Saipan, the freest place in America

where is Saipan and why do I say it's the freest place in America well for those that don't know let me tell you where exactly Saipan is Saipan is the principal Island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands which is a U.S territory in the Pacific just north of Guam to get to Saipan from the lower 48 you're gonna have to take at least two flights and travel at least 20 hours but let me tell you why that may just be worth it I visited Saipan twice in 2021 once in April or I stayed a few weeks and then once in August where I stayed for two months and my time there I saw that Saipan offers a great deal of freedom not just politically with its independence and autonomy from the rest of the United States but also with the type of culture they have there the main benefit you'll often hear people talk about with regards to the U.S territories is tax reduction people living in the territories are the only U.S persons that are exempt from the jurisdiction of the IRS as you live in the cnmi you don't have to pay any federal taxes and instead only pay taxes to the cnmi government they have their own structure which resembles the U.S tax brackets but they have rebates so you end up paying much less additionally there is no sales tax in Saipan and there's also no property tax this comes with the trade-off that non-chamorros which is the ethnicity native to the Marianas cannot own properly but if you marry a Chamorro and have children those children will be able to own property so they'll get the tax savings and also if you lease property you get cost reductions because the owner doesn't have to pay any property taxes not only is the tax law favorable but also the political climate and will because the cnmi gets much of its funding from the federal government instead of taxes paid by its own residence the cnmi as well as Guam also have their own visa rules allowing people from various countries in Asia to come visa-free boosting the tourist economy there and providing business opportunities in addition to favorable tax law Saipan also has fairly decent gun laws years back that used to be much stricter but after a few court cases in favor of gun rights now the only real restriction on guns in Saipan is that you need to get a license to own them but besides that anything that is legal on the federal level is also legal in Saipan there is one shooting range on Saipan and on the other Islands there are opportunities for outdoor shooting and hunting not only are guns legal inside pan but so is weed weed is legal for adults to use and there are dispensaries and people smoking it all over the island another thing about Saipan law is that though there are illegal restrictions on window tints they are completely unenforced due to how hot the island is and how sunny it is in the dry season many people have fully blacked out tints and you'll see you know cars roll up to the stoplight fully blacked out they roll down their Windows to let all the smoke from their car out then they roll them back up and the police don't care in general the police are very chill there when it comes to Traffic Law and stuff like if you do something that gets you pulled over it's very unlikely they'll give you a ticket they'll just talk to you and send you on their way the police there are the people there everyone is very friendly and you don't deal with lots of the silliness and complications you would deal with in the rest of America and even around the world for example when I went to Saipan and I wanted to rent a car I just texted the guy which number I had met up with him in like an hour and he rented me a Camaro for ten dollars a day three hundred dollars for a month and he didn't ask to see like my license or my insurance he didn't ask anything about me he was like oh you know that guy okay let's do this get over with it's like okay pleasure doing business with you or as you know if I wanted to rent a car in the mainland they've been like you're way too young to rent a car and we're gonna charge you about 10 times as much not not inside pan though but you know besides all these freedoms what is the day-to-day like inside pan well it's very unique I'll start with the climate for one has the most consistent climate of any region on Earth so every day of the year is a cool 80 degrees with decent humidity there are two seasons in the Marianas there's the dry season in the wet season uh I actually prefer the wet season because the clouds give you some relief from the Sun whereas in the dry season it's really beating down on you so if you like chilling by the beach every day of the year and wearing a t-shirt and sandals this would be a place for you but if you're if you're a fan of wearing sweaters and being very fashionable maybe not the ideal location another thing is that it's an island of less than 50 000 people so you might not have all the amenities you want and there's plenty of restaurants and supermarkets and there's casinos a few gambling spots so there's nothing that you need to have Medical Care on the album is acceptable as well but you're not going to get that Amazon two-day shipping or you know go down to any Walmart there's very few National chains there maybe uh some fast food places but besides that there's local stores and businesses the food they have on the island is from the various uh Asian countries that have people that have immigrated over so there's lots of Chinese food Filipino food Japanese food things like that which is also the main makeups of the island so the biggest population groups on the island are neither Mainland Americans nor native chamoros but Chinese and Filipino immigrants so it's it's quite a unique place when you're inside pan you're on the edge of the world you're cut off from everything but doesn't feel lonely though Community is very very friendly the island it feels like it has if you're a minimalist type person then it will feel like you have everything you need without being overwhelmed but if you're more of the Cosmopolitan type then you're gonna get a bad case of Cabin Fever but if you like nature if you like hearing uh and seeing the sounds of beautiful exotic birds and endless Beach and you like the water and you like the tropical climate and all the plants then it's a place you can very easily fall in love with but if you go there and the first thing you do is you try in the open up Uber or some food delivery app they'll be very disappointed and that along with the difficulty of accessing the rest of the United States are the biggest drawbacks to life in Saipan but if you are a traveler who likes to travel to Asia it's an ideal location because you're in between many large hubs you can go to Tokyo you can go to the Philippines you can go to Australia none of these are very close but you're kind of in between all of them during my time in Saipan I was able to engage with these crypto Frontier there was a there was a community of people onboarding merchants and building a crypto economy in Saipan I was able to go there spend crypto at a few places and it was a very cool thing to be able to do they had their own stable coin there and businesses were a big fan that that Community has mostly dried up but there are still some businesses on Saipan social dispensaries which take crypto and might not be necessary to tell you if you've been paying attention to the pictures on the screen but the Saipan has the most beautiful sunsets you will ever see any color you could imagine any pattern of clouds I've seen at one point or another in the sky and it's the most gorgeous thing ever ultimately I decided not to stay inside pan because I still wanted to experience some City Life and be able to travel around places easier but it has a very special place in my heart and I will definitely be returning one day

Channel: William Offshore

Views: 415,313

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Id: PNBMSh7PkdM

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023