OnTheBall Travels
You said… Paris Hilton… lives here??
Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory in the West Indies comprised of a small main island and several offshore islets. It is known for it’s luxury real estate, private exclusive living, nice hotels, amazing sandy beaches and good dining.
As a territory with zero taxes on many aspects of life (no income tax, no corporate tax, no capital gains tax) and one who recently launched a nomad visa, I decided to check it out.
Before continuing remember to sign up below (free) and to check out other Travel experiences.
Itinerary
We arrived in Saint Martin by air (which leaves much to the imagination let me tell you) and walked across the road to the Anguilla-Sint Maarten ferry. We went with Calypso Charters and it was about a 20-30 minute ride over to the island–just us on the boat.
Anguilla’s shore upon arrival is absolutely beautiful. It’s tranquil, clean and shocking that it’s not packed with people. We walked up the Blowing Point terminal ramp to a completely clean and modern immigration centre. The agent we dealt with it was professional, friendly and welcoming as opposed to other nations that very much wish to make it known that they are police. We then passed through and joined a customs agent who was a guy chatting to a worker. He paused his conversation to ask where we were coming from, where we were staying and for how many days–and then asked if we had anything to declare, mostly wondering how many cigarettes we may have had. Again, the vibe was “okay, cool, whatever, I’ll stop eating into your time because you have to enjoy the island!”
We were semi-swarmed by the cab drivers (who were very old) who spoke their version of English amongst ourselves and because we weren’t going to a hotel we kind of figured it out together. For sake of prices, we know that the Blowing Point Terminal to The Valley ran 25USD.
The cab driver was again adamant that if we do anything, it was to enjoy the island because of how peaceful and quiet it is (I have to agree but depends on where you are). He was also somewhat proud of the fact that Anguilla linked direct flights with Miami everyday (more on this later). Again, assured us if we rent a vehicle to remember it’s the LEFT side of the road to drive on and wished us farewell.
Impression
One thing I’m proud of that I do when I travel is to do something that others don’t do… (even though at the time, its unpleasant). We tend to book and walk in the areas that typical people/tourists do not. As evidence, we were asked three times about ‘what hotel’ we are staying at and when we explained that it wasn’t a hotel, we had some explaining to do.
Since we do this, we try to get a feel for the ‘real’ island, not the lavish, private, glorious image the island represents in the brochure. My opinion is beyond vacation, you’re living on a territory, not a resort.
From what we can tell, Anguilla, for the locals, is a 3rd world country. The homes, on average, are extremely run down and undeveloped or untended. The roads are small and un-repaired with much of the country composed of dirt roads or ‘back roads’. We saw on one street–rather than bury a house cat, it was left to rot on the side of the road with its rigor mortus set in (and there was a trash bin 10 feet away). Garbage populated people’s yards and their after school program was run by people who hardly looked out of school themselves. Apart from a few buildings, the capital city is not developed like other areas in the region and people comically move in slow motion (granted, it is hot there).
On one stroll, we passed three fellows, not dressed very well, listening to Carib music from their cars, smoking big joints of marijuana, and while I could careless, my partner immediately said “Thats fine, but you begin to wonder if we’re surrounded by any high-level thinkers here”.
The peace and quiet of the island is ironically trumped extremely loud Caribbean music that hits all ears within a large vicinity. We experienced unnecessarily loud music, every night. We even drove by a villa perched upon cliff which I’m sure was valued into the 8 figures and the neighbours were drowning out its tranquility with shouts and Caribbean beats. Although, if there’s no music & you’re on the edge of the territory, the island is amazingly quiet. The laid-back vibe is everywhere.
Approximately 15K people were impacted by the 2017 hurricane and it seems little recovery took place. It was so bad that it wiped out 97% of the countries GDP for the year and 1800 jobs thereafter. We saw one home that looked like a car bomb was detonated in the kitchen… just left there for the earth to eat. The building for the Government of Infrastructure ironically is hardly more developed than the local grocery store. Which brings me to another thought.
The groceries are quite expensive for what you get–to the point where I’m not even sure how the locals are affording life–at least by maintaining a healthy diet full of fibre and protein. Some food tasted strange at times too, namely the fruit and the frozen food. My associate made the comment “The Americans look at what they don’t want to eat and they call up Anguilla”.
In 2019, Anguilla ran a budget surplus of 1.6% of GDP. While the latest data shows an unemployment rate of approximately 13%, strikingly 23.5% of Anguilla’s population is affected by poverty or vulnerability
Some retroactive research finds more up-to-date statistics. As of May 2022, 18043 people live on the island, of which 6% live in poverty. I never got the sense that “times are tough” from the population though. People are smiley with each other and slow-paced.
The food scene, as far as I can tell, is overrated. It’s good, no doubt, but it’s much easier to find far more classy, upscale places in Mexico for half the cost. Restaurants are lively and loud for the most part–and the ones that aren’t will be drowned out by the noise of others nearby. We couldn’t dine everywhere, and we were told of some hotel restaurants that were top-notch but we never had anything rememberable to our taste buds.
I am painting a bleak image, however, it wasn’t all bad. Anguilla is unique for its amazing beaches but the noteworthy aspect is the privacy on the beach. I believe this to be its forté. In this respect its a nice location to have a honeymoon. It honestly felt strange by how quiet each beach was for us.
When we did encounter people, while somewhat disorganized & imprecise, were engaging and friendly–telling us to enjoy our stay. As a British Overseas Territory, there is very little sign of any British influence. We saw one restaurant worker who had a Northener (UK) accent who married a local, but thats it. Prices for anything we bought were costly for anybody, but not unbearable for someone who’s in the running to purchase real estate on the island.
Driving was quite straightforward (literally) given it only has 6 traffic lights on the island and one main road from end-to-end. But, if you’re heading there, remember the left hand side of the road is where they drive because of the British ties, officially.
Bank Experience
Wanting to open up our own bank account, we tried the only bank on the island with all of our documents in hand. The guard took us to a back room were about 6-8 people were seated. A man helped us with our concerns who gave us a sheet of paper with what we needed (and thought we’d leave). He then returned to us who said that we’d be next in line when one of two office rooms were available. We waited for an hour since he said this and saw many employees chat between themselves and with clients they knew. The more workers who came back (from lunch?) the longer and louder the conversations grew. One conversation was warning a client that their email server is down as is their online banking and there’s nothing that can be done (a bad thing to hear when you’re there to open an account).
Finally one office door opened and the lady asked what we needed, we explained and she asked who was first in line. An eager gentlemen said we were here first (as did we) and the woman left to chat with her 2 other coworkers in a different room. When she returned she passed us and signalled “come here” to the eager man to choose him before us. Before the eager man went in the office he told everyone waiting he was growing impatient and that he just needed a signature and it would take no more than 5 minutes.
After the woman selected him before us, he took at least 25 minutes and the other office door (of the two) hadn’t finished with their client the whole time we were there. All told we were there for 1 hour and 40 minutes and after seeing we were not going to be waited upon (or anyone else waiting patiently) we got up and left. The standard of service is incredibly poor and its hard to trust these individuals with a sizeable real estate transaction.
Leaving
Leaving Anguilla again we were the only people there again. We handed our boat charter receipt to the desk who issued our boat boarding passes. We then were sent to the tax department where we had to pay a $36 USD each for an exit tax. It felt gouging and unpleasant to pay such a fee (which I’m told had been recently raised) for staying longer than 12 hours on the island. It was a really great experience all things considered but this exit tax cemented a bad feeling of not hurrying to return [to a country that literally survives on tourism]. After the tax, you move sideways 5 feet to get your passport stamped and back to boarding the boat down the ramp.
Forward Looking
It’s quite clear that rising commodity prices in the world has a negative impact on prices in Anguilla. This is not the place where you’re going to beat the current trends of high cost of living. Economic research outlines that tourism is not expected to reach it’s pre-pandemic levels until the airport receives more connectivity (which explains the Miami comment). Thinking back, Anguilla had very stringent rules during the Covid Hysteria as well, and I’m sure it destroyed their economy as a result.
Further Research/Findings
- Anguilla’s GDP per capita is 26,000 USD a year–however this figure is masks the social inequalities and economic output. Unemployment on the island sits around 25% at present and we did notice a very old population. The locals certainly tend to stay together and we certainly did not experience the same welcomeness as they treat others. They do not speak English amongst themselves.
- The economy crashed 27.4% amid the lockdown procedures taken by the government–this was the highest contraction on record. Not surprisingly, this was due to the shutting off revenues from all tourism to the island. Tax revenues crashed for 2020.
- Fiscally, they remained relatively calm (down -3%). However, this is including large grants they received– approximately a $35M bail-out from the United Kingdom.
- The relatively new 13% GST really put a dagger into citizens here as well. As I can see that 13% feels like a ‘little’ too expensive than what it would have been before. There are many items that are exempt, but not restaurants nor groceries.
Anguilla is heavily dependent on rain and water storage. Two out of five households has their main source of water as rain water with the 3/5 remaining often rationing the bottled water supplies. The island desperately needs the ability to desalinate and ensure safe drinking water however their electrical supply has been damaged since the hurricane.
It varies by different statistics, but 85-88% of the territory are black with others being mixed or mulatto and very few whites or hispanics live there. With the US, UK and other Western powers (those they are dependent on for imports) stoking up what seems to be a race-war, this is not necessarily the place you want to wait out the storm if you’re not black (especially if another REAL storm comes on by) (but again, didn’t feel threatened or anything as the island is safe).
I spoke with a real estate agent on the island to discuss about their residency by investment program (Contact Open Door Consultancy if you want to learn more!) and she explained that notwithstanding certain factors such as maintenance cost, location & other small factors that the real estate tends to hold its purchasing power very well here. She said that you are not going to lose value in your property here (famous last words…) but on the side, you’re not going to get rich off of capital gains here (that goes for business activity too).
I spoke with another individual in Saba (check out our article here!) regarding the broader Caribbean who did say that every so many years a horrific event (murder) happens in Anguilla, too.
Prediction
Anguilla is going to buck it’s own trend with real estate and lose a lot of pricing power. The islands’ unemployment, it’s rather unappealing wealth inequality & reliance on deep pocketed tourism [to put up with the high price tag] leaves it in a precarious situation. The ultra-wealthy with more money than what they can spend may still swoop in and buy up huge villas as their “get away from the city life” but these may be few and far in between and regular tourism will likely soften. There are simply better value options out there for vacation/real estate.
I think, Anguilla is best for a Plan C, a honeymoon or second home for those that love it. It offers the privacy, tranquility, remoteness, slow-pace and tax benefits you’d want in such an option.
Closing
Anguilla is a very relaxed, slow, peaceful, isolated territory where it is perfect to “get away from it all”. It’s less touristy vibe makes it less resilient in some ways but offers more attraction to higher net-worth individuals who aim for tranquility & privacy. Anguilla felt like the perfect place to relax–to unwind or to recharge. To do nothing more less.
Notice I say Anguilla is a great Plan C (and not Plan B). There is a problem with Anguilla being a Plan B in my estimation. When you’re ready to pull the lever and go from Plan A to Plan B, chances are something went defunct with your Plan A–a bad trade deal, war, banking crisis, cyber attack, high fuel costs–something of that sort. These same problems that impact your Plan A will undoubtedly take shape in the Plan B (Anguilla) as well. That’s why I think its a better Plan C. Anguilla is best when the world is also functioning at its best.
For well-travelled people, the amenities off-resort are going to be very basic. It reminds me of a beach-trip in Canada where you make a stop to some rural place on the way to the beach to pick up chips, beer and eggs for the morning. Except that rural place IS the grocery store for the island. For some, living on the beach and doing nothing is truly paradise. However I reckon that for the intellectually curious readers, it may get a little dry, no pun intended–especially for a year!
Once again, given the level of poverty, reliance on imports for everything, already high cost of living, the complete lack of entrepreneurship and motivation to improve, the race disparities, among others… I do not believe that Anguilla is a place that one should feel secure to hang their hat. Nor should anyone feel comfortable with moving to start their own business, it just is not the place for any sort of serious activity. The island feels extremely relaxed and mellow, so it does not scream productivity, development and self-reliance.
If Anguilla wants, it could be push any sector such as investment funds, banking, insurance, technology/app development, e-commerce, shipping. They could aim to be more resilient domestically for energy by utilizing renewable energy and slashing import taxes on fuel. They could focus on producing more meat on the island rather than importing this, too. It surprisingly has a lot of land that could be used to build manufacturing, industry or office presence, but there are no initiatives to “be the place” for anything aside from, like everyone we met said, “enjoying your time on the island“.
Which is exactly what we did!
#StayOnTheBall
