Alexandria vs Duncans

Alexandria is a tiny Jamaican hill town where a one-bedroom outside the center runs about $70/mo and a three-bedroom in the center just $270/mo, putting the budget tier for a single adult at $554/mo and the comfortable tier at $976/mo. The catch is everything else: healthcare quality is poor, the safety and crime indexes both sit at 50/100, and internet crawls at 12 Mbps, so remote work is a chore. Retirees should look elsewhere given a 52/100 retiree score and a $2,000/mo income floor for the retirement visa, though FIRE chasers will appreciate the 77/100 score and a cost of living index of 20/100. Come for the cheap rent and English-speaking locals, not for hospitals or fast Wi-Fi.

Duncans is a sleepy coastal village that offers little beyond cheap utilities and a low cost of living, but the trade-offs are steep: poor healthcare, a mediocre safety index, and an internet speed of 9 Mbps that will frustrate any serious remote worker. With a digital nomad score of 41 and an expat score of 49, this is not a place for career-focused expats, though retirees might tolerate the 51 score if they crave isolation. The $770 monthly rent for a one-bedroom is a bargain, but you are 18 km from the Montego Bay airport and stuck in a tropical climate with hurricane risk from May to November. Skip it unless you are desperate for cheap solitude and can handle subpar infrastructure.