'Why would an American move to uruguay?' Expat

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Why would an American move to uruguay?

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In my case I decided to leave the UK when I retired after living there on and off for 30+ years. I'd moved there in 1970 when I was young and it was a happy land with good work opportunities. It was a great place to work but a bad place to be old.

Things change over time and I became tired of the extreme "nanny state-ism" which has infected the UK, the warmongering ways of the robber barons who ruled it, the sad farce known as "representative democracy, " the increasing flood of petty regulations and general interference coming from the newly born European Empire in Brussels, the gross overcrowding, the removal of personal freedoms in the name of anti-terrorism, the 24/7 surveillance and the feelings I had about the imminent collapse of the 1st World economies so I set about finding a new home which offered me more of the things which are important to me and a better chance of preserving my savings. In 2001 I drew up a list of the 20 things I most wanted in my new homeland and started searching.

After 4.5 years of diligent research and 1.2 million miles of travel I decided on the ROU. The country fulfilled 16 (now 17) of my 20 wants (the next closest was New Zealand with 11) so after doing a grand tour to determine whereabouts in the ROU would suit me best, I decided on rural east Colonia depto, sold a few assets in the UK for absurd sums of money, came over, rented a house, bought an old car and looked for/bought my ideal chacra.

While it wasn't easy and I used to suffer from occasional temper tantrums because of the glacial speeds down here, I adjusted within 2 years and when the northern collapse finally happened, I found that my move had served my finances very well. I was particularly fortunate to be selling up in the UK when its assets and currency were grossly overvalued and buying in here before the economy had recovered from the 2002 disaster.

I reckon the ROU is unique in being a libertarian socialist state... as far as I know its the planet's only one. It offers a very high degree of personal freedoms and seems to concentrate its control freakery on business and commerce instead. It took me a while to quell my life long habit of starting/running businesses but I am officially retired and I strongly suspect that its the hostility to business which makes the ROU such a desirable society and home for me.

Very interesting!

What are your "20 wants", and how does NZ compare with ROU?

Also, would love to know what sort of businesses you used to set up?

Finally, congrats on your good timing in selling out of the UK and settling in ROU!

1. Personal freedom for the individual.

2. A strong democracy including veto powers vested in the electors.

3. An attitude of tolerance towards minorities.

4. A "green and pleasant" temporate climate c/w deciduous trees.

5. Lack of socio-political input from the church or the military.

6. A passable health service available for all.

7. A passable welfare system available for all.

8. A friendly yet reserved population.

9. A healthy scepticism towards authority.

10. A friendly tax system for people with overseas assets.

11. A European style culture.

12. Neutrality, non-beligerance and an avoidance of wars.

13. Affordable cost of resettlement.

14. A welcoming attitude towards new immigrants.

15. Not an island.

16. Internet availability.

17. A free-ish press and media.

18. A functional banking system.

19. No snow.

20. No volcanoes, few earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, and other extremes of nature.

NZ failed on the snow, the volcanism, the earthquakes, the apparent unravelling of its former welfare state, the large deposit they wanted to allow two retirees to acquire permanent residence and the local tax structures weren't too friendly towards overseas assets. Having said that, its a lovely country with gorgeous scenery and great people. Were I younger I'd probably be living there now.

My various former bizes were mostly agricultural and construction based. They included Phu Kradung Packers in Loei Province, Thailand which started life as a grower and supplier of chilled chipped potatoes for Uncle Sam's troops on R+R from Vietnam but gradually turned into a tamarind biz as Communism collapsed, Maljon Ltd which restored and refurbished ancient buildings in England and a chain of "pig hotels" where we raised piglets on behalf of Easeypig Ltd, a GM pig breeder. I've always been sceptical about pension funds so I took the route of acquiring and refurbishing modest rentable UK houses over the years to provide myself with a pension.

In the words of Joe Walsh... so far so good :-)

I think this is a healthy attitude and can be a very nice thing indeed when you're retired, or on vacation, when you have no pressing business to take care of, no deadlines to meet, and just want to rest, relax and have a good time.

And yet there is another side of this...that could be a bit of a challenge for someone not used to the local culture. Just to give one example of what I mean, in my own personal experience I have observed that, if you go to almost any branch of BROU (Banco Republica, the state run bank)in Montevideo, on any business day, at any time of the day, for a transaction that requires human contact, you will find that you have to get a numbered ticket and then sit (or stand) and wait for what seems to be an eternity to be taken care of.

Amazingly, hardly ever does anyone complain. Everyone seems to accept this as a fact of life. Some people even take naps until their number is called.

I'm not sure if this is the case in other state-run offices.

Anyway, my point is that for people living in societies where there is no time to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon while waiting to make a simple bank transaction, this could possibly prove to be a bit of a culture shock.

We're all different, so the final decision to make a permanent move or not will depend on one's own personal values and what a person can live with, and what he or she cannot.

Some people, like myself, who've already decided to retire in Uruguay, prefer a slower pace of life, but ALSO value a minimum or basic level of efficiency in services such as health care, sanitation, banking, etc. I happen to think "a slower pace of life" and "efficiency" are not mutually exclusive. They can co-exist.

And even though Uruguay seems to move at a slower pace than other countries in certain areas, I believe Uruguayans are by and large, hard-working, fair-minded, well-educated people who will and do welcome change, when it's warranted and they have a stake at it.

For prospective expats, the realization that in Uruguay certain services are less than efficient may or may not deter anyone from moving there, especially since there are plenty of other places around the globe that are anything but perfect.

Patrick - that's a good list of wants. A couple of things that attract me to southern South American countries are:

1) grass-fed beef (or is that only in Argentina? I don't see why it would be) - because it's so much healthier for us than corn-fed beef. Grass-fed actually contains omega-3 fats, whereas corn-fed contains omega-6 fats, which we get way too much of, and which are causing all kinds of health problems. Not to mention the whole Mad Cow thing where US (and UK?) factory farms turned cows into cannibals, causing the emergence of this bizzare "prion" disease... can I assume that these sort of disgusting and dangerous farming techniques are unheard of (or better yet, BANNED) in South America?

2) little or no risk of nuclear fallout, since all nuclear weapons and most if not all nuclear power plants are in the northern hemisphere, so the fallout would pretty much circulate around the northern hemisphere, sparing the southern. You know... Japanese power plant spewing god knows how much radioactivity into the atmosphere for how many months now? And counting? But the media seems to have forgotten all about this long ago. And Iranian nuclear facilities are getting bombed recently (2 sites in the weeks prior to the mob attack on the British embassy in Tehran), again, with little media attention. Can WW III be far away? It's looking worse and worse all the time to me. Maybe living in the far southern hemisphere would give you a decent chance of surviving nuclear world war?

As for nuke fallout... Argentina has a nuclear power station to the west of us so there are no absolute guarantees that we'll be safe should the Argies have an accident. On the other hand, my former home in England was surrounded by four of the things so I feel safer than I used to feel :-)

Uruguay is being directly affected right now by a Chilean volcano located very far away from its national territory. Volcanic ash has closed Carrasco airport several times already, disrupting air traffic. Wind is the culprit. And, I suspect, so it will be, most likely, if nuclear disaster ever strikes Argentina.

Meantime, there are disasters in the making --as we speak-- that will spare NO country, anywhere on Earth. The polar ice caps are melting at stunning speed and ocean waters are beginning to rise. This is not a hypothesis. Climate change is an undeniable fact. Whether this is happening due to human activity or not, one thing is clear: it IS happening.

Scientists estimate that those populations living on or within a certain distance from the shorelines, will be the first ones to be affected.

Montevideo, Uruguay will be among them.

Of course, the question is HOW FAST will these changes take place. In some estimations I've read about, by the year 2060 people will already be talking "re-location" to higher grounds.

Thanks, great thread.

During my first 18 months here, things got a bit tense between the ROU and Argentina with blockades of the land borders. It seems that G Dubya offered military support to Tabare (our former Prez) but fortunately, wise heads managed to calm the situation and conflict was avoided.

16. Internet availability.

When I arrived the only internet access available in rural east Colonia was Dedicado. It offered a service which was probably the slowest (256kb/s), least reliable and most expensive in the world. Fortunately, Ancel upgraded its local towers last year so I could be rid of the pirates at Dedicado. I now use Ancel's 2 meg 3G service which has been excellent.

18. A functional banking system.

I really don't like Uru banks.

20. No volcanoes, few earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, and other extremes of nature.

The year I arrived was exceptionally wet. It rained most of the time, many cities and other places suffered serious flooding, the mosquito population exploded and there was constant paranoia about dengue fever and the Egyptian mosquitoes that carry the disease. On the upside, we haven't had a repeat, the frequent flooding allowed me to see which roads were liable to flooding and avoid buying a chacra which got cut off by flood waters and the mosquitoes have returned to more manageable numbers.

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