Paraguay has always been a good option to retire and even to move to escape of the rat race kind of living. The pace of life is slow, at least slower than in many countries, services are still pretty cheap, like house cleaning, salons, teachers, baby sitting, housemaids, etc. The distances are pretty small between one spot and the other, even though traffic can be really bad at rush hours it is still pretty fast to get from one point to the other.

Downtown Asuncion shows a lot of abandonment, abandoned houses, and after 7pm the city looks like a house town, but all the noise is moving to other neighborhoods full of shopping, stores, malls, cafes, and a more busy night life.

Don’t expect people walking on the streets at night like it is in Buenos Aires (one of my favorite south American cities) but you will find most malls full of people open until 9 pm which is still pretty good. People go out for dinner late at night so restaurants open during weekdays until 11pm or midnight and later on the weekends. Malls are pretty nice because they have groceries stores, cinemas, food courts, and nice brands to find anything you want.

Also many cultural activities, galleries, plays, events, many parties (that must be a latin thing, some people dont have money to eat but they will always get the way to organize a party somehow, amazing!)

Making friends is really easy there, people are very helpful and caring, most of them will be willing to get out of their regular schedule to help you around.

Rent varies between 1.500.000 Gs. (for a nice apartment) to around 5.000.000Gs for a big nice house in a good neighborhood. I’ve have seen these prices raise comparing it to years ago where the rent was really really cheap.

Working in Paraguay is another story, not so easy…unless you are an entrepreneur your chances to get a good job is limited, unless of course you get hired by the american school with a contract already (you can get information about that in job fairs, they offer really good packages to teach in Asuncion), peace corps is another great way to get to Paraguay, and help local people.

And of course my always good recommendation is to learn Spanish before you get to Paraguay, that is very important, unless you are there for a couple of weeks on vacation but to live there is a must to know Spanish. 

To entrepreneur the sky is the limit, there are so many things to do in Paraguay…Who wants to hire me??!! I can help with many projects, what about a foundation there? anyone into that, let me know!…

Ah, talking about this subject I just remembered that my friend is helping with this very nice international website that has been very helpful for people wanting to travel to Paraguay and the world, check it out:

 

http://www.couchsurfing.com/

Maybe you find it interesting and start planning your trip to Py very soon

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