Comment

Comment on For people who relocated: when did you realize you want to live in the new place long-term & why?

When my country first elected a rapist con man president, I started looking. I was born and raised in (and never left) New England, and so I also wanted a place that’s warm year round. It took me four years to tentatively settle on Belize, in late 2019. I made my first visit in Jan 2021, as the pandemic messed up my 2020 plans. By October, I had sold EVERYTHING and moved with two cats.

Reasons (or things I didn’t even know I wanted):

-No DST messing up my sleep schedule.
-No more days with 17+hrs of darkness.
-CARIBBEAN!!!
-Every Belizean I met (exception: gov’t employees and police) is friendly and warm. In N.E., people avoid making eye contact and answer greetings in a way to stop further conversation, but in Belize, the people genuinely want to know how you’re doing and remember everything you tell them.
-No car required
-Culture with proud participation from the public; holidays with vibrant parades, and entire village ecstatically engaged in all aspects.
-Tarantulas walking in the street (my partner and I love them!)
-Path to citizenship without $0.25M investment
-Citizenship there comes with a CARICOM passport, meaning can live and work in most Caribbean nations.
-Food! Fish caught 30 minutes before it hits my plate.

Things that pushed me away from the USA:

-Truck nuts
-Nazi and/or Confederate flags on trucks everywhere
-Cost of housing doubled from 2017 to 2021
-Consumerism -Embarrassed to be a US citizen

source

Sort:hotnew top

toeblast96@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
how’d you go about getting citizenship there

source
- s38b35M5@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I haven’t yet. Actually, the corrupt bureaucracy has withheld residency status so far without bribes. That said, here was the path I thought I was on when I moved.
  
  The idea is to have been in the country for most of the year (no less than 14 days out of country), at which time you can apply for residency. Once you have residency, you must maintain it for 5yrs.
  
  Citizenship for Permanent Residence Holders
  
  You have been a holder of Permanent Residence for a minimum of 5 years.
  
  You have been resident continuously in Belize, this means that upon being granted Permanent Residency you have not resided outside Belize for periods that exceed thirty consecutive days or accumulate to a total of three months in any twelve month period.
  
  I didn’t want to muddy the waters with the reality of what happened once I moved, as the OP was about motivating factors. Power corrupts. And ultranationalism is infectious to other countries.
  
  source