Project Calypso

Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherland located on the south of a Caribbean Island shared with France. The Dutch territory covers the 40% of the island where lives little more than 40,000 people. The island was divided by the Treaty of Condordia in 1648 and despite the border changed sixteen times due to fights, the sharing is still in place till today. Cotton, tobacco and sugar plantation had been the main island income till after the WWII, when in the 50s the iconic International Airport was opened and the tourism business took off. Today the island economy is based on tourism, employing 80% of the population. Cruise ships and luxurious hotel resorts are the main type of tourism sources. The island location is exposed to the hurricanes season and it has been hit more then ones with the last in 2017 causing extensive damages to 70% of the houses and loss of lives. The real estate opportunities are almost exclusively top high end villas and th

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the island country of the Lesser Antilles laying between Saint Lucia on the North and Grenada on the South. The territory is composed by the main island of Saint Vincent with the capital Kingstown and a chain of 32 smaller islands many of which are inhabitated by a total population of 110,000 people. After an intial period when the islands were under French control, they has been maintly a British colony till the 1979 when they gained full indipendency. Nowadays Saint Vincent is a parlamentary democarcy and a constututional monarchy with Elizabeth II as Queen. Since its indipendance, the state had political stability without any major issues. Saint Vincent is a volcanic island with moist forest while southern islands has dryer forest ecosystems. In April 2021 the main volcano La Soufriere erupted, 16,000 people had to be evaquated and ashes covered part of the island. Climate is the typical tropical one, hot and humid with dry season from December to

The official name of Saint Kitts and Nevis island country is Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis. The territory consists of two main islands located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. With a population slightly over 50,000 people and a surface of 261 square kilometres , Saint Kitts and Nevis is the smallest sovereign stated in the Western hemisphere. The islands were among the first to be colonized by Europeans and has been for long time a English and French settlement with a short period under Spain, until the 18th century when France renounced the control on the islands which became part of the British Kingdom. Saint Kitts and Nevis gain the full independence in 1983 and today it is a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as head of State. Basseterre is the capital. Both the islands are of volcanic origin and are covered by tropical rainforest, the costs are mostly flat which is where the vast majority of the population lives. Since  1970s, tourism saw a c

Haiti shears Hispaniola island with the Dominican Republic but unfortunately it didn't share the same fate. In fact, the history of Haiti has been particularly troubled in many ways. Since its independence, Haiti went through several authoritarian regimes including 20 years of  American occupation. Till today, the political unrest is a constant of the country history. In addition to the political instability, Haiti has been signed by continues  natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and earthquakes devastating the land, the economy and the life of Haitians. As result, today Haiti has a underdeveloped economy, social unrest and an uncertain future. The tourism industry may be one of the best option for the country development but at the moment very little has been done about it. Hopefully Haiti will be able to gain stability, to grow an healthy economy and to have a florid tourism industry but it will take several years. All the present criticalities and the uncertainties for the f

Bonaire is the B of the well known ABC islands which are the three Leeward Antilles islands former Dutch colonies. Actually Bonaire is formally a special municipality of country of The Netherlands. The island is consider one of the top dive destination worldwide and in particular Bonaire is famous for being THE location for shore diving since no other place has so many dive sites reachable by shore. All the island is basically dedicated to diving tourism. mostly coming from North America, in fact beside the cruises tourists, almost all staying-over tourists are linked to diving. Compared with Curacao, Bonaire is smaller and offer not much more beside diving which is an aspect to consider well because it could be too limiting for a long period living. Additionally the island is in fact The Netherlands and this is not matching the idea to live in another country. Real estate prices are relative more expensive than the other two ABC islands, possibly due to the fact that the amount of acc

Let's start with Antigua and Barbuda, the first Caribbean state of our list. Antigua and Barbuda are part of the Lesser Antilles, in the middle of the Leeward Island and includes other 45 minor islands mostly inhabited with few of the privately owned. Originally an English colony, Antigua and Barbuda gained full Independence in 1981 and nowadays is part of the Commonwealth, retaining Queen Elizabeth as head of state. English is therefore the official language. Population is around 96,000 with 97% of it living in Antigua. The economy is based mainly on tourism which accounts for more than 50% of the GDP. Almost ¾ of the total tourists arrive with cruise ships and the nationalities are mainly American and British. Antigua with the capital St. John’s is the main island, Barbuda is much less developed and even before the hurricane Irma that in 2017 destroyed everything, tourism offers was limited. Reconstruction was started but it remains to be seen how it will progress. There are no d

Making selections is always difficult but unavoidable. We have decided to limit our selection only at independent Caribbean States and Dutch territories. In principle, we excluded French territories because we prefer to not study another language while US and UK territory due to immigration policies which would make difficult to obtain our residence permit. As result, we have to choose between the following: Antigua and Barbuda Aruba The Bahamas Barbados Bonaire Curacao Dominica Dominican Republic Grenada Haiti Jamaica Saba Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Granadines Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten Trinidad and Tobago Starting in alphabetic order, we are going to study all those Caribbean States. We will look at the geography, the climate, the diving peculiarities, the government, the immigration policies, the environment polices, the tourism business characteristics and the real estate market. At the end, we will see how many of this 18 destination have the potentia