Seeking a coastal retirement location on the east side of the island

Welcome to the forum, Geri, and John~  We are recently retired and are looking at the west coast (Rincon) to live at least part time.  We will be spending more time and hopefully, extended renting in PR to determine where we want to be permanently.  I'd love to hear more of any experiences you've had or are learning about the island.  Many blessings!

Geri, you may want to read this thread: https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=359991 about health care here on the island, especially the posts by 'kubla' who is an MD who works here.

Bayamon is notorious for it's heavy traffic although if you can avoid the rush hour it's not too bad. If a quick travel to Bayamon is important I'd suggest you look west from Bayamon, for instance at Dorado. Coming from the east you will have to cross a lot of "Metro area" before you can join the jams in Bayamon.

From what you wrote it looks like you did your homework. Did you also visit Puerto Rico? If not I strongly suggest that you spend  as much time here as you can afford and try not to be a tourist but try to act as if you live here.
Also, read as much as you can, there are many informative threads, both positive and negative on the forum.

Should you have any specific questions, please start a new thread and you'll get answers.

Welcome to Expat-Blog!

Thanks Schuttzie and Gary for the welcomes.  I am eager to share as I learn and look forward to reading other folks' experiences.

Gary I notice you provide cautionary advice, and it is quite welcome.  It's so easy to don rose colored glasses and miss many drawbacks. 

The big question you ask is whether or not we've visited Puerto Rico.  Actually, our only extended stay came from poorly planned air travel to St. Thomas one year to save a few dollars.  We got to enjoy the many benefits of SJU's overnight hospitality (none!) while waiting for our 8 am connection.  Other visits through SJU have been much briefer, thank goodness.  We do plan to visit before our move.  That being said, I'm not worried about either of us adjusting.  We were very comfortable with St. Thomas, which, in my opinion, requires much more adapting.  It is such a small island with so many conveniences of home not existent.  Folks there go to Puerto Rico for shopping and health care, believe it or not.  I've experienced the emergency room and private general practitioner on St. Thomas and had good experiences both times. 

As far as health care is concerned, we will have medicare and additional excellent health insurance that stays with us for lifetime for free, thanks to one of the best ever retirement packages.  We have been and will continue to be our own advocates for our health. If necessary we will go off island, and are well aware that the point might come when we will have to permanently return to the mainland. 

Culture shock should not be an issue, either.  Our town is at least 50% Hispanic with the remaining population a mixture of all other races and cultures.  We are the only non hispanic family on our block.  I have taught in diverse communities and in bilingual programs.  And close friends are from Puerto Rico.  John is a military brat and has lived all over the world, and I have a gypsy soul, and did lots of relocating during my younger hippie days.  (Have VW van will travel).

We have worked all our lives toward a dream of retirement and how it will look for us.  Now that we are so close we are not going to let stories of long waits to see a doctor change our plans.  Your roads don't scare us.  Until you've driven in the New York metro area you don't know what traffic is!

I will keep reading and enjoying other posts. I love the Alaska family travels and adventures and hope that Skip will be able to get John to pull out his guitar and enjoy some music making. 

Thanks again.

Gerie

I love your spirit, Gerie!

Sounds right on Dolt!

just limin wrote:

We have worked all our lives toward a dream of retirement and how it will look for us.  Now that we are so close we are not going to let stories of long waits to see a doctor change our plans.  Your roads don't scare us.  Until you've driven in the New York metro area you don't know what traffic is!

I'm not trying to scare you (or anybody else for that matter). I just try to tell about the reality of life here on the island.

No matter how prepared you (think you) are, a lot of unexpected things are going to happen.
Don't expect anything to happen automatically, you'll have to learn how and where to get things done. Don't think you can get something done by making a phone call, most of the times you have to go there and wait.

This place can be really nice if you have a source of income and if you can adjust.
I've been here for thirteen years; I'm still enjoying living here and it looks like I'm here to stay

I sure hope it will work out for you guys!

Hello All   

@Gerie : Kindly note that a new thread has been created as from your post on the Puerto Rico Forum so as to help you get better interactions and visibility on the forum.

Regards
Kenjee

Gary my friend, you are in a very good position to give great advice and guidance and you do that well. And I for one appreciate how diplomatically you approach potential newcomers. But the difference between you and a potential newcomer with stars in their eyes and no fears of the existing pitfalls and inconveniences is that when you came to the island it didn't have all the problems it has now. You have had years to adjust as things gradually changed. I have a feeling that if you were to move to the island for the first time right now you might have different viewpoints and maybe not like it so well. That's probably why my comments tend to be a little harsher and less diplomatic than yours. I too expected things to be a certain way when I got there but was unprepared to deal with the extent of change that happened so rapidly within the course of 5 short years. "Stories of long lines waiting for medical care don't scare me". They didn't scare me either. I expected it before I went there. But when you have to go to the emergency room at dinner time and you are still sitting there freezing your ass off at 2am waiting to be seen. it's a pain in the ass. Then when you get seen it's quite often sub standard treatment, even if you have Medicare. That's like saying, "your stories of grizzly bears in Alaska don't scare me because I want to go camping there because it's sooo beautiful." Then the first time you see a bear you shit your pants. As Gary says, talk all you want. But when you get there it won't be the same as you thought. I guarantee you will have to deal with a lot of things you never expected. Gary, is your water brown yet, or is that just in the larger municipalities where they have city water? There is talk about 36 hour blackouts for water and electrical service because both utilities can't pay their bills. There is a drought in progress. The economy is spiraling downwards rapidly. But for people like you, you know how to deal better with complications of life on the island better than most newcomers would. . With all the news stories coming out of Puerto Rico right now, and I was seriously considering a move there, It might be a good idea to step back for a little while and see what happens. Hopefully with intervention from large businesses and cooperation from banks and others, PR can get back on financial track and eventually become viable and vibrant once more.

GreggK wrote:

You have had years to adjust as things gradually changed. I have a feeling that if you were to move to the island for the first time right now you might have different viewpoints and maybe not like it so well.

Well, yes, maybe you're right. [good to hear from you, Gregg, btw, you guys OK up there in Florida?]
It took me quite a while to get adjusted and I still get mad about the incredibly inefficient way things are organized  here.

Now. when I came to the island back in 2001 I had a lot of advantages that made it easy for me to get started:
- a local wife and a very helpful and  absolutely wonderful bunch of in-laws
- enough money to keep us going for a couple of years after taking care of the first expenses like buying a car, getting settled etc.
- almost 20 years experience as a small business owner, 13 of them in another foreign country making it a lot easier to start over again.

In the mean time I built a business here and since I mainly have non-local companies as customers, the economical problems of Puerto Rico don't hurt me that bad.

Nevertheless it wasn't a smooth ride and every time I'm back in Europe and seeing how things are running over there I have some double feelings.

To answer your question about water and power, the water isn't brown (yet?) and we have no more than the normal power outages (you know, when it rains more than 20 minutes or when there's a little breeze)

We live in a nice little barrio where most people are (distant) family of my wife. It's quiet here, normally there's no loud music, we don't really need A/C since it cools down nicely at night.
Right now we are finishing our own house on our part of the property (we are living in a house that belongs to my FIL next to our property) and life is good here.

For newcomers, I keep telling people to have enough money to keep going for at least a year and spend as much time  as possible on the island before making the final decision to move. If they need to get a job here the advice would be to stay put.

I honestly can't understand people who decide that they want to move here before even having spent a vacation here. Even then, if you spend a couple of weeks here and go to the beach, El Yunque, the Camuy caves and go out at night you won't get the feeling how it would be to live here.

I don't know how many newcomers didn't make it here but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it is a terribly high percentage. Moving to Puerto Rico is not the same as moving from North Dakota to Florida..

Welcome to this blog. I also find that it is a terrific blog and has helped me alot in our move to PR. We also are from LI -lastly from,Selden and before that from Smithtown.

We got here in PR in May and stayed with our family in Humacao for 3 weeks!!! Not a good idea.  We thought thast we would've found a housen a week or two but that didn't happen.  We looked in  Luquillo, Fajardo, Naguabo and Yabucoa and found a nice houxse in Yabucoa but that was entirely too near to family and it had a really steep driveway. 

So we decided to go to the north coast and visit Vega Baja and Quebradilla, where we landed and found a really nice house not too far from town with alot of room.  We have some nice neighbors and it is really quiet here which sometimes, is boring but in the long run, it was the best for us.

While in Humacao, we went to the shopping center there and it is okay with Walmart and Marshalls amoing the many stores and being from Li, I know how we love Marshalls.  We also visited the Palmas Del Mar casino an d it was okay and not too crowded and I agree with ev eryone in that there are never too many people around.  They do have some families living there and I know that they have a bilingual school there also.

In respect to the drs and hospitals, I also recommend going to the metroploitan area- San  Juan, Rio Piedras, etc.for the best care.  We had occasion to go to the ER at the hospital in Humacao- Ryder a ndx the wait was very long and exhausti ng but I believe that they take the children  right away.

So there are many decision you have to make but definetly look around alot before making a rental decision. There are many properties of a variety of prices and locales.

Good luck in your search.

Tonie

Hey Gary- Things are going OK here in Florida. It's kind of a strange place. where I live (Kissimmee/Southern Orlando area) it's become a little Puerto Rico. I ride a bike 20 miles a day 5 days a week cause it's so flat here. This is how my morning started out-
Bike riding can be interesting.
Who says bike riding is boring? This morning I ran across a young woman carrying two bags and walking barefoot. Asked her if she was OK and she said no. Asked her if she needed help she said yes. Her boyfriend was high on Molly and beat her up and kicked her out. While I was calling 911 the boyfriend drove up, gave me a look and told her to get in the car. She didn't, He drove off. I knew he'd be back and told 911 to hurry cause I wasn't too keen on getting shot or anything. Finally saw the Sherrif's SUV.and they turned on their lights as they stopped. Guess who was right behind the Sherrif's SUV? The boyfriend. He had circled around and didn't' realize he was behind the Sherrif. Not only that but a cruiser pulled up right behind him. Couldn't hear him but I know he said "OH SHIT". Cops jumped out of the Suv one hopped the Jersey wall to talk to the girl and the other cop who was about 8 feet tall went over to talk with the boyfriend. I slowly left the scene as I finished up with 911, rode back to the house, got in the car and drove back to the scene. Cops were still there. Boyfriend was putting his shirt on and walking away pissed because it was obvious they were impounding the car. Young woman was last seen walking with the Sherrif's Deputy towards another waiting cruiser looking relieved and willing to go. Guess I'll have to change my bike riding route for a little while. Or wear a disguise. Well, I've had a full day. Time to take a shower and go back to bed.

Aside from the lunatic fringe politics here and difficulty in making a living I kind of like it in Florida I might move about an hour north to get away from some of the crime though. I'm back to being the only Gringo in my neighborhood again.

I've been wondering where these people have gone over the past year or so who were hell bent on moving to PR no matter what anybody had to say. Some were going there in 2 weeks, others two months. The time came and went and we never heard from most of them again. I sure wish I knew what happened to them. You won't find me trying to encourage anybody to move there right now with the way things are going, but to the people who are doing it anyway, I truly wish you the best and hope you can make the adjustment well and find your happiness. Oh, as I've said before, please show the stray dogs and cats on the island a little kindness whenever you can. Take a couple in and make them part of the family if you are able. If you go out to eat, take your leftovers with you. There's always a hungry stray nearby.

Just Limin'

I live in eastern PR (Luquillo) and I have also lived in the Virgin Islands (as a teen) and still have some Friends and family there. Its true that many come here for conveniences (hospitals and shopping)  that many locals and expats take for granted. I chose Luquillo because it is not in the metro area, and in some ways reminded me of STT. All of the things that people complain about PR can also be said for the Virgin Islands (Crime and Traffic). Let me know if you want more details about the Luquillo/ Fajardo area.

I just bought a house in Naguabo, nice small town.

There is a condo complex in Luquillo called Playa Azul which is steps from the ocean. I know many retired "snowbirds" who own or rent condos there each year (from 3-7 months) and seem to love it. It has a condo/community association with activities and gatherings for the condo residents. I'm not sure how active it is in the summer months. The town of Luquillo is a bit run-down, but it is very close to Route 3 which has WalMart, Walgreens, CVS, many other stores and dozens of restaurants. It's also close to the well-known Luquillo public beach. As someone else posted, this might be an alternative for you that is a bit closer to the San Juan/Bayamon area than the Humacao area would be.

Having said that though, I would visit here to test drive the distance and traffic between the east coast area and Bayamon. At most times of day, it would take you almost an hour to get to the San Juan metro area, never mind Bayamon. Also, consider that this specialist you're hoping to see is only planning to come to the island once a month. Imagine what the lines/waiting time in the doctor's office will be!

Good luck with your research!

It is so nice to see so many chime in on this thread, especially folks from the East side of the island. 

Tonie, good to hear from another Long Islander.  We were nearly neighbors.  I live in Central Islip.  What was bad about looking for a house in Humacao?  I am guessing too much family.  Do you miss Long Island much, the activity and "conveniences?" 

Fond of Ibiza, it's also nice to meet someone who knows the St. Thomas experience and can relate to it vis a vis Puerto Rico.  The good thing I can see is that what we can afford for housing in Puerto Rico is luxury compared to what the same money would get in St. Thomas. 

Gary, I laughed a little when I ready your statement, "if you spend a couple of weeks here and go to the beach, El Yunque, the Camuy caves and go out at night you won't get the feeling how it would be to live here."  I thought to myself, but hey, we're retired, and that exactly how I would want it to be to live there...LOL.  But I do know exactly what you mean and it is the same advice I would give to folks.  What I love about Puerto Rico is how many diverse things there are to do there.  For us in retirement I could hope for life to be nothing more than permanent vacation.   And then, if we are stuck in waiting rooms or on lines or such, well, we're retired.  We've got the time. BTW. I've spent hours waiting in the ER here as well. 

Gregg, I hope we are not among those who turn around after 6 months of living on the island and return to mainland US, but who's to say that won't happen.  It may not be a fit.  I've spent my life taking risks, and don't want to leave it regretting things I never tried. As I mentioned it has been our dream to move to the islands, and we've got to give it a shot.  We have no plan to purchase a home any more.  We're done with that.  And if we have to leave we leave.  Don't have to worry about the housing market and ability to sell. 

I appreciate your comments about the animals.  I've always thought if there is an animal shelter near where we settle, I would volunteer time there. 

OK, folks, want to hear more about your lives on that lovely island....jobs, kids, social frameworks, etc.

Just submitted my big post and saw vkbudd sneak in there.  Thanks for the information about Luquillo.  On my list.  I've also seen places in Fajardo that are appealing.  We're looking forward to the Luquillo beach and kiosk experience. 

About the doctor thing.  We will hopefully be at a point in my husband's care when visits will be required about once every six months or so.  If things require more, well that might be the time to head back to the mainland.  This doctor, with her clinic, is part of a renowned medical center located in Tampa, so there are contingency plans for us.  Nothing will come before my husband's health and well-being.  Oh, and the doctor's sister lives in Palmas del Mar....can't hurt to become neighbors...LOL.

Congrats on the house. We had gone to Naguabo when we were looking and it was nice near the beach. There were some nice houses there but nothing for us.  Best of luck in your new home and Welcome to Puerto Rico.

Hi Just Limin,

   So we were neighbors. Yes, I miss Long Island alot and the conveniences.  We lived on LI for over 35 years and had everything there. So yes, it is a difference here but slowly I am managing.  It is hard not having thing here but hey, the peace and quite and the great breezes make up for it. and since I am with my honey, all is well. 

I am going to Li in Oct. since I am going to be Godmother for my grandaughter when she makes her Confirmation and I am looking forward  to not only going there but seeing my daughter and other grandkids.

Wherever you end up, you will make your way. We have settled here in Quebradilla, on the north coast between Isabela and Camuy and have all near by via a car which we still don't have but we are close enough to town that we can walk (and I have lost some weight with the walking which is always good) and we have found some nice little places here in town- a good Chinese rest. which are hard to even find on LI and a great coffee shop that serves great breakfast.

Our neighbors are also very nice people and we have been outside more than ever before in Selden(we lived in a small 2 room apt. with a small porch) and here we go out on our bedroom porch and see the stars every night and we are just more peaceful.  I sincerely hope that you find that here also in wherever you settle.

Best of luck in your search.

Tonie

This is the view from my house in Naguabo.

I could not see the image.  Came up as a question mark error.   

try this one,

I posted the images in  pictures on Expat.com. Please take a look, Thank you!

Nice pics, Jackal!

My wife and me love to visit Naguabo playa at night and have a couple of drinks and eat supper in on of the small restaurants at the beach. We haven't been there in a while - it's about time!

Hi Gerie:
I own a home on Vieques and lived full time there for 18 months. However, I would not live there full time while requiring medical care. The unreliable ferry system makes it too much of a challenge to get to the mainland for doctor visits. But it is a beautiful place to live.
That being said, I did spend a few days at Palmas del Mar, and found it to be a delightful community. I liked the Humacao area. Not too congested, good shopping, and close proximity to Caguas for access to more stores.
Fajardo would be a nice option also, just more traffic. But it does provide easy access to a lot of recreation as well as proxi,ity to the San Juan area.
I would suggest you spend some time on the mainland navigating around all the areas you are considering. That is the only way you will get a feel for what is right for you.

Cool! I will be back next month, let me know if you like to meet for a cold beer on the waterfront 

HI, I/we are also new to the forum. I have a blog about the condo that we recently purchased just south of Fajardo. in the Monte Sol condominium complex. I am sure that there are rentals available there. It's a gated community with good security and it has a shopping center with an Amigo food store at the entrance. My  real estate agent would be a good resource for you as she has an office in Luquillo and knows the area well. Check out my blog and if I can help you, let me know!

Gary, which of those little restaurants on the Naguabo coast do you recommend? Drove by a bunch of them last week and didn't know which one to pick :-)

Blukieduug wrote:

Gary, which of those little restaurants on the Naguabo coast do you recommend? Drove by a bunch of them last week and didn't know which one to pick :-)

I don't remember any names.. It's been a while since the Mrs. and me have been in Naguabo, it's about time we go there.
Next time we're there I'll make sure I'll take some photos.

When you enter Naguabo coming from Humacao and Punto Santiago on the old #3 and get to Naguabo beach, there's a row with 7, 8 houses and a couple of restaurants on your left.

I think that the first restaurant in that row is one of our favorites.





It's a matter of trial and error anyway. Today this place may be good, two weeks from now they have a different cook or sold the place and you'll be disappointed.

HI; We did get an opportunity to eat at El Makito (the yellow restaurant on the water) in May. It was decent, but not wonderful. I would like to get to know some of the really good local eateries, so bring on the recommendations! We plan to be back down to our condo this fall and I really want to explore the area this time.

Hi Bear,
Not sure how much time you'll spend in the Metro San Juan area, but we live in Bayamón and there's a pincho place called Willy's Pincho's on Rte 833, right off of Carr 177.  It's about 1/2 mile from Costco, so if you ever find yourself there, it's a great place to stop for lunch.

When we went to Naguabo when we first got to PR, we ate at a small kiosk at the beach and it was okay. I had an empanadia de camarones(shrimp pattie) and it was pretty good. The best thing was the Rum and Coke, ha ha.Haven't been there since.

Thanks for the information. We've set our dates and will be there from Oct 19th to Nov 5th. We have projects to finish in our new condo, but this time we plan to get a little more vacationing in. We're looking forward to spending a bit more time exploring the island.

Hello Viequestex my husband and I are hoping to purchase a vacation home on Vieques and eventually move there to retire.  I would really appreciate any information that you could give me about utilities costs especially electric.  I've heard it's high but I haven't been given any numbers.  Any information would be much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.