Hoping to be moving to Antiqua

What can we realistically expect to pay for rent, we have to have a house because we have four dogs, two big ones, two little ones.

The dogs will present a challenge, if you want them to have any room.  There are very few houses here with yards, they call them ‘huge gardens' but it's more like a 10′x10′ grassy spot.  If that's okay you'll have plenty of options, most gringos have a colonial style house with what I call a small garden for $750 to $1000.  If you want a larger garden you're going to be in the $1000 to $1500 area.  Real estate in Antigua is relatively expensive because this is THE destination for both rich locals and foreigners.  You can get more information on real estate in Antigua by reading the Real Estate section on my blog.

   

How difficult is it to get a long-term visa?

Anything bureaucratic here is a mess and unpredictable.  I know people who have been waiting five years for their long-term visa.  As a pensionado or investor you are eligible, but it's still a process.  Most people, myself included, just do the 90 day tourist visa and stay indefinitely.  I haven't quite figured out what the advantage to having permanent residency and a cedula would be.  At the moment all I need to do is show a copy of my passport to officials and they usually just waive me along.  If I had a cedula I'd be ‘legit' and they expectations of doing whatever that official wants would be higher.

   

I have heard teaching jobs are easy to get, true?

I'm not sure what you mean by that.  Some friends of mine have full time teaching jobs at private schools in the capital, I don't know whether it was easy to get (lookup Ben Barnett at Saga Unscripted).  Here in Antigua you can teach English for about $2 an hour, I suspect there is always an opening with one of the local Spanish schools to teach locals English.

   

We have heard that there is a large international community in Antigua and many interesting people and networking.

Definitely, it's one of the things I like about Antigua, a diverse foreign population and lots of Guatemalans who have traveled or lived in the states.  It's a blast.

   

I don't speak Spanish, my husband does, I am trying to learn, I have heard that in Antigua that is not a problem.

Very few locals speak English, but if you have a spouse that speaks Spanish that will of course help, but you're going to need to learn some basic Spanish if you want to adapt.  My Spanish is terrible but for all of the things I need to do on a daily basis I get along okay.  However, if someone calls me out of the blue and I don't know the context, I'm lost.

   

I would love any information we could get. The last thing I want to have to do is go back to the US, we both are much more comfortable living in Central America.

Read my blog…I've chronicled life here every day for more than a year and I link to others who do the same.