Some Things To Consider If You Want To Move To The Caribbean

Certainly, there are some great advantages of moving to the Caribbean, not the least of which is the weather - at least for most of the year, if not in the hurricane season.

The first thing to do, if you haven't already made the decision, is to decide which of the Caribbean Islands best suits your purposes. Not all of them will be suitable by any means, and for English people two of the most important things will be to select an island that has English as its' primary language and is also a safe place to live. In fact, using those two requirements reduces the number of possible locations down to about a dozen.

Then if you don't have a business, or you don't intend to set up a business at your destination, you will need to research employment very carefully. What you will find when you start researching on the internet is that there are a lot of different versions of statistical information. One of the places to avoid is tourism websites. It seems that they are designed to entice travellers, which is probably fair enough since that is their business, but in order to do that they seem to massage the figures quite considerably.

More accurate statistical information is to be found on the government websites of the various islands, while message boards pertaining to the individual islands are good for everything else. Message boards are internet sites where people ask questions and other people (often locals) answer them. Of course, if you can't find an answer to your particular question you can simply ask the question yourself.

One thing that you will need to know if you are going to relocate to the Caribbean is that most of the islands are not too keen to welcome you if you need employment, unless you are a doctor or an engineer. Putting those two aside, most islands want employment to go to their locals first and foremost, and the only other reason they want you going to live there is if you have something to offer, and in most cases that means money. And quite a lot of it.

As an example, if you take Dominica, they require an upfront fee of $50,000 in order to become a resident. In St. Kitts it is an upfront fee of $35,000 plus you need to spend $250,000 minimum on real estate before you can take up residency, and only then could you start your own business. It seems that Grenada is the easiest island to emigrate to because it appears to have an "open door" policy as opposed to the rest of them.

However, there are other things to take into consideration such as the type of island from a geographical standpoint. When you have narrowed your choices down to a dozen or so, if you want some nice beaches and mountainous regions you will find that some of the islands have a flat, scrubby terrain, such as The Bahamas, Antigua, and Aruba. If you were thinking of relocating to Jamaica, that has mountains and beaches, as do Dominica, Grenada, and St Martin or St Maarten which are one and the same island, St Martin being French while the other side, St Maarten is Dutch.

In fact, St Maarten is a good example of what you can expect if you want to live and work in the Caribbean. Just to begin with you can only stay there for three months unless you are a resident. In order to become a resident, there is two months of paperwork to go through, and you can't live on the island while you do it. If your application is accepted (i.e. you have quite a bit of money) you can't get a job unless you can find an employer who will take you on and get you a work permit, but before he can do that he has to show that he has tried to find a local but was unable to find anyone suitable.

So, as you can see, moving to the Caribbean is not quite as easy as you might think. But if you love the sun and the laid-back way of life, it is still worth a try.

W. I. Freight is an international shipping agency with over 50 years' experience of helping people relocating to Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean.