During a recent visit to New York, my boyfriend and I struck up a conversation with a bartender at our hotel. Upon mentioning where we were visiting from, we were met with a jovial “Wow, you two live in Puerto Rico? What’s life like in paradise?”
It’s a sentiment that I’ve heard frequently over the past few years.
My boyfriend (a Puerto Rican native from Bayamón) and I met a few years ago while I was visiting the island for a wedding, and after a bout of long-distance dating, I moved from Massachusetts to Puerto Rico in September 2024 to take the next step in our relationship.
I’ve loved living here, and I have zero regrets about my move, but I’ll be the first to say relocating here is not something to be taken lightly.
Puerto Rico is a phenomenal place, but it’s not always the stress-free island paradise that some paint it out to be. I feel that any potential newcomers should be aware of the obstacles that they might encounter before making the move.
Daily life can be interrupted by unreliable infrastructure
For many Puerto Rico residents, the most pressing local issue is its unreliable and aging electric grid. Power outages, known in Spanish as “apagones,” are a common occurrence across the territory.
While events like the 2024 New Year’s Eve blackout and 2025 Easter Weekend outage have made global headlines, I’ve experienced plenty of neighborhood-wide interruptions that go unnoticed outside of the island.
They often happen without warning, and while my personal record is eight hours without electricity, some parts of Puerto Rico can go far longer.
Alongside power, I’ve also grappled with water interruptions at my San Juan apartment, leaving me unable to prepare for the day on multiple occasions. Given these persistent issues, many Puerto Ricans equip their homes with water cisterns, solar panels, and gas-powered generators to provide relief and backup.
It’s very common for me to see Facebook pages for the island’s water-management system and private power operator flooded with comments from residents reporting outages and asking for updates.
Living here requires a bit of patience and self-awareness
Although I moved from a US state to a US territory, relocating to Puerto Rico still came with bureaucratic challenges and delays.
Obtaining my resident ID was a frustrating process that involved several trips to several offices. This wasn’t the end of the world — and relocating to most places comes with slow-moving steps like these — but it felt pretty inefficient.
At one point, I had to drive 40 minutes for an appointment to take a single webcam photo, which took only five minutes.
Speaking of driving, Puerto Rico’s largely car-dependent infrastructure makes it difficult to navigate the island without a vehicle.
As a metro-area resident who prefers to avoid driving, the Tren Urbano (a tri-city rapid transit system) has been incredibly useful. Unfortunately, although there are some options like buses and ferries outside the San Juan area, there’s no such rapid equivalent.
Also, many roads across Puerto Rico are infamous for their large potholes, known locally as “boketes,” which are more than capable of tearing open your tire and leaving you stranded on the side of the road — something that I experienced on Christmas Day, 2025.
Finally, I’d like to stress that living on the island as an outsider should require a certain level of self-awareness.
For example, there is growing frustration with wealthy outsiders purchasing Puerto Rican land and contributing to gentrification, and while my circumstances are different, it would be hypocritical of me to say that my presence here has no impact.
Although I’m proficient in Spanish, I have accepted that my status as a resident “gringo” can be a point of contention, and I do what I can to be a respectful resident.
In spite of the challenges, the culture, people, and nature make it well worth living here
Though life in Puerto Rico — like all places — can be trying at times, I feel so fortunate to be here.
Tourist hot spots like Viejo San Juan and El Yunque National Forest are certainly beautiful, and I’ve yet to find a municipality on the island that I didn’t love.
I’ve made so many treasured memories all across the territory: snacking on empanadillas de chapín (fried handpies filled with fish) on the Naguabo coast, birdwatching in the lagoons of Cabo Rojo, and visiting chinchorros (informal roadside bars) in the central mountains, just to name a few.
Of course, no mention of Puerto Rico is complete without highlighting the people.
Though it’s certainly a cliché at this point, I cannot express in words how warm and hospitable everyone has been, whether that’s my boyfriend’s family or just strangers who strike up conversations with me while waiting for the train — and it’s these constant moments of human connection (no matter how brief) that make it all worth it in the end.
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