Our last post looked at a few of the Caribbean countries that welcome long term residents. Before we moved we researched several more countries, Antigua, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, Anguilla, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao. (Anguilla and Montserrat are British overseas territories and Curacao is part of The Netherlands.) Our criteria included:
- Political and economic stability, rule of law
- Allow long term residence and home ownership for non-citizens
- Reasonable climate
- Affordable housing available
- Decent economy. We looked at GDP per family and GINI coefficient because we didn’t want to move somewhere which had a layer of super rich and everyone else were dirt poor.
- Mostly Christian with religious tolerance and Catholic churches
- Speak English
We ruled out several of these islands immediately due to population density, poverty, very high costs or legacy of unrest. Other countries had a dearth of homes that looked decent and were affordable. And some are hot year around or simply too expensive. We ended up seriously considering St Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and Antigua. All these have mountains which provide some cooling, all have a reasonable history of political and economic stability, decent economy, speak English, are mostly Christian, and had houses available that we could seriously consider.
We had intended to visit several islands but we were doing this in early 2021 when many countries either restricted tourism or had long quarantine periods due to the Wuhan virus so we ended up doing a ton of online research before travelling. In the end St. Kitts and Nevis, especially the smaller Nevis, were the most attractive. They required an 11 day quarantine which put a crimp in our plans to see multiple islands; however, there were several homes we wanted to see on Nevis. We decided to go there, spend enough time after quarantine to see the most interesting homes, and if we liked it we would stay a full month and if not would cut our trip short or try a different island.
We arrived on our wedding anniversary, traveled to Detroit to catch an early morning flight that went to St. Kitts Basseterre airport, then took a taxi from the airport around to the straits between the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, then a water taxi to Nevis and another taxi to Montpellier Plantation Inn where we stayed for the quarantine. Thankfully the Inn took care of arranging the taxis for us and the water taxi.
Montpellier Inn is lovely, set on large landscaped grounds with small cottages holding one or two spacious rooms. Ours had a big four poster bed, plenty of floor space, chairs, a table, microwave and small fridge and nice bathroom. The Inn has a couple restaurants, one of which was closed to us while we quarantined, the other was by the pool and served a limited but good menu. The breakfast included with the room had fruit, yoghurt, juice, pastries or toast, eggs, sausage, tomato, bacon, basically the full English cooked breakfast. It was very good.
We had been so very busy before the trip that the quarantine period was a good rest in beautiful setting with a large, clean pool. We could see Mount Nevis, a dormant volcano, and the Atlantic from the inn. We were rested and ready to get on with our trip after about a week, but we had to stay there for the full 11 nights, then pass a Covid 19 Wuhan virus test.
We stayed in a small cottage, rather high up near Gingerland, which is on the eastern side of Nevis, giving us a great view of the Atlantic. From there we toured the houses our realtor, Gigi Duncan, had lined up for us. We found two homes we liked. We made an offer on one of them and had the sales agreement in hand when we returned home.
Internet research tells us a lot but there is no substitute for living somewhere to get a full idea of what it is like. We were here for a month, shopped locally, made our own meals, drove around, went to the beach, the grocery stores, church, so we knew we would like it and be happy here. On paper Nevis was by far the best choice and offered suitable homes but we would have liked to have seen more islands. Between our cats, finances and quarantine we felt constrained to visit one or at most two islands on that trip. Fortunately we feel at home and like living here.
Future posts will share some of the travel requirements and what it is like to actually live on Nevis, good and bad.
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