Quote Originally Posted by Irulan View Post
Welcome home from me too. I have a question, and if its been asked and answered before I apologize; I don't read every thread. We travel a lot in the Caribbean, and talk to ex pats and retirees and so on. We've heard pretty consistently to live where you think you want to move to for at least three to six months before committing. Did you guys do this and it still just didn't work out the way you expected? I don't think the island life would be for me either....but I was just wondering.
Nope, we didn't, but that is excellent advice! We had an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new condo building being built in an established, very well-regarded resort, right on the beach. We had looked at other condos on the island but never found anything that suited us (especially my DH), and finding a place to rent with a dog is much harder than if you're pet-free. So we pulled the trigger and bought. If we could have found a place to rent and stayed a year, that would have been preferable for sure.

Believe it or not (or should I say Belize it or not?!) we met people living there who had never even visited the island before moving down. They just researched it online, packed their suitcases, and came down. Though most rented rather than bought property. In our case, we'd visited several times by the time we moved down. But vacationing and living in a place are so very different! Still, as I said in the blog in the very first post of this thread, we have no regrets. The experiences we had we'll never forget and would never change.