I live in Managua and rent a 2 bedroom, 2 bath furnished house in a gated "compound" with 5 homes. Very safe. 24 hour guard/caretaker/gardener onsite. Rent is $350 per month, water included. Electricity is usually about $15 per month, internet $32. Everything is within walking distance. I can assure you these gems are pretty easy to find. Don't let the size of Managua intimidate you.
That sounds like a place a late friend Andrew Colucci lived in. I think it was near the Tico Bus Station. Similar house here would be $300 (a British friend's house) but without the guard/caretaker/gardener for five houses.
Great video, Scott ! We have lived in Matagalpa since February, and have enjoyed it. We are slow traveling in search of our favorite retirement city (Mexico to Argentina). We find it to be VERY affordable, with friendly people. At our current age (55 and 61) the big con for us is the heat. Yep, it is cooler but even now daytime temps have been 85-87ish with feels like temps around 90. We do run air con some but still our electric bill is usually about $130/month. That said, as the years go by and we get older, who knows, maybe we will want a warmer city in 10-15 years. Our next stop is Xela, Guatemala, which is about 20 degrees cooler, and we will be there in February ! Hope this email finds you well !
Great video !! I spend multiple months in Chichigalpah, Nicaragua each year. Extremely safe,lots to do in this small city. It has Flor de Cana Ron ( Rum ) factory which you can tour. It also offers natural swimming pool springs that are great for families. I have met a very few expats from the States. It can be very hot but you can find cheap housing.
A issue you have not mentioned... noise...... I lived in town. On a hill close to the ocean about 1200'. The noise from town would echo up the hill. San Juan del sur can get loud. A interesting phenomena is created when 2 rock band set up next to each other.and blaze 2 different songs at the same time. Living out of town is appreciated. Bosques Del Mar. playa Marsella/Maderas area rules. I urge immigrants to learn what the history of noise is in the community interested in.. Young Nica's love to make loud sound. Fire crackers are particularly popular.
Managua does tend to be an acquired taste. Managua has some decent lower cost neighborhoods, and is a bit cheaper than Jinotega for what you get in middle class/lower middle class neighborhoods. A lot of people who would rent an apartment other places will probably be renting a small house instead. Leon is less expensive than either from what I've read. Granada works for some people. Caterina might be worth looking at. Don't drink and walk late at night. You have to go to Managua for French embassy cultural event, anything at the Rubin Dario theater, consistent live music, art galleries, and more complex computer gear, and larger bookstores (Hispamer). Boaco has so few tourists that sitting around in a park talking English won't draw beggars. The white wing doves are as fat as pigeons and hang out begging for scraps in the park canteen. Boaco has had some expats. You're going to rent a house or half house, not an apartment. The thing that keeps retirees away is the stairs. It's about an hour from Managua by bus. Lots and lots of taxis for those who don't want to take the stairs. The mountains would be a bus or car ride away to get into them. I haven't been to Juigalpa. Jinotega is at 1,000 meters. Most tourists do Matagalpa to Esteli and back to Managua, with around a tenth of the tourists go through to see Selva Negra and go on to Jinotega. Esteli had women disappearing from the street at sunset when I visited in 2010. Jinotega -- free air-conditioning. Not all that cheap to rent. Make a list of "must have" and see if you can buy them locally or in a near by city. I keep tropical fish and Jinotega has vets with mixed pet store thing, fish food, filters, etc. I also keep local orchids and a few other tropical plants. If you need tennis courts, see if those are available. Computer stores have replacement external hard drives if I need one of those. I can buy miso at La Colonia. There isn't a major camera store in all of Nicaragua. Gear will come down by friends on airplanes or by importing through B&H Photo or Adorama in New York, or you fly to Miami for really major purchases and buy at one of the photo supply places that advertises that it's near the airport and has Spanish-speaking clerks as well as English. You can bring in one personal camera with lenses, one computer, and clothes, sporting equipment (duty free). I suspect you could bring in two camera bodies with gear without a hassle, too, since I've seen that done. Fly fishing -- trout maybe at Selva Negra, but most freshwater fly fishing will be for large tetras and cichlids. Tarpon in Rio San Juan. The cichlids are very tasty. I've never had one of the tetras to eat, but the local name for them tends to be sardinas. People do play board games beyond any of the more modern ones. Teenaged boys at parties used to have fist fights over whether Jinotega was better than Matagalpa or not. Or so I was told. Jinotega doesn't have apartments in the US sense at this point. Some people rent rooms in houses. Older houses have been broken up into smaller houses -- and those have been what I've rented. You'll have a front door and perhaps a back patio (back yard) or central patio (courtyard). Some townhouses near the police station did come with refrigerators and stoves and were called either furnished or semi-furnished. Also, if you need a particular medicine, make sure you can buy it here. The medical tourism director at one hospital lied to a Lupus patient about the availability of one of her meds. I've heard Daniel goes to Cuba for his Lupus treatment (may or may not be true, of course). Go to a large pharmacy in Managua and ask for it (get the full names for it from your prescribing doctor before coming here). No hay, things get complicated. What do you need to have to be comfortably yourself? Can you find it here and how easily? Foreign residents can be more problematic than one realizes. Esteli had a pedophile who was on the FBI's most wanted list. Granada had a gringo who murdered his Nicaraguan wife and what he believed was her lesbian lover. Jinotega had a another problem gringo who murdered his younger Nicaraguan interpreter who may have been leaving him for a woman. Matagalpa has some characters, though not felony level bad as far as I know. Remember, their wallet may not have been stolen yesterday. Anyone from the US who claims he's never met a bad expat is the bad expat. Matagalpa's big problem is water. With fish, I can have emergency water changes.
@rebeccaore Leon recently had a child rapist from the US Navy (retired) that was known around town but had been (so I'm told) paying families off to keep it quiet. He had a lot of money and showed it off constantly. Windows all blacked up, houses inside of compounds to stay secret. Never seen on the street. Took forever but locals managed to see the sun shine through his car one time and knew he had a kid with him going into his compound and the "SWAT" team was over the walls and had him in minutes. The city had just been waiting for an eye witness. So he managed to get his "permanent residency" here, jaja. And he definitely doesn't want to go back, because the US is waiting on him now, too, should he ever make it out of Nicaragua's prison system.
Scott I can't believe your numbers aren't higher your very informative I hope to meet you in person I arrive on the 10th of November.... Ps you need a haircut hahaha. Is Leon the less populated and more affordable than Granada and manauga? Rivas sounds interesting the slower the better in my case Take care and keep the good shows coming.
Leon is double the population of Granada. 25% the population of Managua. MGA is 1.3m. Leon is 300K. Granada is 150K. But Leon is WAY cheaper than Granada. Managua, being large, has really expensive bits and really cheap bits. Rivas can be a really interesting place, for sure. I know, gotta get time to cut it, lol. And right? How do I not have 50K subs by now? Mystery to me. lol
Ocotal is seriously remote. Given its size and location you'd expect very cheap, very safe. I'm hoping to be up there in April or May. It's a near area and I hope to do a collab there. Internet access is AMAZING across Nicaragua. It's a huge reason to come here, some of the best Internet around. I have a lot of shows breaking down prices, vendors, features, speeds, quality, etc. czcams.com/video/csK5xHexCyU/video.html czcams.com/video/3Kfou_GfktQ/video.html czcams.com/video/iyvvnacZNEs/video.html czcams.com/video/yn3GkoBbuTY/video.html czcams.com/video/gfISRkRYa9M/video.html czcams.com/video/4MjKwq3KrNQ/video.html czcams.com/video/Dvuc6rSVY4Q/video.html czcams.com/video/9UcZbyw3IYw/video.html
Great video! Matagalpa is very interesting to me. My only worry is the infrastructure. I have to do a lot of Skype meetings for my job. I have a couple questions if you have the time to answer... 1) Is the internet speed and reliability in Matagalpa going to be as good as Leon? 2) Should I expect more power outages in Matagalpa compared to Leon?
Matagalpa is farther away from Managua but a MAJOR city and economic center and close to power generation facilities. It's fiber distance from Managua is about the same as Leon, Internet is excellent even in small villages far from Matagalpa's center. Power I BELIEVE is better up there than in Leon, but definitely not much different.
Far better than North America, that's for sure! czcams.com/video/3Kfou_GfktQ/video.html czcams.com/video/iyvvnacZNEs/video.html czcams.com/video/yn3GkoBbuTY/video.html
Can someone tell me the last city he talked about? I Don't know how to spell it and every time I tried to say it into Google it gives me something weird
My most popular video of the last year and a half is a Jinotega walking tour. That's the episode of mine that they showed on national television on Channel 8 two weeks ago.
My guess is because only the wealthy or those offering very expensive accommodations can afford to bother; plus normal Nicaraguans have zero concept of AirBnB or online listings at all. So like all things Nicaraguan... if it is online it is filtered only for a high cost foreign income crowd. Locals don't use AirBnB (or anything online) so all normal lower cost options don't show up there.
Lots of good info, but about crime. How is property crime; I see alot of barbed wire, tall walls and bars on windows. I've heard that, unless you're in a gated community, that you never leave your car parked in the street overnight.
Nicaragua has places that are as safe as Canada, and other places that are about like Detroit (on the east side). Window screens are uncommon, so if you want full ventilation, you open windows and the bars keep anyone from sneaking in. People with good cars like secure parking, and sometimes have in house parking space. One couple of doctors found a narrow lot and built up. Their ground floor is a two car garage. Property crime is generally dipping a cell phone out of a purse or grabbing a laptop left in a car. Most is not violent. When one guy shot a guy in a bus robbery in Managua, the police were out in force, hundreds of them.
In the big cities you don't want to leave your cars out on the street, just way too easy to steal something. Just yesterday a high school girl walked past my car parked IN FRONT OF THE POLICE STATION in broad daylight, maybe 2pm, and with me sitting in the driver seat... she TRIED THE DRIVER'S DOOR to see if it was open!
I live half way to Rivas and San Juan del Sur, in a rural location. No bars at the windows, no cameras, the car stay all night long outside unlocked. Off course it wouldn't be the same in other places. But generaly I feel very safe in Nicaragua. More than in France that I left 3 years ago. Security is only a concern for people that have nothing to do there. Those who have a castle by the sea with a swimming pool and who don't speak a word of Spanish.
Jinotepe less than one hour down to Managua and lots cooler. Not many expats here which keep costs down. Newer 1+1 apartment less than $200 downtown.
I live in Managua and rent a 2 bedroom, 2 bath furnished house in a gated "compound" with 5 homes. Very safe. 24 hour guard/caretaker/gardener onsite. Rent is $350 per month, water included. Electricity is usually about $15 per month, internet $32. Everything is within walking distance. I can assure you these gems are pretty easy to find. Don't let the size of Managua intimidate you.
That sounds like a place a late friend Andrew Colucci lived in. I think it was near the Tico Bus Station. Similar house here would be $300 (a British friend's house) but without the guard/caretaker/gardener for five houses.
Wow...
Would you mind to have a Canadian neighbour?
I don't need anything that big. But a small plot to make my garden...
Would you mind sharing which neighborhood? I mean which Barrio😊? That would be greatly appreciated. 🙏
@@shemade9521 I asked my neighbors, because I did not know. 😑 They say Barrio Rodriguez.
You are so knowledgeable it’s refreshing! Love the ambience of the background. Good choice.
thanks!!
Great video, Scott ! We have lived in Matagalpa since February, and have enjoyed it. We are slow traveling in search of our favorite retirement city (Mexico to Argentina). We find it to be VERY affordable, with friendly people. At our current age (55 and 61) the big con for us is the heat. Yep, it is cooler but even now daytime temps have been 85-87ish with feels like temps around 90. We do run air con some but still our electric bill is usually about $130/month. That said, as the years go by and we get older, who knows, maybe we will want a warmer city in 10-15 years. Our next stop is Xela, Guatemala, which is about 20 degrees cooler, and we will be there in February ! Hope this email finds you well !
Great video !! I spend multiple months in Chichigalpah, Nicaragua each year. Extremely safe,lots to do in this small city. It has Flor de Cana Ron ( Rum ) factory which you can tour. It also offers natural swimming pool springs that are great for families. I have met a very few expats from the States. It can be very hot but you can find cheap housing.
A issue you have not mentioned... noise...... I lived in town. On a hill close to the ocean about 1200'.
The noise from town would echo up the hill. San Juan del sur can get loud. A interesting phenomena is created when 2 rock band set up next to each other.and blaze 2 different songs at the same time. Living out of town is appreciated. Bosques Del Mar. playa Marsella/Maderas area rules.
I urge immigrants to learn what the history of noise is in the community interested in..
Young Nica's love to make loud sound. Fire crackers are particularly popular.
Even worse than rock bands are churches!
Managua does tend to be an acquired taste. Managua has some decent lower cost neighborhoods, and is a bit cheaper than Jinotega for what you get in middle class/lower middle class neighborhoods. A lot of people who would rent an apartment other places will probably be renting a small house instead. Leon is less expensive than either from what I've read. Granada works for some people. Caterina might be worth looking at. Don't drink and walk late at night. You have to go to Managua for French embassy cultural event, anything at the Rubin Dario theater, consistent live music, art galleries, and more complex computer gear, and larger bookstores (Hispamer).
Boaco has so few tourists that sitting around in a park talking English won't draw beggars. The white wing doves are as fat as pigeons and hang out begging for scraps in the park canteen. Boaco has had some expats. You're going to rent a house or half house, not an apartment. The thing that keeps retirees away is the stairs. It's about an hour from Managua by bus. Lots and lots of taxis for those who don't want to take the stairs. The mountains would be a bus or car ride away to get into them. I haven't been to Juigalpa.
Jinotega is at 1,000 meters. Most tourists do Matagalpa to Esteli and back to Managua, with around a tenth of the tourists go through to see Selva Negra and go on to Jinotega. Esteli had women disappearing from the street at sunset when I visited in 2010. Jinotega -- free air-conditioning. Not all that cheap to rent.
Make a list of "must have" and see if you can buy them locally or in a near by city. I keep tropical fish and Jinotega has vets with mixed pet store thing, fish food, filters, etc. I also keep local orchids and a few other tropical plants. If you need tennis courts, see if those are available. Computer stores have replacement external hard drives if I need one of those. I can buy miso at La Colonia. There isn't a major camera store in all of Nicaragua. Gear will come down by friends on airplanes or by importing through B&H Photo or Adorama in New York, or you fly to Miami for really major purchases and buy at one of the photo supply places that advertises that it's near the airport and has Spanish-speaking clerks as well as English. You can bring in one personal camera with lenses, one computer, and clothes, sporting equipment (duty free). I suspect you could bring in two camera bodies with gear without a hassle, too, since I've seen that done.
Fly fishing -- trout maybe at Selva Negra, but most freshwater fly fishing will be for large tetras and cichlids. Tarpon in Rio San Juan. The cichlids are very tasty. I've never had one of the tetras to eat, but the local name for them tends to be sardinas.
People do play board games beyond any of the more modern ones.
Teenaged boys at parties used to have fist fights over whether Jinotega was better than Matagalpa or not. Or so I was told.
Jinotega doesn't have apartments in the US sense at this point. Some people rent rooms in houses. Older houses have been broken up into smaller houses -- and those have been what I've rented. You'll have a front door and perhaps a back patio (back yard) or central patio (courtyard). Some townhouses near the police station did come with refrigerators and stoves and were called either furnished or semi-furnished.
Also, if you need a particular medicine, make sure you can buy it here. The medical tourism director at one hospital lied to a Lupus patient about the availability of one of her meds. I've heard Daniel goes to Cuba for his Lupus treatment (may or may not be true, of course). Go to a large pharmacy in Managua and ask for it (get the full names for it from your prescribing doctor before coming here). No hay, things get complicated.
What do you need to have to be comfortably yourself? Can you find it here and how easily?
Foreign residents can be more problematic than one realizes. Esteli had a pedophile who was on the FBI's most wanted list. Granada had a gringo who murdered his Nicaraguan wife and what he believed was her lesbian lover. Jinotega had a another problem gringo who murdered his younger Nicaraguan interpreter who may have been leaving him for a woman. Matagalpa has some characters, though not felony level bad as far as I know. Remember, their wallet may not have been stolen yesterday. Anyone from the US who claims he's never met a bad expat is the bad expat.
Matagalpa's big problem is water. With fish, I can have emergency water changes.
Hi Rebecca! I've missed seeing you on Facebook, I'm glad to hear you are still around, and as always, you have good advice.
@rebeccaore Leon recently had a child rapist from the US Navy (retired) that was known around town but had been (so I'm told) paying families off to keep it quiet. He had a lot of money and showed it off constantly. Windows all blacked up, houses inside of compounds to stay secret. Never seen on the street. Took forever but locals managed to see the sun shine through his car one time and knew he had a kid with him going into his compound and the "SWAT" team was over the walls and had him in minutes. The city had just been waiting for an eye witness. So he managed to get his "permanent residency" here, jaja. And he definitely doesn't want to go back, because the US is waiting on him now, too, should he ever make it out of Nicaragua's prison system.
A wealth of information. Was wondering if you would consider doing some content showcasing the cigar producing reqions of the country.
Hey brother thanks for the video I appreciate you.
My pleasure!
This is very helpful! I might end up in Leon after the Corn Islands.
Scott I can't believe your numbers aren't higher your very informative I hope to meet you in person I arrive on the 10th of November.... Ps you need a haircut hahaha. Is Leon the less populated and more affordable than Granada and manauga? Rivas sounds interesting the slower the better in my case Take care and keep the good shows coming.
Leon is double the population of Granada. 25% the population of Managua. MGA is 1.3m. Leon is 300K. Granada is 150K. But Leon is WAY cheaper than Granada. Managua, being large, has really expensive bits and really cheap bits. Rivas can be a really interesting place, for sure.
I know, gotta get time to cut it, lol.
And right? How do I not have 50K subs by now? Mystery to me. lol
Thanks for the vid! What about Ocotal? How is internet relatability across Nica? These are things I am personally curious about
Ocotal is seriously remote. Given its size and location you'd expect very cheap, very safe. I'm hoping to be up there in April or May. It's a near area and I hope to do a collab there.
Internet access is AMAZING across Nicaragua. It's a huge reason to come here, some of the best Internet around. I have a lot of shows breaking down prices, vendors, features, speeds, quality, etc.
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Great video! Matagalpa is very interesting to me. My only worry is the infrastructure. I have to do a lot of Skype meetings for my job. I have a couple questions if you have the time to answer... 1) Is the internet speed and reliability in Matagalpa going to be as good as Leon? 2) Should I expect more power outages in Matagalpa compared to Leon?
Matagalpa is farther away from Managua but a MAJOR city and economic center and close to power generation facilities. It's fiber distance from Managua is about the same as Leon, Internet is excellent even in small villages far from Matagalpa's center. Power I BELIEVE is better up there than in Leon, but definitely not much different.
#2, yes
Hows the internet speed in nicaragua ?
Far better than North America, that's for sure!
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Can someone tell me the last city he talked about? I Don't know how to spell it and every time I tried to say it into Google it gives me something weird
I found it Jinotega. I am very interested
My most popular video of the last year and a half is a Jinotega walking tour. That's the episode of mine that they showed on national television on Channel 8 two weeks ago.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog outstanding. I'll check it out
Hi who I can communicated with you?
Why do you think the Airbnb listings in Nicaragua are so expensive?
My guess is because only the wealthy or those offering very expensive accommodations can afford to bother; plus normal Nicaraguans have zero concept of AirBnB or online listings at all. So like all things Nicaraguan... if it is online it is filtered only for a high cost foreign income crowd. Locals don't use AirBnB (or anything online) so all normal lower cost options don't show up there.
@@ScottAlanMillerVlog Thank you!
Lots of good info, but about crime. How is property crime; I see alot of barbed wire, tall walls and bars on windows. I've heard that, unless you're in a gated community, that you never leave your car parked in the street overnight.
Nicaragua has places that are as safe as Canada, and other places that are about like Detroit (on the east side). Window screens are uncommon, so if you want full ventilation, you open windows and the bars keep anyone from sneaking in. People with good cars like secure parking, and sometimes have in house parking space. One couple of doctors found a narrow lot and built up. Their ground floor is a two car garage. Property crime is generally dipping a cell phone out of a purse or grabbing a laptop left in a car. Most is not violent. When one guy shot a guy in a bus robbery in Managua, the police were out in force, hundreds of them.
In the big cities you don't want to leave your cars out on the street, just way too easy to steal something. Just yesterday a high school girl walked past my car parked IN FRONT OF THE POLICE STATION in broad daylight, maybe 2pm, and with me sitting in the driver seat... she TRIED THE DRIVER'S DOOR to see if it was open!
I live half way to Rivas and San Juan del Sur, in a rural location. No bars at the windows, no cameras, the car stay all night long outside unlocked.
Off course it wouldn't be the same in other places.
But generaly I feel very safe in Nicaragua. More than in France that I left 3 years ago.
Security is only a concern for people that have nothing to do there. Those who have a castle by the sea with a swimming pool and who don't speak a word of Spanish.