Hi, another newbie here.

My partner and I are thinking of moving to Florida, I would first like to know where we are aiming to move to then I can look further into all the visa info etc.

So please can anyone here tell me more information about Ocala, Florida?? I would like to run a dog grooming, kennel business/ livery stables when I move so please can you tell me if this area is suitable for those?? I will be looking to buy an exisiting business. Are other areas of Florida more suitable??

What is the snake situation there?? I'm not very good when it comes to snakes!

Thanks so much
princesslilly

For now, I'll just do the snakes!

I live in Australia. The subject of spiders and snakes comes up often as a cause of concern. I can't talk for Florida of course but the fact is that run ins with these things are pretty rare.

Hopefully, no one will contradict me. Not TOO much anyway.

Alistair.

Unfortunately, you need to figure out the visa part first - the US is notoriously hard to get in to, so it's the toughest bit of the process for most.

Have a look at this link and see which visa you may qualify for, then you can come back and ask questions about it. http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=585898

Good luck.

Nice area ...very horsey area ..quite expensive
you can visit the Don garlits musuem ...

Snakes abound in florida

Where are you living right now? You didn't say. What are your citizenships? You didn't say. If not in USA and not Americans, then:

your partner... married or not? Same sex or opposite sex? What visas are you planning to get for this adventure?

You may get a better idea about life in Florida if you search for old threads. The search function is located in the pink bar at the top of the page...go to 'Advanced Search'. In the box at the left hand side of the page type in 'Florida'...set it to search thread titles only. Then in the large box on the right hand side highlight the US forums. This should bring up lots of threads for you to read through.

Pretty nice area, you would have a 'posh' neighbour John Travolta...the americans love their pooches and treat them like kids, so maybe a dog grooming business and kennel would be good thing to look into.
You do need to read older post as suggested first. Big decision and grass
isnt always greener and all that stuff. Visa's can be one hell of a headache.

Assuming you do not have any US connections you would be looking at an E2 Visa,

Downside is it is not permanent and there are children issues, but none mentioned.

You have to have adequate capital, you have to have a reasonable number of employees. A Business like this is like to cost enough to get rid of the capital requirement and I would have though a reasonable sized business is quite staff heavy.

Hi Everyone

Thanks everyone for your replies, we currently live in England, we are not married, we are an oppsite sex couple. With selling both our houses we should have around $900,000 to start with.

I think from what I can gather we need to look at an E2 visa, is that correct??

princesslilly

With that sort of money just come over as tourists and buy a fake id/passport when you are over here.

Go somewhere cheap (like the midwest) and buy a decent house for $100,000. Put the rest in the bank and enjoy your early retirement.

The prices in Ocala (and many other parts of FL) are much lower than my part of the Midwest. You can get quite a decent house in Ocala for a small price. This is just one example of many, many homes: http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...482_1119642919


www.realtor.com

I used to live near Ocala its a nice place the horse capital of the world allegedly I would live there in a heartbeat. It has a good selection of shops etc AND AND a decent curry house.

That sounds like a great plan TimberHut thanks!!!

I will take a look at the website many thanks, tamms.

We also love the look of Venice, FL. I love the idea of being close to the beach as well.

I have owned horses for the past 20 years and would love to bring him with us when we move so maybe Ocala would be ideal??

princesslilly

For horses, yes it would - the place is obsessed with horses, there are thoroughbred farms all over. As I understand it, its one of the premier such locations in the world. I've only been up there a couple of times, but you can't move for seeing pictures of horses everywhere!

you've never been to Kentucky then...........