There are two types of islands: those you want to live on and those you want to sell. Raconteur and realtor Robert Bryce previously lived in Neiafu on Vava'u Island in Tonga and now resides at Savusavu on Vanua Levu Island in Fiji.
The one he's spruiking as Plan B to others is Hunga Island in the Vava'u Group of Islands in Tonga where allotments are still for sale at US$4,950 - click here.
Personally, I think the former French penal colony of Devil's Island has more charm than Hunga Island but as long as Robert's spruiking produces articles like this, I don't mind:
"We did it! He did it! She did it! They did it! You can too! This is how to and even a little of why in there as well.
To make this change from your homeland in the Northern Hemisphere, where most of us lived and endured, you need to go south and west, cross over the equator and then you can breathe deeply again. It is actually that simple. People run off to paradise all the time when they take a holiday to Tahiti or Fiji or even that lovely little island group called “Tonga.” They pack a suitcase and get on a plane and fly to where life thrives. 12 hours more or less from most places up there will have you in a whole new world, but like driving from San Jose California to Portland Oregon, (630 miles) it just takes a little travel time. At least when flying you don’t have to stop for gas and meals are served while someone else drives. Not too bad really.
Now, if you want to live here in paradise; “just do it,” to get Nike about it. After you arrive, just stick a stick in the ground and declare the place your home, and then stay there. That is accomplished by not using your return ticket. So, moving to the South Pacific is as easy as taking a holiday/vacation and merely continuing on with that experience. I know; there is a little more to it, but only as much you want to make of it.
To be fair I know that different countries require different things of you to allow you to legally take up residence for more than 6 months at a time. Some countries, Fiji and Tonga, require that you fly out after you have been in the country for 6 months, but you can fly right back in the next day and go for another six months and repeat that every six months, if you prefer to do that over securing a residency visa. Some people live like that and have no problem just flying out to a nearby island country, say from Tonga to Fiji or Fiji to Tonga and back. That takes about an hour and twenty minutes of your time each way. The cost varies but generally $450-$500 USD or so for the round trip.
The other way to become a more permanent resident and not have to ever fly out again is to apply for a residency visa, which is renewable and, conditionally, good forever. Tonga seems to be the easiest to qualify for such a residency. They have basically two kinds of residency visas, one is working/business and the other is nonworking/retired. The nonworking visa requirements are simple, just show an assured income of $10,000 Tongan dollars, or about $6000 USD/CA/AU in annual income. Most retirement or disability incomes suffice. Sometimes they will just accept a bank account that looks bigger than theirs.
The other visa offered in Tonga is a working/business visa where to qualify for that you need to invest $50K Tongan dollars or about half of that at $28,000 USD. Not a lot of money to invest in a business, but some businesses are cheap to set up and operate in Tonga. For example; there is a catamaran tour boat for sale there for $29,000. Buying the boat qualifies you for the business visa and residency. People have just moved out and bought a boat or a home as a business and then use it for business.
Fiji, just 400 miles down the way from Tonga is tougher by comparison. A nonworking visa requires you to bring $100,000 Fiji dollars ($59,000 USD/CA/AU) into the country, which you can use to buy a home or just leave in the bank. BY THE WAY, a side note here; The USD is eroding away, a little more each month. Not that long ago $100,000 FJD was only $46,000 USD. Now it is $59,000 USD. If you had put your US money in a Fiji bank, you would have made more than 20%. In addition, they require you bring in between $30K and $40K Fiji dollars ($17K to $23K USD depending upon number of dependants) per year in income. For the other option, the working or the Fiji business visa, those qualifications can vary, but the standard is; you bring in and invest FJD$250,000 or about a little more than half that in USD/AU/CA, then you are in.
Using these two countries as an example, you can see that getting the legal right to reside is not too difficult. Of course, if you just arrived with your suitcase and decided to stay as a more permanent resident, you would have to work out with your homeland banks how to wire transfer those sums over. Best to arrange that before flying out and that usually means selling everything and getting liquid. There is a visa application process, but not worth getting into since opening a bank account these days in most banks can be ridiculously more complex. You do need a health certificate for the visa, probably not for opening a new bank account — not yet.
I could make a bigger deal of this move to paradise, but it isn’t really necessary. After you live here you see how simple it was to achieve, then frequently you think you are still not far enough away from that crumbling tower up there. Looking back is always easier than looking ahead. Of course, there are issues in any move of what to do with your stuff. The best solution generally is; just sell it and all of it. The cost of shipping what is valuable has to be weighed against replacing it. Cars for example, talking about used ones, are cheaper to buy in paradise than the cost to ship yours and then yours probably has the steering wheel on the wrong side. Nearly useless in any place where the English have been. Anyway, it is fitting that driving on the other side of the world would be on the other side of the road. Don’t worry about adapting to the switch over, even the Tongans drive on the wrong side of the road. At least they go slow and with both hands on the wheel and one foot on the gas and the other on the brake.
Household goods are all available in these island countries. Most of the electric power is 220-240 volt, so 110 v appliances don’t work without a voltage drop device. Sell the old stuff and take the cash with you and buy new or used gear in the land where you intend to live. Everyone has their favorite things they can’t live without, so ship them, but sure enough you actually can live without most of these things because for some reason living suddenly becomes the most important thing and things lose their cling. Kind of like going to Heaven, you don’t even need shoes anymore. Thongs and a pair of Crocs or even the $10 Croc replicas are good enough to go to the opera in.
“What opera?” the wife just said with a little displeasure (nothing is perfect). I told her I was writing about the phantom opera in Tonga. OK, so some things we are missing, but the local native gigs make up for it and are quite an experience. If these shows were ever taken on the road to London, NY or San Francisco, they might be a bigger hit than the played out Phantom of the Opera. I know; nobody really liked that one; they just pretended. The point I am making is; you can’t have everything, but some things you will never miss while living here that you can’t live without back home today. TV is one of them.
This anti-TV talk could take me hours and pages, but yes, they have satellite TV in these islands and you can have it, all you want, but the distraction outside window of what nature is showing, the ocean scene, the whales passing by below or natives in canoes fetching your dinner, tends to distract us from what some faked up bizarre life situation is playing on the Tube. Who wants to watch Discovery Channel’s featuring of new killer weapons with life like gelatin filled dummies set up to take a bullet hit as entertainment? When you get out from under the TV ether you will not be interested in the demented “1984” TV news either. Sports may be another thing, but I have seen a room full of people at the Vava'u yacht club assemble there especially to watch “the game” and within a few minutes, few are paying attention. One avid fan said; “You know, since living out here, I have lost some interest in beaming into the screen watching guys running around throwing or kicking a ball at each other. However, I can see now how confined prisoners would certainly be into it.” Are we prisoners in our homelands and just don’t get it?
I just heard you say; what about my home back home, my job, my, my well even family? I agree; flying back home everyday would be like commuting to work by car from Portland to San Jose, not practical. So, you have to quit your job, if you are unlucky enough to have one. Most don’t these days, or not for long, so we hear. If you can conjure up enough cash to meet the annual requirements for the visa, you can live so cheap that you don’t need a job. Some people live off of what grows in their back yard. No one ever starved in these islands. Actually, quite to the obvious contrary, indeed. For hundreds of years and way before money was introduced out here, and way before imported corned beef was brought in, people lived quite well and actually, frankly and unwittingly, lived much better, much healthier. People live fine in paradise that have never had any money. In fact, there is an interesting correlation; the less money you have the better your health and life, if health is the core key to a good life. So, if you can’t sell your home, back home, do what so many wisely have, just leave it. If you can’t convert it into useful cash, what good is it? Don’t feel sorry for the bank(sters), just in case that was a consideration. You can have any kind and size of home you want in the islands, just a matter of money is all. Labor is cheap, materials are more expensive. The offset is a plus here which manifests in cheaper houses.
In the islands you can live very well with little more than a traditional bure, or fale as these grass huts are called along the beach. Grass huts work pretty well actually, and they have some very fancy ones. Some of the highest priced hotels use them as guest cottages, so you could suffer like their guests too, and they pay thousands for the experience. Granted, the gold fixtures and fancy extras are part of the hotel experience, but what’s a toilet cost? To build a grass house can be cheap. Ask any native how much they paid a thousand years ago, even a hundred, even fifty. Zero is the price then and now, if you learn how.
I am trying to knock the chocks out from under your tires, you know, those blocks that keep wheels from moving. Most blocks are in the mind, so just change your mind is the simple answer. Granted, there is one area that has a tremendous tie around our mind that one can’t just sell off and renew at the other end of the trail. Family, friends and especially your own kids and maybe grandkids—they are living weight to your fate. They have a hold on us and bind us to our status quo. The only valid excuse for your moving a bit further might be; you will set up a place for them in paradise too. So when the time comes, just fly to where our parents and grandparents have historically always held the homestead.
When I have asked some folks when was the last time you were physically together with your loved ones, many say, well, years, in some cases. When I ask how far away they live, most say over 600 miles. My point is; if they didn’t see them because the drive of 600 miles took too long, then they can justify the move to paradise because it takes about the same time to travel there or back, that being all day, same as driving the 600 miles. Yes, it costs more to fly, but at least you can do it. What you save in living expenses might allow two trips per year. Check this out.
Cost of living: We have had a home in both Fiji and Tonga and at the same time. In both places, if you are using solar panels, electric power has no monthly bill. In Fiji, without solar, we pay up to FJD $70 or in US dollars about $40 USD per month in electric and we waste the stuff. The water bill in USD is under $3 per month, the phone is what you make it but considering you will be calling home regularly, like we do, ours is about $55 USD each month. Gas for the propane oven and hot water heater is about $25USD each month. House and land taxes are ZERO in Fiji. In Tonga, figure one dollar per day. Car insurance is $65 per year. House insurance is 1% of insured value. Food is wild and free from the yard and from the purposeful garden; we just had to buy the seeds. We buy the fresh fish, the best at about $1.50 per pound. The open native market has about everything the garden has and much more. Some things are so cheap, like bananas, that even though we grow them, we still buy them at the market. We have hundreds of free coconuts, but they are up the tree, (called the tree of life and for good reasons — in WWII, they used the coconut water in lieu of blood plasma) so for about 60 cents each, we can buy them husked and ready to drink or eat. There are some tasty foods native to the islands that have local names that sound like Monsanto pesticides, but they are over the moon tasty, and with no chemicals. We use passion fruit vines as a decorative cover for a water tank and the fresh fruit is the bonus.
Imported goods are what cost real money. Most of it you can actually live without, well, except ketchup. Vermont-made pure maple syrup is another vice. So, you pay double maybe. Use it sparingly and savor what is imported and most likely unhealthy. The saying; too much of a good thing is not good for you, certainly applies to many of these high-priced packaged goods. Food and healthy diet “R US” is how to see the additional benefit of living in paradise. So many people have healing stories about throwing out the big pharma medicines in lieu of some strange leaves and teas. To put it bluntly, you are not going to get genuinely healthy food in our homelands, just not possible given what has transpired over the years there. Even if you live on the farm, something is messed, GMO food being one big factor. The soil is played out, or the radioactive fallout from Japan in the soil is played in. A book could be written about that situation, but in the islands, no fallout, no GMO, no depleted soil or generally, not any pesticides either. (2714 words).
OK, so I hit my number of words limit but there is so much more. Look for “Page Two” and the rest of the story coming soon—meanwhile, get on with selling out what is going down and buying in what is moving up.
As ever, Robert Bryce"
Spoken like a true Beach Boy, Robert! I am waiting for Page Two.
