Thanks for sharing, way to go! Since comment sections are always good for laughs, I made some material:
1. This dude is named "Celestian Rince" and he's not the one working as kitchen cleaner?! He ought to be endorsing some cleaning products!
2. As if vegans weren't preachy enough, these two want to add "early retirees" to their resumes?! They'll be downright insufferable, telling everyone how to live their lives!
But seriously, congrats on the progress and online "fame". Have your friends / families seen the article? I imagine it may be an interesting "outing" for people who didn't know your approach. As you ponder downtown living vs this island, it'd be interesting to see cost implications...I imagine many people wonder about money (and time) trade-offs with home location.
My brother lives on salt spring island, one of the gulf island zikoris might be contemplating. He is very much not mustachian and has no need to be as he sold his first company for hundreds of millions and he built a whole compound on 5 acres of waterfront, so his experience may not be entirely representative, but he HATES it and is probably going to move off, it was never a good fit for him and i dunno why he did it. Basically getting on/off the islands is a real pain in the ass, in the summer there's multiple ferry waits every ferry and in the winter they get cancelled frequently, so he just ends up hermiting on his property, and no one really goes to visit, like I havent gone there in a year even though his property is incredible, I get my own amazing house, and he has a personal spa, but getting on/off is such a nightmare, if that's what you want then great but it's not working well for him. It's also dark, like really dark. There's no city lights or anything like that so from like 4pm-8am from October - March there's just no light other than the light from your own house, so you end up just staying inside your house and not leaving, great for star gazing, bad if you have to walk your dog where there's no sidewalks and the only light is the puddle of light around you from your headlamp or your kids are cooped up inside. He also finds that everything is just harder, like going to the park with his kids is a big ordeal getting them into the car, driving 10 mins to the only park on the island, there's no other kids there, and then driving back. Finding someone to clean his gutters, mechanics, daycare/nanny, etc. (ya ya do it yourself but he's not going to), Just basic services like that are really hard to find. Also islanders can be an odd group... his circumstances as a tech star probably isn't winning him any friends. He posted on facebook marketplace looking for a nanny, was offering $60-80/hr for one, he thought simple solution to simple problem and that was a pretty generous rate of pay, and they got absolutely BLASTED for that posting, people said really mean/rude things to him about him and his family because he's rich (his kids are awesome and very fun/easy). He ended up having to get an au pair because there was no daycare/nannies available. Food options are limited, there's minimal grocery stores so getting ingredients that might be more specific for cuisines is really hard, like good luck finding asian, mexican, indian, etc. ingredients and getting on/off the island to get those is a pain. That said, because of these drawbacks, it can be easier to live cheaply because you're not spending money on much and it's easy to live very simply and it does provide a lot of quiet and solitude which is amazing for people who want that.
TLDR: Move to the islands for peace and quiet and just be really really prepared that is EXACTLY what you will get. I love the idea of it, no way I would want to actually live that way for an extended period of time. Amazing place to visit for a weekend or week, but not the place for me to live.
