When you are getting ready to pack to move to Dominica, there are 2 ways to go about it. It really depends on if you are a student staying here for a couple of years, if you are moving here permanently, or retiring here. In general, bring as much as you can as there it not much available in Dominica.

Students:

I would suggest you pack a laptop, unlocked cell phone, double up on your toiletries, and your clothes. A smart thing to do it to send a barrel filled with Costco shopping of all the snacks and drinks that you want. Trail mix is always good for studying and pretty expensive in the grocery stores.

Food: Pack juices and other drinks. The price of juice and rum are the same price here. An Oceanspray jug of juice (I’m not talking Costco-style jug, the basic jug you get in the grocery stores in the USA) is EC$22 which converts to about US$8. That jug of juice would normally cost you $4-5 in the USA.

Read the whole story:What to Pack to Move to Dominica

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Photo by Shayan (USA)

People discover our Web site (dan-ruth-tanner.com) and write saying “you’ve found Utopia” or words to that effect. That’s nonsense. There is no Utopia. People everywhere are the same; human nature is the only universal constant.

You will have to learn to do without many conveniences that you were used to. Don’t ever expect punctuality. Never, ever, pay for anything until all work is complete and to your satisfaction. Don’t buy a vehicle that had been used here – it probably won’t have been maintained properly and may have jury-rigged repairs; import your vehicle.

Expect frequent electric power and pipe water outages and have a surge suppressor on your circuit breaker box to protect your appliances. Get one at www.full-protection.com. Make sure they know that you need one for UK-style single-phase 220V. (One made for US-style split-phase 220V will not work – and will burn out right away.)

Many things that you’re used to may be impossible to find here or nearly prohibitively expensive. Many manufactured products available here are made for 3rd-world markets and while the lowest-priced are often shoddy; while 1st-quality goods tend to cost far more than in the US or Europe.

There are numerous Web sites that offer quality brand-name appliances set up to run at the 220-240VAC/50Hz UK-type electrical power available in Dominica. From personal experience, I recommend Kunst Electronics and Home Appliances. They explained why a US 220V dryer won’t work here (the US uses split-phase 110V and only the dryer’s heater is 220V; the motor is 110V and would burn out) and when a surge blew the control circuit board in our refrigerator Mr. Kunst personally phoned in response to our service-request e-mail in mere minutes, helped us locate the GE part; discounted it and expedited its delivery – what a hero!). Now we double-protect our refrigerator with an additional protector at the outlet. And we unplug it during outages and plug it in again after the returned power stabilizes.

You’ll need a transformer anyhow because many things can’t be bought in 220V versions, even here. Courts only offer 110V vacuum cleaners. LIME provided us with an 110V modem and cell-phone charger. Be aware that power (watts) simply adds up. Domlec claims that a 2000W transformer left plugged in uses over EC$100 per month, but that’s patent nonsense. We have an always-on 5000W transformer and our total bill has never reached as much as $EC90. And, a transformer also acts so as to smooth power surges. If you’re worried about power interruptions affecting your PC use, employ a laptop (which can run on 110V/60Hz or 220V/50Hz and is buffered from power failure by its battery. Or bring an UPS (uninterrupted power supply).

It can be difficult or expensive to get your US funds here and/or it can take a long time. We found a method that works well for us: You can get a free on-line FDIC insured account via the Charles Schwab web site. We use the on-line bill-pay feature of our Bank of America account to transfer money to the Schwab account. Schwab lets you withdraw funds in local currency at any ATM displaying the VISA logo, and that’s just about every ATM in Dominica. Schwab gives the full exchange rate and even refunds to your account any ATM or other charges. You don’t want to have too much of your savings here; keep them in the USA in an FDIC-insured institution.

This is the tropics, so expect more bugs. Ants are everywhere. Some species go after your food. Some are scavengers of dead insects, etc. “Wood ants” are actually termites – be on guard against them. We’ve experienced some gnat plagues of practically biblical proportions. Big yellow spiders like to hide under things in dark corners. Millipedes will crawl into your house. Centipedes, which have a dangerous bite, hide in damp dark places outside usually, but will come into houses. Large roaches also come inside.

Be on guard against mice and rats; leave nothing around that will attract them. “Regular” trash collection is anything but regular or dependable. We rinse all cans and bottles and foil, etc and keep that in a container for trash collection. We compost all vegetable matter. We burn all waste paper, plastic, wood etc. (Rinse or tie any plastic bags slated for burning to prevent drawing ants.) Waste animal matter (bones, fat, offal from cleaning fish, etc) must be disposed of promptly and properly. Otherwise you’ll have maggots, feral dogs and cats tearing up garbage bags, ants and rot odor all amazingly quickly. You can find a place to feed this stuff to scavenging dogs and/or cats. You can bury it – deep. You can toss waste from fish into the sea, where scavengers will do their job. If you’re making a fire, you can burn it and rake out the bones and ash to mix with compost.

Keep all your receipts. Even the government offices and some businesses “lose” records. We know of a number of people who have had to pay deposits and fees twice, or who can’t return items that are defective. Check the expiration date on anything you purchase. Test everything before leaving the store if possible.

Expect your plans to go awry. I was going to take regular long walks, but an arthritic hip ended that plan. I was going to help at a friend’s garden to get in better shape, but I realized that even the walk to it would be too much for me. The time, the heat of the sun, the humidity, eroding willpower all conspire against the planner.

Have a hobby. There’s only so much hiking, snorkeling, swimming and gardening you can do, and you don’t want to be fighting boredom.

You’ll need to have a US address in order to maintain a US bank account, have and renew credit cards, etc. Choose a reliable friend or relation to provide that address and to forward your mail to you – and expect forwarding to take an average of 3 weeks.

Make arrangements for your health (including dental) care and bring a supply of any prescription medications that you use. Pharmacies here can’t dispense to a foreign doctor’s prescription, and many medicines aren’t available here.

Get used to certain tropical conditions: high humidity, “blast” from the sea that corrodes nearly anything and has strange effects on many materials, huge raindrops driving in close to horizontally by squall gusts, and high clay content mud that has incredible adhesiveness and slipperiness when wet and is nearly concrete hard when dry.

But we’re not complaining – just being realistic. We love it here and wouldn’t change any of the choices we’ve made. If you decide on Dominica too, we can only hope you’re as pleased as we are.

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Photo by gailf548

Ruth and I love being near the ocean. In the US, all the good spots either cost too much or have become tacky, or have unpleasant weather. For example, in Florida or Southern California, what separates the nice places (far too expensive for us) from the tacky places (trailer parks and strip malls) is money – far more than we have.

The Pacific Northwest is nice to look at, but it rains there most of the time and the ocean water is always cold – and dangerous too, with only rocky beaches, rogue waves, and great white sharks and killer whales).

The New Hampshire to Maine coasts in the Northeast also have only rocky beaches and cold water, and below zero Fahrenheit temperatures in winter. Florida and the Southeast and Gulf coasts are low and sandy, mostly prone to storm flood damage and erosion – it doesn’t even take a hurricane to destroy your house to wash your land into the sea. So, we started looking around in the Caribbean in the mid-1970s.

We had a number of criteria for where we wanted to settle in retirement:

• The country had to be English-speaking. From what I’ve heard you don’t want to be a gringo.
• The country had to be politically stable. We wouldn’t want to be caught between sides in a civil war.
• The country could not be on a land drug-traffic route. We definitely wouldn’t want to be in the way of those types!
• The country had to have good soil, because we like to see trees and flowers and be able to find produce available at a fair price.
• The country’s currency had to be stable, based on the US dollar. Our savings are in US dollars, and it’s nice to always know how much money we have.
• The people had to be nice. In Dominica, they are. We’ve made wonderful new friends here.
• Finally, the country had to be off the main tourism maps.

Dominica is the only country we visited that met all the criteria. And we visited Grand Cayman, Nevis (which met the criteria, but is too tiny, and which has become a playground for the wealthy), “Provo” in the Caicos, Ambergris Cay in Belize, Bonaire, and St. John (which also met the criteria, but is too expensive). For us, Dominica is the prettiest and its people the nicest. Plus, the calypso is great!

At livingdominica.com you can purchase an e-book by Jen Miller about retiring to Dominica. We found it somewhat useful, but because we’d done careful research ourselves, it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Jen and Roger Miller only lived in Dominica for about a year renting a place. They never succeeded in building a house. In fact, their land was too steep and suffered landslides after a hurricane and was condemned for building by the government. They bought a used car in Dominica that never ran. They ended up returning to the US, and as far as I know are still trying to obtain compensation from the government for having condemned their land.

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