Bonaire – is it the place for us?

Bonaire was amazing!

We’re going back in March and I can’t wait. One of the reasons we’re still in the Keys is because no where we’ve been so far is 100% our spot. Places have been close but there’s always been a pause factor that I know would contribute to me not being fully happy there. I know the perfect place doesn’t exist but I think Bonaire might be the closest to it.

Before this trip we’d never considered Bonaire as our next home. When we visited 6 years ago we weren’t planning to leave the corporate world as soon as we are now so we didn’t look at the island as a potential home just an awesome vacation.

Now that we’ve been again with moving in mind Bonaire has shot to the top of our list. Here’s why…

• Diving – because Bonaire is primarily shore-diving we can afford to dive there! Everywhere else we’ve been we’d barely be able to afford to fun dive on our post corporate life budget and I honestly don’t want to be somewhere I can’t dive ALL THE TIME. Not only is the diving easy but it’s spectacular, we’ll never get tired of looking for critters and going on photo expeditions.

• Ability to work – there were a lot of Americans working there and I took the opportunity to ask them a lot of questions. It turns out it’s fairly easy for a US passport holder to work on Bonaire, great news for us. I pretty much interviewed a handful of people and we’ll be doing a deeper dive (pun intended!) when we go back in March. We don’t want to leave our corporate jobs and do nothing, we want to follow our passion for a while. The shop we dove with also sponsors beach clean-ups and debris removal dives so there’s a lot of opportunity to continue being involved in the things we care most about.
• Healthcare – there’s a decent hospital on the island. We’ll have to price expat policies that will cover us there but after 5 years you can apply for permanent residency which gives you access to the universal health care system. There are vets on the island for our dogs too because they’re definitely coming with us.

• Kayaking & bird-watching – I’ve come to love kayaking in the mangroves living in the Keys. They’re full of life and just a peaceful place to spend some time. Bonaire has mangroves to paddle 🙂 and terrific bird-watching including flamingos.

Coming home from there it felt a little too good to be true. I look forward to finding out if it is.

Until next time … 

Stay warm friends!