Moses2013

Spring and summer would be fine here.

Londonuck

This time last week I was sitting outside Riddle and Finn on Brighton front with half a dozen oysters and a bottle of fizz. 😎

Londonuck

Donegal or Mayo? 😆

caretaker

Craggy Island?

Steve_

The main problem with Tahiti is that it's too small and isolated, I would be bored stiff, hence the reason I said New Caledonia, which is still small and isolated but nothing like Tahiti. Sort of like a French version of New Zealand, but warmer.

The snag is that it's not part of the EU, so you've got to be French to move there.

Having lived through Hurricane Andrew, no thanks. At least in Florida you can escape, on an island though you're really buggered. Both The Bahamas and the Caymans get hit pretty often. Also they're only a foot or two above sea level, so you're really asking for it. (And God are there a lot of mosquitoes on the Caymans).

If you must do this strategically I think Grand Bahama is the best place because no tax and it's actually reasonably sized. But Freeport is a dump. Couldn't live there.

Hence my suggestion of New Caledonia, it does also get hit by cyclones but it has mountains.

Obviously you've got to pay French taxes but meh, didn't put all this money in my RRSP for tax avoidance just to not pay tax.

Not that I've spent any time thinking about this subject, you understand.

dbd33

Mayo. I was in Donegal and I don't recognise the rocks.

Gordon Barlow

Well, we've been here (Cayman) for 40 years and only had the one hurricane, in 2004. We even dropped our hurricane insurance for ten years after that, storms are so rare. But yes, we have too many mosquitoes, after rain, but we can live with them. Bahamas gets hit more often - although there were no storms during the three years we lived there a while back.

New Caledonia might be OK if you speak French fluently, but not otherwise, surely. You know what the French are like with people who can't speak their language. We loved our three years in Vanuatu (when it was the New Hebrides, in the '70s), but their mosquitoes were malarial, and probably still are. As must be the New Caledonian ones, I'd think. People told me I was lucky I only caught malaria, in New Hebs; Dengue is way worse, they said. Are you ready for that?!

Moses2013

You nearly had it all, well done. It's Inisbofin Island so actually Galway but Mayo counts too and is close enough:-).
Would probably be too slow paced long term, but a few months of the year especially summer definitely. Then maybe a busier town near the Med the rest of the year.

Steve_

My French isn't too bad, I'm sure if I had to use it everyday I would become fluent. Apparently malaria isn't in New Caledonia: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/new-caledonia

Everywhere has got downsides.

Anyway this has caused me to look into it and actually it's not too difficult to simply reside there, it's only working there where getting a visa appears to be complex.

Shard

This snag is about to become a moot point.

Gordon Barlow

Thanks for correcting me, Steve. I just assumed...! The CDC site warns against Hepatitis A. That's the other disease I got in the (then) New Hebrides, and was worse than the malaria, for me. Very exhausting! And it's not nice to think that it's now a general risk. (Incidentally, I note that malaria and hepatitis A are both prevalent in Tahiti.)

Steve_

I see another referendum as a possibility, apparently some MPs want a referendum on whatever deal is agreed. Which presupposes a deal is agreed.

Anyway I looked into it and apparently New Caledonia is not like Tahiti or some of the other French islands, anyone from anywhere in the Schengen Area can reside there, but everyone from abroad (including French citizens) have to get a work permit. So it's a bit like the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.

So it looks like a Hep A vaccination for me then. They've got a five-star hotel and several Carrefours and McDonald's, I'll be fine.

They're having an independence referendum on November 4th so even Brexit is possibly moot.

Gordon Barlow

Pretty well all the tourists who visit the place are Australians or New Zealanders, so the shops all have placards in their windows saying "ENGLISH SPOKEN". So the local Francophones' slang term for English-speakers is "poken", pronounced poke-en. How's that for a piece of amusing-but-useless information?