I arrived in El Salvador on a one-way ticket approximately 9 days ago now (Lau and the kids get here tomorrow)
and started making daily VLOGs about it on X and Instagram.
I could write a whole post on how surprisingly successful these posts have been,
but that’s not what I want to share here today.
Today I want to run down our decision-making process on why we decided to leave our homestead-in-progress in Hawaii
and plant our flag in Central America:
- Culture & Community
- Family & Proximity
- Politics & Our Kids’ Future
1. Culture & Community
I pinned this first because it was our key decision-maker. Hawaii is paradise, and where we lived was full of beautiful people all dedicated to growing more aware of themselves. This was a big factor in us moving there.
However, there was more to the culture of eccentric freedom there than meets the eye,
and it took us 2 years to discover that short of being trust-fund recipients,
or extremely successful remote entrepreneurs,
or simply retired,
making ends meet is not easy there.
The time difference alone makes any kind of remote work difficult.
I mention this in regards to culture because we came to believe that this created a culture of poverty there.
Most people we knew were on food stamps (we were too, for a spell)
and some people even had their housing paid for by the government.
I’m not completely anti-socialism; however I feel government assistance should be a temporary thing
and not a permanent lifestyle… which is what it appeared to be for many in our area.
The longer we stayed there, the more clear it became that our children would grow up surrounded by a lack of hustle or ambition.
There is one aspect of this that is beautiful; however, when the government has been paying for your family’s subsistence, something about it began to feel very off for us… despite the living in paradise, these were not the values we wanted our children to grow up in.
Meanwhile, here in El Salvador (and Central America in general), government hand-outs are few and far between.
People that lack live in shacks they create from old recycled materials on squatted land
and sell mangos and coconuts on the side of the road to get by.
And to my knowledge, there’s no victim mentality in that.
Things are the way they are and it’s accepted.
Meanwhile in a welfare state, it’s easy to accept the checks because “things are unfair” (and they are—but that doesn’t mean we should not remain solution-oriented, always, and learn to solve our problems the best we can).
So that leads into community: there is a bit of a renaissance happening in El Salvador mostly thanks to its president’s policies and its adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. People from all walks of life that want to be a part of something bigger than themselves are flocking here.
Proof-of-Work is the underlying motivation of Bitcoiner culture, which is completely the opposite of accepting free hand-outs to survive.
Prove yourself, do the work, and you get what’s coming to you.
And that is the mentality we want our children to develop as they mature.
2. Family & Proximity
Family is important to us. It is especially tricky for us to balance quality time with extended family when we hail from 2 countries on opposite ends of the Western hemisphere.
Central America offers us a clean negotiation.
My parents were a 5-hour flight from us in Hawaii, and they’re a 5-hour flight from us here. No change.
But for anyone in Lau’s family to visit us from Argentina, it was close to a 24-hour journey (and let’s not even get into the price).
Being in Central America has cut that journey and price in half, at least. It also makes it more accessible for us to go visit them more frequently.
3. Politics & the Future
This is extremely important but when we hashed out our values and priorities, it still clocks in at #3.
El Salvador is one of the few countries I am aware of on an objective upward trajectory.
For over 3 decades, this place was corrupt and unsafe. People couldn’t leave their homes at night due to gangs. Business owners were exploited under threat of having a family member murdered.
President Bukele has cleaned all that up in the last 4 years. It is now the safest country in the Western hemisphere.
I mentioned Bitcoin and I won’t spend too much time hammering that point home. But Bitcoin is the only sound money that exists right now, free from the threat of manipulation that plagues the dollar or any other fiat currency—the central bank can always print more paper money, which leads to inflation, which is the devaluation of your savings.
Why is that important? Money is the social technology that we use to communicate abstract value. When it is corrupted (as it is and has been for the last 100 years), by default our transactions are distorted. It makes it more difficult to conduct business ethically and with integrity, and on a macro level, corrupted money allows for the continuation of the endless wars we’ve grown to know as commonplace.
I’d rather pay my taxes to a jurisdiction that is not funding endless wars. I’d rather pay my taxes to a country that is actively (and demonstrably) making the lives better of its citizens—many of which live in relative poverty. Short of starting an NGO that is out there diligently enhancing the lives of people, this is the simplest way to align our life force with our values.
Meanwhile, the government here is actively banning the same propaganda we see in schools across the USA. The same stuff that felt harmless and progressive 10 years ago has now been coerced, twisted, and manipulated into an agenda to condition our children into believing that there is no actual objective truth in the world, that we must listen to the State for answers.
But that’s not true. Truth comes from within, which is only possible when freedom is taught to the youth.
And that’s what’s being worked on here. Over the next 5 years of President Bukele’s second term, I expect not only significant economic progress (getting out of debt to the IMF by 2029, for example), but also progress in the realm of individual autonomy.
The principles of money are being taught in schools so the next generation can understand better when an outside party attempts to manipulate their currency. A medical freedom law is in the works to ensure that no mandated injections or medical procedures can ever be coerced upon the public again. It would honestly seem that this government has its people’s best interest in mind (imagine that!)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t want to be a simp for any politician, but after watching the changes from afar since 2020, and finally coming here several times over the past 6 months, I was finally able to verify that this president seems to be for real.
Until we start to see otherwise, I am happy to place my eggs in this basket and excited to be a part of it.
In conclusion, we see hope here.
People are optimistic about the future.
Where else are people looking forward to what comes next?
I see nothing positive coming to the USA or Europe any time soon, and the recent presidential “debate” has proven that with flying colors.
I’ve also partnered up with a cool, inspired dude who sees the same potential here, and we’re starting a business.
We’re also starting a daily show & podcast, which I’ll be excited to share with you soon.
If you ever find yourself wanting to come see for yourself what’s up here, send me a message!
