Is it realistic to move to Cartagena and build a tourism business with ~$300k CAD saved?
Not sure if this is the right sub, but I’m looking for realistic opinions from people who’ve lived abroad or started businesses in Latin America.
Basically, within the next 2 years I should have around $300,000 CAD saved. My goal is to move to Cartagena, Colombia and start a tourism-related business. I already have a few friends/connections in the city, and my initial goal would just be to make around $1,000 USD/month consistently, then hopefully scale that to around $3,000 USD/month over time.
I can go two different routes:
- Continue operating my business in Canada, which would probably net me around $75,000 CAD/year, but I’d likely need to fly back and forth to Cartagena at least twice a month since it’s a very relationship/personal-service type business and hard to delegate.
- Fully commit to Cartagena and live off my savings/investments until the tourism business becomes stable.
Long term, I’d like to live off the tourism business exclusively for the next 20 years or so. I also expect to receive a significant inheritance later in life, so retirement/security isn’t my biggest concern — I’m more focused on building a lifestyle and something I actually enjoy.
I know tourism can be seasonal and unstable, so I’m trying to figure out:
- Is this financially realistic?
- Is $300k CAD enough runway to make this work without panicking?
- Would keeping the Canadian income stream initially be the smarter move?
- Has anyone here built a small tourism/hospitality business in Cartagena or elsewhere in Colombia?
Would appreciate honest opinions, especially from people familiar with Cartagena specifically.
I used Chatgpt to structure my thoughts.