Hey all, I'm looking for a house or a condo to purchase that's ideally on an island in the caribbean, but not a touristy island. Just a place to live in and retreat to and be protected from most possible outside threats. Ideally it has it's own free political system detached from that of America. Linking to actual real estate would be great, but general advice is appreciated as well.

I'm only a mini baller atm, so 300k and more price tag is getting a tad too spendy. Also, renting a nice place is not out of the question. But where should that be? I've only visited 3 caribbean islands, so my knowledge of the area is vague. Thanks for reading, and thank you in advance for your info.

the only place i can really think of that MIGHT meet all of your requirements would be Grenada. granted there are lots of great caribbean spots, but not many are going to meet your list of requirements.

what exactly does this mean?

I don't even know really. I was pissed at Amurrica earlier when I wrote that. really, it just means it's not one of America's states or provinces or whatever.

Hey Ron, so I just had a moment myself by gazing at the flower in your avatar. My avatar sucks, can you help me find a piece of beauty of my own? I trust your judgement fwiw.

well Granada is very touristy, but I've added to the list of possible destinations, ty. but there's Gotta be more places.

Sigh,

thailand obv, look at the ballin threads

Harbour Island and Spanish Wells in the Bahamas are awesome islands.. beautiful friendly communities, unbelievable beaches.

The Bahamas has its own political system which is based on the Parliamentary model (after the British) but at the same time its currency is pegged at 1 to 1 with the USD and there are loads of Americans on the main island (Nassau).

Harbour Island is 3 hours away from Nassau btw

cayewinds dot com

in belize, my dad owns it. its pretty baller, you definitely cannot afford to buy it since its over 2mils but its a great retreat, and u get your own butler, cook and tall local with good English who brings you around anywhere u want on his boat

i can definately get you better rates if you pm me.

i don't make a single cent out of this so mods, its not advertisement, i just think it's the **** and i would live there if i was wealthier

sure. every island in the caribbean is touristy. there is no real industry here so everyone makes their $ from tourism. some islands are more touristy than others. i would put places like aruba, jamaica & the bahamas on the high end of that scale. i would put places like grenada, trinidad, dominica on the bottom of that scale.

you gave a pretty much impossible laundry list of requirements, you need to decide what you really want.

you are so bizarre that it boggles the mind.

Glad to see you got over you bad mood. I'd say just pick one of those hours/days when you are happy with America to buy a place. That way you'll have a lot more options.

nit nit nit! just playin, thanks everybody for the help. I really just want a beach house/retreat from the mainland America, plain and simple. Been checking out some RE sites, there's some pretty sweet places for decent prices. I really think the answer is to just start visiting places and see what pops up.

l o l at the cayewinds guy, who would pay that much??

My favorite island is St. Maarten. I just love that its small, the Dutch/French split, and it even has live poker! (only 2/5NL and only from 9pm-2am or something, lol). I've looked into housing prices there and they seem pretty reasonable although I did it more as a curiosity than actually looking into the logistics.

if you want to check out the caribbean shoot me a pm, i can probably show you around .

Boca del Toro in Panama is a good bet.

I've been to Nevis, a very small island of only 12,000 locals. I was staying in Antigua, flew to St Kitts for a few days, then took a ferry to Nevis. Apart from say Barbuda, you won't find too many other islands that are as small, beautiful, remote and for the most part, devoid of tourists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevis
http://www.nevisisland.com/

as european i would go with spanish islands like teneriffa

I am from trinidad and it isnt that bad. WE are actually one of the more developed caribbean countries.

Unless you've got big $, a lot of carribean islands are not going to be a good fit 4 U, as property values & cost of living are going to be too high for good quality of life.

Curascao (near Aruba) & Roatan (small island off the coast of Hondurus) might be good choices for you. Costa Rica? Panama?

I realize that none of the above are Carribean islands, but I'm proximity to the USA was the reason you chose the carribean, & flights to these places are not long.

Bermuda is pretty sweet but its expensive and not very warm in the Winter.

I'd look into Aruba. Been there 3 times, it's the nuts. Not sure how expensive housing is there though.

curious why youre limiting yourself to the carribean. Just because of geographic proximity to US?... personally my all time fav island is corfu, its less touristy, better local food, english is widely enough spoken so that you can get around, weather is nice all the time.

I only ask becuse as a rule the carribean tends to be either expensive/touristy or dangerous, depending on the island. I spent most of my time on base when i was there, but puerto-rico semmed pretty nice.

Also some of the fl keys are nice and somewhat out of the way... though theyre not technically the carrib.

Yea, buying a retreat in the Florida keys shouldn't cost too much . . . (heavy sarcasm)