Living on an exotic island is often a life-long dream. However, there is a great difference between spending a short vacation on that island and living on it full time. The purpose of this section is not to scare you or to paint a bleak picture of island living. The purpose is only to balance the "all rosy and perfect" picture of what is generally presented in the media with hard facts and a dose of reality, so your expectations remain realistic and you know what to expect.

When it comes to living, a third world country has many peculiarities and an island has even a few more. For instance, getting supplies is more complicated and more expensive on an island than on the mainland. Here are a few of the issues that you may encounter when moving to one of the Bay Islands.

However, there are many advantages to living in the Bay islands. They are described on the next page, titled "The Good Life".

Different Environment

The environment is quite different than what we are used to back home and those differences apply to all levels and aspects of life.

There are no big cities, no big buildings, no highways. It is interesting to note that we never hear any sirens. But being a vacation destination as well as a rapidly developing real estate domain, the place can be noisy otherwise, depending on where you are staying.

A lot of roads are not paved, which means that they turn into mud pits when it rains. Shops do not look like what we are used to and finding something specific is often difficult because things are not necessarily presented as we expect them. That is why we have set up a section called "Where to Find...", so you can find more easily what you are looking for when it is available. Send us your suggestions and we will add them to the site.

Most of the civil servants have little training, including paramedics and police officers. They also have precious few resources to work with. For instance, as it has been witnessed in a real situation, if you are victim of a crime, you may have to hire a taxi to bring the people in charge of taking your deposition and lend them a camera to take pictures of the evidence. Don't expect the evidence to be taken much into account either. It seems to be a trivial thing here. If you are in an emergency situation, you will most likely have to be evacuated to the mainland and the evacuation process is not always smooth or even possible.
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Feeling of Isolation

If you have trouble making new friends, you may feel isolated, especially if you are single. People are friendlier in certain areas than others. Given all the challenges we face from day to day, those who live here full time are pioneers and this requires a certain type of personality, along with an ability to adapt. People living on the island tend to be rather marginal and that might be unsettling for insecure people. Remember that marginal can be good or bad and everything in between. So we have the good, the bad and the ugly like everywhere else, but this being a small place, rather like a big village, some things are more apparent than in big cities where you can live for years without ever knowing your neighbor. This being a small community, things definitely stand out more. Here, everybody knows everybody. There is little privacy and gossip is the main social activity since there is a limited number of activities where one can find distractions. Things, even "secret" things, can become widely know 15 minutes after they happen!

Add to that the fact that living on a small island can increase the feeling of isolation if a person is more of the "waiting" type, i.e. waiting for something to happen or someone to visit, rather than taking the initiative to do things. In order to counter that isolation feeling, some people have been know to have "Pity Parties" after a few weeks on the island. Recognizing that feeling and doing something to counter it is a good way to getting out of that mood.
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Supplies & Shopping

The reality is that you cannot just go out and find everything you need at the store. Things that are there one week will not necessarily be available the following week. New books are impossible to find, while a few places have a good selection of used books. Food selection is somewhat limited, including fruits and vegetables. It is the same for clothes and personal care items. Please see the Shopping section for more details.
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Health Care

Health care is an important consideration because medical services are... well, basic. A new hospital is being built in Dixon Cove. Miss Peggy's Hospital is a new small facility in Sandy Bay. There are American trained doctors, dentists and veterinarians on the islands, but the municipal hospital doesn't always have running water. Also, if you need specific medication, you might find substitute here but they are not the same as what you had before and may or may not work well for you. You can find more detailed information in the Health & Medical Care section, for both people and pets.
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Limited Social Activities

There are bars, but the crowds are small at times, and at other times filled with tourists who are not around long enough to become your best friends... This may be boring for people who are used to being surrounded by friends and painting the town red. However, there is an increasing number of social activities as local people start organizing them. For more information, please see the Social Activities Calendar.

There is only one movie theatre on Roatan. A few restaurants have live entertainment on certain days.
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Water, Electricity, Immigration

This being an island, water is a precious resource and not plentiful. It is not advisable to drink the tap water and it is important to check where your water is coming from to ensure that you will not run out of it. Also, depending on the system you have, you may find that there is no water when the power goes out. And there are still regular power outages. This makes working difficult if you do not have a back-up system or a generator.

If you stay here for a length of time, you will have to deal with Immigration and even apply for residency.
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Working

Jobs are generally paid at Honduran rates, and they are very low for a foreigner. They will not necessarily be enough to maintain decent living conditions, depending what you are used to. Your best bet is probably to have your own business, but then you are faced with a different set of challenges: getting the corporation papers, obtaining an operations permit, dealing with Honduran labor laws, getting your supplies are but a few of the issues that entrepreneur face. Just getting supplies is a major challenge, especially when you cannot rely on a fixed schedule to get your stock and when you are weeks without being able to obtain anything. Having nothing to sell is not good for business...

All the issues described above can make your life very difficult at times and you have to be realistically ready to face those situations. Living here requires one to be resilient and you need to be persistent in order to be successful.
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Dealing with the Law When a Crime Happens

If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to defend yourself against bodily harm, please know that you will most likely have to defend yourself on the legal level as well. We are told by the police force and many of the authorities that we are at least entitled to defend ourselves in our own home, but you might be surprised by how things turn out in reality. Please see the Legal Aspects section for more details about this kind of situation and what your options are.

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