Living in Florida and taking extended trips to Jamaica, Haiti, DR, Cuba, etc. sounds like the best of both worlds.retiredfrank wrote:Poorly developed countries have no rhyme or reason about prices, and there is a foreigner price that can be 100 times the local price, so there's some truth in what you write. If you want cheap, you have to live like the locals, which means speaking the local lingo and knowing how to negotiate. Once you find a protector (the street smart landlord who rents rooms to locals, NOT a tourist hotel) everything gets easier, because you will be his best-paying customer and he will try to keep you happy, out of trouble, etc. And there's no emotion involved like with a woman, just a business relationship. For a price, he will ease the way in all sorts of things, and that price will be low in dirt poor countries, thigh you have to know how to negotiate, which means having a plan for walking away if the price is too high (like going to the local market, waving some money at an old woman and saying you need a bed fur the night, the bed will be pestilential, but you'll live to find something better the next day, though most likely the greedy landlord will cave when he sees you are prepared to walk, obviously you MUST speak the local lingo for this to work).Rock wrote: But I don't agree that difficulty keeps down costs! Countries with very poor infrastructure tend to be more expensive for visitors than those which are a bit better developed. It's generally a lot cheaper to visit and live in DR than Haiti. Decent infrastructure and security creates many efficiencies and scale economies. That's why well oiled countries like Thailand tend to be cheaper than less developed ones like say Kenya. Sure if you live 100% like a regular local in place like Madagascar, you may spend nothing during that period. But what about your flights in and out, what about your health issues, what about boredom, etc. Your body may not adapt well because you were not raised in such an environment. It's a lot easier to get very ill, depressed, etc. if you don't have at least some bubble to rely on or at least escape to from time to time.
If living like a local gives you the willies, then yes, better to stick to the well-developed countries.
Note that my idea for Haiti assumes an American who visits a mistress there a few months a year, so returning to America to earn more money is his escape from third world misery. (Needless to say, the man would be a fool to marry and bring a woman to the USA from Haiti or anywhere else for that matter, I've made this point over and over on this forum.)
As for illness, Haiti is a short and cheap plane trip to Miami. Africa another story. Transportation a big problem there, which is why I'd advise against it for Americans.
I would love to try out Ghana too. The biggest hindrance is the prevalence of germs and diseases, some of which locals are more immune to. Sanitation is cities there is awful. Catching malaria sounds like a real nightmare too.