A Recommendation For A GOOD Book On Retirement In Nicaragua

Google Check the Nicaragua Dispatch, and Nicaragua Living!!!

Thanks ZZZAPATO!!!

The MOON Guidebook Nicaragua is a good entree to the country as well. Covers all regions.

ditto on #1. none of the guidebooks cover the northern well, this is from personal experience.

I'd like to get a living-there feel of the land, not just a library researched copy of the topography and climate. I used to joke that "Guide Books" recommend little more than hotels and restaurants within walking distance of the bus station. I'm really not interested in popular tourist beaches or hotel room rates in Managua, How are the highways? Off-road in some parts of CA are strictly all-wheel-drive plus a winch in the rainy season. How good or poor is the price and availability of pharmaceuticals? I cannot even find the price in Cordobas for a kWh of electricity! I hear tantalizing clues like a head of lettuce costs the eqvt of three dollars, but how common are ATM machines outside of cities and gringo enclaves? Kidnappings, and highway robbery in northern rural areas?

It would cost me a small fortune with my poverty-stricken budget to "go there are see for myself". If I don't like it, what then? A trip means packing-up here and commitment. I'm willing to gamble but after I assure myself that the area would meet the basic requirements. A 30-year old can live anywhere a heck of a lot easier than an old person. I want to spend what years remain comfortably with a small garden, nice neighbors and a minor number of "Oh, so sorry we have to raise the rent next month". Mexico has become entirely stupid with new regulations (I CAN NOT EVEN GET MICHOACAN LICENSE PLATES, since 2006). I'm tired of it, frankly. COFEPRIS forbids my medical BiPAP stuff to be shipped in and Respironics tells me "Oh, travel to a bank 150 miles from where you live and pay DOUBLE the list price for the item and we should receive it here in DF next month with our regular shipment". Then it has to be shipped ESTAFETA to an office involving another 150 mile trip. End result? FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS for something I could go to Managua and pick up for an eighty dollar FedEx fee (and shop at the same time).

SAT SHCP and computers are deadlier than any WMD (weapon of mass destruction).

Time to move, but where? Nicaragua will allow free importation of my car, and allow permanent residency. The quality of a thirty thousand peso used car in Mexico will just about meet the minimum standards for scrapping out a junker at a USA junkyard. Mexico is no longer affordable.

did you ask a ton of questions about moving to lake atitlan area last year?

Moon has a 2010 book, Living Abroad in Nicaragua, by Josh Berman and Randall Wood. I've never used it, but I know Josh Berman. He's a good writer who has done several other guidebooks on Central America. Worth buying if for no other reason than that if you're spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and much time on moving to another country it's a no brainer to spring for US$8 (from Amazon.com) on a book on living/retiring in the country. In fact, my theory is: Buy every book and report you can get your hands on -- it's worth the few dollars, a fraction of 1 percent of what you'll lose if you move and decide it's not for you. In fact, it's a fraction of a percent of what you'll spend just visiting there for short time. Even if the books are lousy, you'll learn something.

You can check out expatexchange.com and click on Nicaragua and ask away to expats, or read through old posts to get some information.

Steve, I think that's the same person. I guess they never made it to San Pedro.