Where Else Have We Lived?
Roatan, Honduras
We started our “Retirement Adventure” in Roatan, Honduras. We had visited once on a cruise, and fell in love with the idea of retiring to “Blue Water and White Sand”. When my boss came to me one day and asked if I wanted to move up my retirement if he could guarantee all the same bonuses and benefits, it took me 2 seconds to say YES! We were scheduled to retire at the end of March and had already planned to go straight to Boquete, Panama. But when this extra 3 months fell in our laps, I convinced Paulette to try Roatan first.
We had to speed up our packing a little bit, but we managed to get everything done. My last day at work was January 4th and we flew to Roatan on the 13th. Our 40th wedding anniversary was 4 days later, and I packed a few bottles of very good wine in our suitcase to celebrate. We actually sold both of our cars to a great dealer called Texas Direct Auto and dropped them off on our way to the airport! How’s that for perfect timing?
We had arranged for an Airbnb place for the first two weeks and then a rental house for 3 months. And before we left, Houston, I had found what I thought was a great idea — a motor scooter to get around the island. This was my first and may turn out to be my biggest mistake in retirement! As I said, we had only visited the island once, but we had been to Cozumel several times and everyone rode scooters there. After we arrived, we learned that there was one big difference between Cozumel and Roatan — the ridge that rises to 890 feet in the middle of the island.
You will have to keep reading my blogs to hear more of my scooter stories. They are much more entertaining now than when we were living through them. Suffice it to say that almost everything bad that happened to us in Roatan had something to do with that scooter. Here is a picture of “the scooter from hell”!
Roatan is a diver’s paradise with over 200 dive and snorkel sites. Later, I’ll share my favorite dive pic. West Bay Beach is the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. It is lined with resorts, but access is totally open. Many times, we grabbed our gear and snorkeled right off the beach at Infinity Bay Resort. In my opinion, Roatan is much better than Cozumel. Everything is so much cheaper, especially the lobster!
The house we rented for 3 months was right on the water. And we were about a 20-minute walk away from West Bay Beach. I walked over there many mornings for coffee and to just walk barefoot on the beach. From our deck, we saw all of the visiting cruise ships. They had to pass right by us on the way to and from the docks. They came so close we could hear the music in the evenings.
Roatan was a beautiful place to visit. A dream vacation spot that I highly recommend. Beaches, great food, lots of North Americans, beach resorts, and even an English-speaking church. We met some great friends that we still talk with even after being gone almost 4 years. Unfortunately, our experience as residents had quite a few surprises. First, living at sea level that far south is incredibly hot. There are bugs everywhere, many of which you don’t notice until you see the welts all over your legs and abdomen. And because it’s an island, everything must be imported, which substantially increases the cost of living.
The electricity went out at least 2–3 times per week. That then made internet access very tough. Not the best thing to deal with when you’re trying to run an online business. However, the most annoying incident of losing electricity was with 1 minute to go in the first half of the Super Bowl. It didn’t come back on until the following day.
We couldn’t drink the water, so we had to have it delivered in 5-gallon jugs which I had to carry upstairs. The electricity was very expensive. We could only afford to air-condition our bedroom and then only at night.
So lots of pros and cons, but ultimately we ended our visit after 3 1/2 months. We concluded that Roatan was “ a great place to visit, but you don’t want to live there”.
I hope you enjoyed this story and you will follow along. I have lots of great stories.
Steve Tuggle
