Chile Forum

SchvoodieFoodie wrote:As expensive as the internet is, is it reliable? In the beginning when I moved to Thailand I had two DSL providers as I could not afford to be offline. If one is to run their business through the internet, how reliable is the infrastructure?

Budget about USD 200 / month for a basic combined internet / tv/ fixed phone package. In general it's pretty good, providing in excess of the contracted speed, at least for Chilean sites. Say 6Mb/s locally and 2/3 Mb/s outside Chile.

About reliability... after the 2010 quake the whole country was unreachable for several days, and intermittently for weeks after. Chile is volcano and earthquake prone. Outages for this and other reasons are frequent. Can your business deal with that?

Gozzar wrote:Hello,

I am planning a 12 month -18 month timeline to move to Chile. I have 3 kids aged 3 , 9, 11. I have been to Chile but my family has not. I am taking them down for 3 weeks this Christmas to visit a few areas - Santiago, La Serena, and the lakes district - hopefully with a goal of finding a place that feels right for us. My biggest concern is schooling for the kids. I understand we would be better off in private schools. Does anyone have an idea of how much schooling costs in these various areas? Any recommendations ?

We currently speak very limited Spainish but have a native Chilean who begins Spainish lessons for our family starting next month.

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum Gozzar!

It is indeed a tough crowd here and you aren't the first to announce you'd like to immigrate to Chile for a short-term period and be met with the "what are you crazy?" type posts. Not exactly what you would expect from a forum set up to help immigrants with their transition to Chile! I get the sense that about half of the immigrants on this forum have enjoyed their experience and half haven't. Hard to say if too high expectations or inability to adjust to a different culture played a factor for those that disliked their experience.

Don't be turned off though, there is a lot of good information in here and using the search function can help you discover topics that have already been discussed.

As a family with children looking to experience another culture and language, in a country that offers reasonable political stability, safety and health care, there are not many that rank as high as Chile in South America. Once you accept that the culture and attitudes will definitely not match those that you may have grown up with, and with a positive attitude towards accepting that culture versus trying to make it fit into your expectations of how all societies should be, you will greatly enhance your experience. I spent some time in China and thoroughly loved my time there. Many friends who went after I did hated it. But in talking with them it was clear they brought their western bias to their expectations of how the culture and people should act or behave. It's hard not to, but if you can look past those expectations and experience the culture and history of how the country arrived at where they are today, you will find your day to day experiences to change immensely.

FWIW, we (wife, 2 kids age 6 and 9) chose La Serena and will be moving there in early January for a little over 3 months. We have a close friend who lives there which will be a huge advantage. We originally were going to stay longer and looked into several schools, all private. The highest cost was the International School in La Serena (http://www.tisls.cl) where after a certain grade almost all classes are taught in English. Costs were roughly $5,000/kid/semester (or was it per year??). Other recommended private schools were a little less cost and offered mostly spanish teaching with about an hour or so each day of english.

Good luck with your planning!

Gozzar,

Welcome to the forum, and as long as you do your research in advance and are prepared to face and accept many cultural differences, you should be set for a wonderful experience in Chile. With a big move like this, a good attitude goes a long way.

My husband, toddler and I made a similar move, though for us it wasn't exactly linear. We spent a few weeks visiting potential cities, then made a decision, and later made several more moves within Chile and Argentina before finding the right place for us. As others have mentioned, sometimes a place that looks great after a couple of weeks (for us this was Mendoza, Argentina) isn't the place where you'd want to spend a few years. It was a great five months, but we knew when to call it quits and head to Chile. As long as you are flexible, and have backup plans B, C, and D, you should be fine. While there are things in Chile that drive me crazy at times, such as trying to receive mail, overall we've found it to be a great place to raise a family, and incredibly beautiful.

And don't worry, Chileans are generally not as cranky as the expats! You're smart to start learning Spanish from a Chilean as the chilenismos and the accent can take a while to get used to even for people who understand castellano.

Here is the thing.

Chile is the last fort, castle, citadel in the world on sooo many levels. It is that way because it comes with built in BS protection on so many levels (economy, culture, immigration, biz, whatever). The forum with the cranky old members to a certain extent reflects that. You have to earn your place in Chile. It will not be given to you.

Just being a gringo with a pile of cash is not sufficient. Hell, being a big multi national company with a pile of cash is not sufficient.

As on the forum, you need to earn your wings. Chile will not adapt to you. You must adapt to chile.

That is exactly what protects it from becoming say another panama, costa rica, or insert hot expat destination of the week that turned in to gringo sucker holes that looks like a florida retirement community (most are not doing that well these days).

I missed that. Forum rules - min posts before linking / advertising / and similar so I deactivated the sig in that and prior posts.

admin wrote:Here is the thing. Chile will not adapt to you. You must adapt to chile.

Very true. Living in Chile definately helps up the self-sufficiency quotient. Live here long enough and you'll find yourself developing all sorts of new skills, since sometimes (often, actually) you'll want things done a certain way and nobody but yourself can make that happen in Chile. This applies to little things like making pasta (because you get tired of soggy grey grocery store pasta), learning how to make bread (since you want healthier alternatives), or bigger things like learning how to build a house (since you actually want insulation in your walls.) For my family and myself, it's a good thing, as my daughter loves all of these new "games" we're playing, and quite frankly, learning to be more self sufficient is plenty of work but it's also fun. However, it's probably not for everybody.

My two cents worth are that it is a much easier transition to move from the US to a city like Santiago or Vina del Mar as it's easier to find life's many little luxuries within them. You're never more than 15 minutes from Starbucks, and can find other expats to connect with (generally at Starbucks) to help ease the cultural transition. Where to live in the end depends upon many factors, but it's a good idea to understand the level of change you and your family are willing to accept as you deliberate your potential new homes.

jen wrote: You're never more than 15 minutes from Starbucks,

Ergo, you're never more than 15 minutes from a Starbucks that is on strike where employees are blocking and harassing potential customers who wish to enter. This is a valuable experience for expats since it helps the transition to the contentious Chilean way of life.

I think there was a provisional ceasefire a few days ago.... for now.

Belongs in the "can't get decent coffee in Chile" thread.

Welcome to Chile. Here, have an earful. And no soup for you!