Two Balls in the Air…

The 5 year plan is still chugging along and time is passing much slower than I would like. I’m actually quite ashamed that that I’m eagerly wishing the next five years of my life away, but when you finally have an “end goal” in sight, it’s difficult not to become consumed by it.

As mentioned previously J and I were sure Ecuador would become our future country of residence and although it wasn’t our first choice, it had everything we were looking for – warm climate, affordable day-to-day cost of living and cheap real estate.

We’ve been recently re-evaluating our future needs, wants, must-haves and nice-to-haves. Where does that bring us? Well, we’ve decided that maybe we shouldn’t give up on our first choice just yet – at least not until we’ve done a little more research and financial number crunching.

Our first choice is a place we’ve been close to 10 times over the past 14 years and from the first time we arrived on the island, we were in love. Yes, love. It’s a magical little island, home to some of the best scuba diving in the world. It has sun, warm climate, gorgeous scenery and while it’s a little rugged, it’s laid back and it’s easily a place we could call home…provided the price is right.

Where you ask is my favorite place on earth? Bonaire.

The island is a special municipality of The Netherlands, and it lies 30 miles from Curacao, 50 miles north of Venezuela, 86 miles east of Aruba, outside of the Caribbean hurricane belt. Bonaire, 24 miles long by 3-7 miles wide (112 square miles), has a mere 3 roundabouts and NO traffic lights!

Initially, we crossed Bonaire off our list because it is more costly than Ecuador, Panama or Costa Rica, but we’ve started to revisit the idea because it’s truly where we want to be. I’m a firm believer in not settling on something, unless there is no other choice. So, we’re not settling just yet.

We were already headed back to Bonaire in November for a scuba diving vacation, so it will be a perfect opportunity to do some fact finding on what the “real cost of living” will be. We already have a sense of things as tourists to the island, but I need to find out if day to day living is financially feasible. It may not be, but until I know for certain, I won’t be able to settle for second best.