Where else can you drive 3 hours and go from dense rainforest to absolute desert, spend your morning snorkeling pristine reefs and your evening deep in the mountains, and see a mix of old and new everywhere?
Hawaii, except I didn't drive, I walked; and it took half an hour, not 3 hours.
I've never been to Puerto Rico. Rainforest I can imagine, but where on that island is there a desert, even a relative one?! When you say "absolute desert" I'm imagining, I don't know, something like the Sonoran Desert.
Average annual rainfall of 24-39" is not exactly anyone's idea of a desert (I believe 10" a year is the typical definition), though looking at the photos it does appear to be more similar to the transitional area in Texas Hill Country, for example, with short trees and more shrubs. Certainly a far cry from the lushness that I expected to encompass all of Puerto Rico.
Offhand thought 24 inches in a hot climate doesn't go as far as 24 inches in a temperate one.
Wear a big hat, go before 8am, and stop by the salt flats.
I live outside the metro area and there are definitely 4x4 only areas as far as transportation and it becomes quite rural pretty quick in the hills. Not to mention the chupacabra.
Washington!
But 100% worthwhile.
What heavy lifting? They go there specifically to avoid paying federal taxes. Thus they attract the slimiest and least helpful type of people, like the Paul Brothers and crypto con artists like Brock Pierce.
For them Puerto Rico is the perfect place to be to retain their American citizenship, eat fantastic food, enjoy an awesome lifestyle at a large discount, while avoiding tax liabilities.
Libertarians who operate investment newsletters have been touting the advantages of selling out here and moving to PR for years. They are not alone, as pastor_bob notes there are plenty of other people with the means and the opportunity to flee the mainland so they can watch it burn down from a distance while still enjoying the benefits of citizenship but in a more tax-advantageous location.
It was actually pretty funny reading their bitching about the state of things on the island after Hurricane Maria. Motherfuckers actually had to endure hardships getting their internet access restored so they could publish their rags and then they filled them with gripes about what a hardship it was dealing with the disaster even though they kept themselves isolated in their compounds so they never saw the true scope of the devastation that PR natives endured.
Fucking Grifters.
Puerto Rico also has had corruption problems that may or may not be linked to the classical problems of people appointing friends to positions, inefficient allocation of resources such that wealthier areas are better maintained and have more of the ear of the government when it comes to acquiring resources to keep things maintained. Nothing involving governments is ever totally perfect or fair so there will always be a situation where it is who you know that counts.
After Maria, the federal response to the destruction was inefficient and inadequate to restore things to their previous state. As you find in any disaster on the mainland, the cleanup operations failed to vet contractors to insure that those doing the work actually had experience managing a complex process like hurricane cleanup and as a result there was massive waste. That's become the normal condition for US post-disaster operations so this is not a knock on PR at all.
I would love to visit. I have read a lot about it. One day it might happen. Good luck to all who choose PR as their home.
For much better reporting than a quick comment on HN, for anyone who really is interested, follow the documentaries by reporter Bianca Graulau who is doing a great job at building awareness of the problem.
The people in tech who live in Puerto Rico are practically a net negative for the locals and people who are actually from there. 90%+ of them are not local to Puerto Rico and rarely is anyone hiring locals for these tech jobs, they are working remotely or getting their more well off friends/family to come join them.
They outprice locals from living arrangements since they drive costs up but the amount locals make is nowhere near what these tech workers do. And in my opinion its even worse than what happens in mainland US, since they are stuck on an island uprooting and moving is even harder than what happens to people in the states.
Yep. I find it weird and annoying that Puerto Rico (and most of Southern and Central America and Mexico) are treated as 3rd world (read: "poor"/undeveloped). The only undeveloped countries (below 0.650 HDI) in the Americas are Haiti, Honduras, and Guatemala. It's just pure racism tbh.
Economic turmoil aside due to the shutdown of Naval Shipyards in the 90s, Puerto Rico is by every definition a developed country, and they are a massive player in both the financial and pharmaceutical manufacturing world.
P.S. Don't give me the pedantic Cold War 3rd world definition. No one uses that definition anymore
Most people who leave do so because it's like living in a bottom 50 state like Mississippi or Alabama, why stay when your quality of life will improve significantly just taking a 2 hour flight to another state? I was able to attend a top engineering school in the US and most of my high school friends were also able to get great jobs elsewhere too. We would love to go back but the drop in quality of life makes it a difficult choice.
The amount of grifting that goes on focusing on PR being a 3rd world hellscape for their own views/clicks/etc is insane.