PMV or No PMV. ... here is my 2 cents.

Jzarz according to your post history you werent even here until sometime in early August. If your wife and kid arrived 3 weeks after that they would have arrived here early September. That means you have been here about 6 weeks, the first three weeks being just you, and your family has been here with you about 3 weeks.

You are doing your PMV right now lol

I don't know if I would call it a PMV since he shipped his households and a car. That would be on hell of a PMV lol.

I think the PMV was great for me and I reccomend it. That's just my .02 I'm surprised anyone with kids wouldn't do a PMV. Seems like it would be a must. Maybe not lol.

I guess if you consider a PMV involving moving my car and apartment items along with my family to St John then yes I guess I'm still in the PMV phase but plan on just staying. I can see a lot of people trying to warn others of the difficulties of island life but for me I guess I see things different, I'm use to moving a lot so my mind set is different to me it's like any other place in the world. You have to know what your mentally capable of. Liquor is cheap here so if you can't handle it then think twice but again anywhere you go you will always find things that can entrap you if you let them. So I think that it's not so much VI living that one should consider but perhaps people have to look inward and see if mentally they can deal with these opportunities. I don't see it as a huge issue cause I have my own set of priorities and I won't deviate from them. .... I think that it's great that people can come and give advice to others who are thinking of moving here I fully support it an I strongly recommend others to look through all the advice ppl give. No two humans are the same so I can't say my experience is typical infant it my be atypical it's just my 2 cents on moving here. I can tell you with 100% confidence that it would have been impossible for me had I not had a job already lined up. So that did play a huge part in my relocating here.

What I meant was your family has only been here for 3 weeks, you havent really started living here yet. But welcome and thanks for sharing!

True
I guess I'm still in the honeymoon phase lol. I was happy to take my first car barge over th St T to do some shopping and eat Mc D's which didn't have soda at the time 🙁 I guess only time will tell 🙂

It is true, I usually recommend a pre move visit for those thinking of relocating to St. John. Especially for those without a sizable chunk of money or those with school age children. I have found that a lot of people that are coming from the states with school age children have trouble living without all of the creature comforts they were used to.

If you have a higher income, and don't mind spending it, you can get a lot of those comforts. But a lot of the posters who are talking about moving here also comment on having not a lot of money and no job lined up. That can make the first few months here really tough. No job, no car, no place to live, and sometimes not even enough money for the first/last/security that many landlords require... ouch!

I was one of the crazy people that moved here with less than a $1000, no job, no place to live, and had never been here before. I DID have a round trip ticket 🙂 But I got lucky, and am still here 13 years later. So it can be done, but I wouldn't recommend what I did to others. It was very very rough going the first couple of months.

Alot of people advise you to do a PMV. I did not. To me it just didnt seem to make much sense. I have a wife and three kids, and it seemed to me that the cost and time involved with a PMV for us would not be worth it. My wife and I had vacationed here on STX twice for one week at a time. That short time plus all the info on this board was all really all we used to judge our move. We committed to coming here and staying for at least one year, and it has been about 5 months now. There have been issues, and my wife doesnt really like it here. But I dont see as of now that a PMV would have really addressed most of the issues we have had. One thing that we did do was lease a house for 6 months before we got here and I paid the 6 months up front. I did not have a job lined up when we came here so I figured I didnt want to worry about rent. Paying a lump sum is also a great negotiating tool when renting a house.

ONE of the reasons people recommend a PMV is to inject some reality into some people's decision making.

Not infrequently do we read a post saying "I've never been there" or " I can't afford the PMV".

And of course, its a different decision if you're single as opposed to bringing a family.

It's also important to ask, "can you really afford to move without killing your finances?" and... "can you afford to move your stuff back if things change?" Those are personal questions which simply need to be asked. Your answer is your own.

No pmv for me, I have kids but also had a job lined up with some expenses paid. I would not reccomend for everyone, depends on circumstance and how adventurous you are willing to be. We stayed in a short term rental until long term arrangements could be made. Has worked out great.

I wonder what the real stats are as far as PMVs.

How many people do a PMV and stay longer than 6 months?

How many people dont do a PMV and stay longer than 6 months?

How many people do a PMV and realize the islands are not for them?

People on this board seem to push the PMV alot but I wonder if statisticaly it makes any difference.

I do think that before someone moves here they should have at least vacationed or travelled here at some point so they know if they like it at least from that perspective.

We spent a week on STX about 9 months before we moved. Stayed in a condo, rented a car. Drove all over island, checked out larger employers. We moved with a bankroll of about $12,000, brought 2 vehicles full of stuff (allowed then) and mailed ourselves about 10 other boxes. Had a stateside pension, but no jobs and no long-term place to live. After 3 days at Waves of Cane Bay, we found a long-term rental and moved in 2 days later. That was in August of 2003. Ric started a job just after Thanksgiving of that year, I started working the following March. We stayed until family considerations dictated a move back to Kentucky in January of this year.

The more money you have, the easier the move. Of course if you have a well-paying job lined up, that's good too.