There is a lot of bureaucracy here as well, but people here are nice and patient. Knowing Spanish is a big plus as it&#x27;s the official language.<p>Navigation is tricky as the addressing scheme relies on naming the road and then how many kilometers the house is from the roads starting point. Google Maps is practically ineffective here.<p>Some things are far cheaper here and some things are far more expensive. Used vehicles are about equal as they would be on the mainland, but vehicle maintenance work is much cheaper. Rental prices outside of San Juan are very good. I&#x27;m living in the mountains around Adjuntas, in the interior, and paying $300 a month for a 1100 sqft 3 bedroom, 1 bath house. Since I&#x27;m at a higher altitude in the interior, the temperature hasn&#x27;t gotten above 80 degrees yet (or dropped below 65) so we don&#x27;t need to spend money on AC or heating.<p>Food and goods in stores is more expensive because of an ancient merchant marine law that requires goods shipped from US ports to US ports travel on US flagged ships <i>constructed</i> in the US. This means that the few ships that can make the journey legally get to charge what they want and that increases the costs of all goods delivered.<p>The way around it is ordering things online and having them shipped via USPS which treats Puerto Rico as domestic. Unfortunately, FedEx and UPS treat Puerto Rico as a foreign location and charge more. It&#x27;s difficult to buy things on eBay because of that incongruity.<p>We&#x27;re likely to remain here until next August and then we&#x27;ll decide if we want to stay another year in the mountains, try living on the beach, or go back to the mainland. We left from Austin but we think we&#x27;ll try either Chattanooga TN (for the 10gb connections) or some small town in Colorado (the kids demand snow) next.<p>All in all, I recommend a hacker retreat to Puerto Rico if you want to have some seclusion to get work done. It&#x27;s easy to do on a budget and it&#x27;s a bit easier for a (mainlander) American to pass here than it is in Central or South America.