Living in Denmark and the DR. Learning online and my “new” old side hustle in Santo Domingo.
In 2024, I stayed in the DR from the start of January to mid-May and again for almost two months in the late fall. When I am in the Dominican Republic, I typically spend some time in the capital, Santo Domingo. But in recent years, since the start of the pandemic, I have mostly been in Las Terrenas.
My typical day when I am in Las Terrenas involves going out for morning coffee or breakfast, followed by a walk on the beach or around the village. I run errands on foot, sometimes grabbing lunch or coffee before heading home. My feeble attempt at dieting is to then not eat dinner.
I prefer visiting Las Terrenas during cooler months, as the heat can make walking uncomfortable. There has been a lot of construction going on, and it is sadly contaminating the town, making the pavements and roads muddy and the beach dirty. The infrastructure is not keeping up with the village’s growth.
During the mornings, I often meet with expats who are retirees, small business owners, or remote workers. Real estate is a frequent topic of conversation, and everyone seems to have some side hustle.
My new side hustle will be working again with commercial space in Santo Domingo, in and around the downtown area referred to as the “Poligono Central.” I work with my partner, Raysa Suarez, who hasn’t stopped working as a broker since the pandemic.
My writing and work and life balance between the Dominican Republic and Denmark is working well for me. For my overall well-being and creativity. I appreciate the balance between individual freedom in the Dominican Republic and the sense of security and structure in Denmark. Both countries offer a welcome distance from political extremism.
In this piece, I explore my lifestyle and business in Las Terrenas and Santo Domingo. I delve into my online learning journey about AI and planning tools, my return to real estate in Santo Domingo, and my recent purchase of a “summer house” apartment in Aarhus.
My social life and routine while in Las Terrenas
I frequent different restaurants and cafes in Las Terrenas. Most of them have outdoor seating, and I might hang around a bit longer as if it were a bar in the evening. I have my party in the mornings until around noon. Often, I get into interesting conversations with other expats about real estate in Las Terrenas and Santo Domingo, as well as more vague things like cryptocurrency, AI, and other online bandwagon topics. One spot is the Chiringuito, where I enjoy Italian coffee, conversation, and occasional sports viewing. I am intrigued by cryptocurrency and the stories related to it, even though I don’t have much of a clue. I have not invested in crypto. I don’t claim to be a brilliant investor, but I stick to real estate and keep some money safe in the bank, which gives me some interest. In Las Terrenas, I tried skipping dinner to diet, but my new addiction to pancakes with fruit and syrup undermined any dieting.
Avoiding political topics
I try to avoid political discussions, but one encounter with a young American woman I met at breakfast impressed me. She adopted a child from Haiti, and they live in the DR; I had told this to some Danes in Denmark who were interested in this topic. We talked a bit about the US election. It was just before. She then says, “My dad is MAGA”. The way she said it almost gave me the impression it was like she had said, “My dad is a Nazi.” I also met with an American friend a couple of times and first said I wanted to avoid talking about politics. He said, “Thank you”. I met him again after the election. His wife and two Canadians were also there. I behaved a bit like the famous comedy line “Don’t mention the war,” but then proceeded to mention the election result several times. I think his wife was a bit annoyed, and I could definitely hear it upset her when she was talking about the current political situation in the US. I am doing more to avoid befriending political extremists. Both right and left. With expats in the DR, it’s more the right-wingers I want to avoid, whereas, in Denmark, it’s more the extreme left wing who wants to keep increasing state control and taxes.
My Santo Domingo “Side Hustle” in Real Estate.
From February this year, when I am back in Santo Domingo, I will start working again in the center of the city as a real estate agent working with Raysa Suarez and her agency, which she has continued since the pandemic. She has it well organized and has much lower fixed expenses than we had before. We will work together specifically with commercial space. Office space, retail, and industrial space leases. It is a difficult business. Sometimes, you are negotiating the commission again after the closing. I found the informality in the market very tiring. On the other hand, I was also astounded when my Dominican partner was regularly paid commissions without any written legally binding agreement. Showing that sometimes there was a high level of trust. I liked the commercial leases from the beginning. It is more formal in the DR than residential real estate. Often, all parties are interested in transparency around the transaction, and you are dealing with companies and business people. Working as a real estate agent involves quite a bit of coffee drinking, and eating a cake now and again. I like that part. You always meet some interesting people who later remain contacts and even good friends. I wouldn’t have considered working again with real estate if it wasn’t for the fact that I have worked with it before for about 10 years and Raysa, my partner, for about 20 years now.
Santo Domingo
Additionally, I actually like Santo Domingo and have decided to spend more time in the DR than in Denmark. I absolutely love my gym, which has an outdoor lap pool where you can swim all year round in the sun. An important part of it will be me working with some of the marketing and generating leads. It is not a gold mine, and it is too late at 55 to make a big career out of it. But it can pay some bills, and if I move back permanently to the DR, I would want extensive health care coverage and have the business pay for it. My social life in Santo Domingo now, compared to my life in Las Terrenas, interacting with expats, is a more social life with Dominicans. That dynamic has become another healthy balance in my life for my mental health. Maybe I lack such a balance in my social life in Aarhus, Denmark. In Denmark, it has helped with some short 1 day trips to Copenhagen for a change of scenery and meeting with friends. Generally, in the DR, I have a more social life than in Denmark.
Recent SWOT analysis and time management.
A recent SWOT analysis highlighted my time management as my main underlying challenge. Sometimes, it is actually from having too much time. My days when staying in Las Terrenas often fizzle out, especially towards the end, before leaving again. Too much time makes me go out on a tangent. I aim to address my time management by narrowing down my learning focus. I set a fixed time every week, Friday afternoon, when I work on administrative tasks. I don’t have that many, but I postpone them, and then it becomes a problem where it initially wasn’t. It is my primary goal for the next month before I go back to the Dominican Republic in February. I need to sort out my accounting and banking and prepare for doing my taxes for 2024. It is not complicated, and I am not behind with my taxes. So, it is a good time to get a better handle on it.
Learning more about AI
I took the course “Google AI Essentials” on the learning platform Coursera and other courses related to AI. From what I. understand, AI can help enhance your skills. They talk about augmented cognitive capabilities. I see it as a valuable collaborator. For instance, I’m using it for tasks like structuring my website and social media copy, but I’m cautious about relying on it for more creative writing. I want to keep my style and voice. I have Gemini AI comment on my writing piece before I finish the draft to make it better. With AI, I think it’s best to find out what you can use it for and how you can benefit from it. Instead of what it can’t be used for and waste time on proving that. My main goal with AI is first to use it for administrative tasks. I would value that the most if it is possible. AI can be very useful for automated tasks. I believe that to be true, also, for small businesses.
My “AI Travel Agent”
My new travel prompt / “AI Travel Agent” that I am working on is collaborating with me for my future travel planning. I am looking at living June-August and December just around Christmas as a maximum in Denmark and September-November and January-May in the Dominican Republic. Right now, the AI agent or prompt is just an extensive checklist. I am looking at giving it access to my calendar with all my bookings and making it remind me of the things I have to remember to do before and during traveling. It looks a bit complicated to set up, but I will try it. It is fun to experiment with it and learn about AI at the same time. On my last flight to the DR at Gatwick Airport, I had forgotten to fill out the e-ticket for entry to the DR. Luckily, I was early at the airport and had lots of time to do it at check-in. An example of another thing to remember. It’s a steep learning curve, but I’m excited about the potential of using AI for planning travel, and I hope It, in the long run, can become an AI agent for most of my planning.
Routine administrative tasks, AI, and my “Agente Administrativa.”
I am working on how Gemini AI in Google Workspace can help with some administrative tasks in my Dominican Republic company. For instance, with collecting the information my business partner has to send to her accountant monthly for tax compliance. The expenses she has paid and the invoices she has issued are related to real estate commissions. She has low fixed monthly expenses but has the contacts and experience of all the prior years. I have since the pandemic, when we closed our serviced office center and almost closed the business completely, been involved with some things around the administration of the company and online marketing. We share a user in Google Workspace that is set up in Spanish and with Gemini AI. That is the tool I am trying to use for administrative tasks. She has a setup now where a friend issues invoices at closings and keeps track of them in a spreadsheet, and she has an accountant who does the monthly tax compliance. My old accountant then does the annual tax filing.
Google Global Marketing
Early last August, after completing an evaluation form for Gemini in Google Workspace, Google Global Marketing contacted me to take part in their Google Workspace User Love series. I recorded the interview at a workspace center in Aarhus in September, where I discussed my business, content creation mission, and Google Workspace usage, including Gemini AI. The video portrays my business as based in the Dominican Republic which came out naturally that way for me. I did not prepare exact answers to the list of questions, but it led me to use Gemini AI more in the following weeks. It has become part of writing to learn and write about it and now to implement the use of it in my small business and personal life. The process made me think more about the mission of my content creation business, and I used the brainstorming function in Gemini to help formulate it.
Reaction to the video
Recording the video by Google led to a broader description of my content creation business, which I now proudly display on LinkedIn, Medium, and my website, www.johnboyter.com, and I display the video on the homepage of my website. While some dismissed the video as “just free marketing for Google” (which it undeniably was!), I was thrilled with the opportunity and the resulting professional video showcasing my writing. The real enthusiasm came from my Dominican Republic partner and her friends in Santo Domingo, a welcome contrast to the all-too-common condescension I encountered in Denmark. This experience solidified my decision to focus my business efforts in the Dominican Republic, where my company is based, and in the US, through my virtual office in Miami for my content creation and publishing online. I can live in Denmark, declare my taxes there, and have my Danish clinic.
My “software upgrade”
In Denmark, I received my education, and I feel I am getting a bit of a “software” upgrade in different areas when I am there. Or getting “rewired,” as a Dominican friend once phrased it to me about ten years ago. He figured I needed it. I partly get my “upgrade” by interacting with the society in Denmark. They are always educating us, I feel, at the clinic, on TV daily, and people around me with social norms education. You are often reminded how you should behave. There is a lot of social control in Denmark. It’s good to some extent, I think. Big brother is watching you, but in a good way, I feel, still. When I am in the DR, I feel freer, but there is not the same feeling of safety. I am hoping it will be a good balance to go back and forth. I have also realized that maybe the standard of living in the DR is not as low as it’s portrayed to be, and the standard of living in Denmark is not as high. At least for me, it’s probably relatively higher in the DR and relatively lower in Denmark. This is something I am going to get more into in my publication from now on.
My new apartment in Denmark with “summerhouse” status.
At the end of the year, I received the keys to my new small apartment in the Aarhus Ø area in Denmark. It’s a new area they are developing, and I think it is cozy and keeps improving with more apartments, offices, shops, restaurants, and cafes. A hotel and conference center is being built now. Danish laws complicate owning normal residential property if you live abroad. Only property with a special status as a summerhouse or another form without tax residency, but then it is difficult to rent out. To me, it was an opportunity that checked all the boxes. Inside my budget. Small and practical near everything. Excellent location with a great view of the water and the city. Reasonably near my mother in Aarhus, who is now 90. I couldn’t now have decided on Copenhagen, which is far away from her. As I don’t feel my work and business are in Denmark, though, I am hoping to move to the DR again and keep the apartment/summerhouse.
Banking in Denmark
When I moved back to Denmark in 2022, I needed to open a bank account and called a few banks. They all made it sound very complicated. I heard about the bank Lunar and downloaded their App. I easily opened an account with them using my digital Danish ID, MitID. Afterward, I could transfer the funds that originated from the sale of a property in the Cayman Islands some years back. I had the funds in a personal account abroad that I then closed. They approved my paperwork from the property sale. It can easily become a chicken and egg thing. But you open the account and then transfer the money. Lunar Bank made that process very easy. However, Lunar Bank says I cannot keep the account if I move back to the Dominican Republic. They only service clients living in the EU. I imagine they don’t want to deal with setting up that extra workflow for a few clients.
Searching for banking solutions
I then heard of Revolut and have set up an account with them now to see how they operate. With these banks, I haven’t been in a physical bank or dealt with a bank advisor or a bank teller or anything like that. They operate exclusively through mobile apps. In the meantime, my bank in the Dominican Republic — Banco Popular — also has a great App where I do all my banking in the DR, and I communicate with my DR bank now via chat, too. I have to pay my monthly maintenance fees in Denmark with a payment system called PBS, which I have now learned is a requirement. That is going to be a challenge if I move back to the Dominican Republic, which was one of the reasons I bought an apartment with “summerhouse” status, to have that option. I will have to see if there is somehow a workaround for paying the monthly expenses and receiving possible short-term rental income. I don’t think the owners’ association will accept a payment other than the PBS, which only Danish banks use. I think the only way is if I find a Danish bank that will accept me as a client, knowing that I will be moving to the Dominican Republic for some years.
My writing going forward
I now have my writing in a system that I have been consistent with. It includes an online publication/newsletter and spontaneous social media blog posts. My life in Santo Domingo and Las Terrenas, running a small business, and working with real estate are all topics I explore. I’ll write about my life in the DR, the people I meet, and my experiences and observations. Also, my new life in Aarhus in Denmark is staying in my small apartment in the summer and about the area and the city. I’ll continue to publish for free, aiming for monthly releases of my online publication. This is what I’m currently doing, and I’m happy with it. I am grateful for anybody reading my publication and am always very pleased with any feedback. I didn’t quite publish it monthly in 2024, but that will be my goal for 2025. There is a reason I call my publication “Becoming a Writer,” as I realize it takes a long time to become great at writing, and it’s a process and a journey. The subtitle. “Authentic stories and insights about tools, learning and AI” underlines this.
Personal growth and development
It can be difficult to finish a draft. I always seem to reach some new realization, which often leads to a pivot. That shows how writing has value for personal growth and development. Last year, it was about using AI and my flawed planning, which I am now working on improving, and I am trying to use AI. This time, I have decided to work again as a real estate agent in Santo Domingo and work with Airbnb with my apartments so I can make it work while living in Denmark and the Dominican Republic. I feel I have reached a plateau with my writing. I improve but very slowly. The e-book I wrote and self-published last year I took down again from Amazon. I want to rewrite it later. It will start when the pandemic starts. I was in Miami on a visit and then went back to Santo Domingo the day before the lockdown in the Dominican Republic. So, another realization has been that the goal for my writing the next couple of years should be to continue with a free monthly online publication and finish just one e-book in a couple of years. Starting a subscription-based online publication I have on hold, probably for some years.
