Quote: (12-21-2011 09:14 PM)speakeasy Wrote:
If I were going to do a mini retirement for six months to a year, Lebanon would be a top contender.
Question, what were the costs like overall? Can Beirut be done on a budget without staying in hostels?
They use the US Dollar so that makes it easier, but there are no real hostels in Beirut. To stay in a decent hotel, you're going to pay at least $75/night. You probably want to look into getting an apartment. Depending on how you eat and where, food can be reasonable, but at normal places you're paying almost as much as home. The same goes for clubbing and drinking at bars. Lebanon is really the Europe of the Middle East. There's high end stores and cars all over the place in Beirut, so people have money to spend.
Also, Beirut and Lebanon generally just doesn't feel like a long-term kind of place. They are still reeling from the past civil war a couple of decades ago and the Israeli and Syrian occupations. There's a lot of divisions between different groups there, and you just never know what could happen in the Middle East. It would be perfect if it didn't have those political problems.