used in the workplace. Now on the other hand if you got the bucks one angle is to rent a 3 bedroom, some have a maid's quarter also and then occupy one bedroom and rent the others out at 600 a month providing elec, cable in with the rent and this can get your monthly personal cost down to about down to about 400 a month for your part...of course variables are important...the biggie...A/C in the apt or not....it's one of the biggest issues to deal with and not free lunch.

Trinidad & Tobago: Want Opinions: How difficult is it to secure a job in TT before moving there:

First let me say I not expecting anyone to find me job with this post. I currently live in Colombia and I am looking at a move to TT but I darn sure want a job offer before I take on the move as I am open to several countries, TT is just one. So have 25 years of high end experience in IT, I am looking to find position as a IT Business Analyst / Project Mgr. Every country is different and some it's just close to impossible to secure a job from outside the country like Colombia for instance they are so that sophisticated. Others it common place like Dubai where everyone is from somewhere else and firms hire constantly from all over the world. Anyone give me an opinion about this as I don't want to waste ton hours posting and sending resume apps if the time is in truth wasted. I could concetrate on another market. Thanks for knowledge or opinions and if by chance you know an IT headhunter please post or PM.

Panama: Sending Funds from Panama to US:

Not objecting to panamaj's advice but you did not mention an 'amount'. It makes a big difference by what method you send based upon wheither the amount is tens of thousands, a few thousand or $100. Small amounts are definitely best on Paypal or other payment networks like Neteller, Skrill, others. But you can not send tens of thousands this way in a single month. You could stange the transfers spreading them over several months since you said speed is not an issue. Fast and big money, bank wire is then the only way.

Dominican Republic: Legal salvage/custom built vehicles for on-road use:

I felt this was better to be posted as it's own thread. I have found out in my Latin America travels that the concept of building your own custom or aka salvage vehicle and then legally registering and insuring is not commonly allowed. Now there are situations where there is a loophole to allow very limited options of said. For instance if you buy a vehicle in some countries you can strip the motor out and use it as the legal VIN of existing registration and build anything else.,..but you can just buy a motor out of a yard or a crate motr and build you own thing. Does the DR allow the registration of 'built it myself' aka salvage vehicles? If anyone cannot figure out why this is even desireable I will give you and example. If I wanted to build my own Dune Buggy, Sand Rail, Mud Buggy as a hobby...now you understand better. Anyone know the answer to this in the DR? Anyone done it or know someone who has done it?

Dominican Republic: Can ATVs be registered for legal street use?:

If I might explain nuance of this. I am curious to know if the DR permits the operation of ATV Quads and / or Mule style vehicles as legal on-road transportation with registration and insurance of course. For those that don't get my Mule reference ..those larger 4-6 passenger ATV usually 4WD that you might think of as 4wd golfcarts are commonly referred to as Mules borrowing the the very popular and pioneer product Kawasaki Mule. Can these be used legally in the DR? Quads? For the life of my I don't understand why country after country prohits these while permiting scooters and motorcycles both being much less stable than Quads/Mules. Anyone know?

Costa Rica: Food…if the country of origin is not clearly marked, beware.:

I don't live in Costa Rica but I want to support what you are saying. There have been many many published articles about the dangers of intentional food contamination in products manufactured/grown in China. Food supply networks all over the world are being disupted by Chinese dumping or food products into foreigh food chains often with little to know testing of food safety. Walmart being a very good example but this is a big issue in the USA perhaps but surely surely there is a business opportunity in CR. Why buy tilapia shipped 7,000 miles via diesel fuel ships when it can be readily cultivated in Costa Rica and sold as a local Pur Vida? answer? talk to your neighbors, your countrymen, convince them to not buy sh_t from China to eat! B Suerte

Argentina: Help Harvest Grapes in Argentina:

This sounds interesting Tom, if I am to be in that part of SA in the spring I might be interested in getting the exercise...but you sound a little hesitant on providing sleeping accommodations. If you want suck someon in, you got to cough up a room, soup and free coffee....just saying.

Date Joined:

11/25/2011

Total Posts:

127

Posts/Day:

0.06