The amount of grifting that goes on focusing on PR being a 3rd world hellscape for their own views/clicks/etc is insane.
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?
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.
But 100% worthwhile.
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.
Wear a big hat, go before 8am, and stop by the salt flats.
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.
And yes, you can get to the desert driving 3 hours east (albeit into Oregon)
Washington!
Hawaii, except I didn't drive, I walked; and it took half an hour, not 3 hours.
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.
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
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.