3 Things I Do NOT Like About Paraguay

Life in Paraguay is not perfect. This place has its flaws. I know I speak super super highly of this place because I truly do love it.

But I want to make sure that you guys who are watching know what to expect here and you're truly prepared for all of the amazing stuff and all of the bad stuff that you need to be careful of and that you need to take into account before coming here. So, here are in this video three things that I do not like about life in Paraguay. My name is Estabbon.

I am a US expat who has been in Paraguay for almost 8 months now and I have no plans of leaving. Follow my content here on this channel. Like the video, subscribe to the channel if you want to learn about why it is I made that decision and why I don't have any plans of leaving.

And a lot more amazing Paraguay content and just general expat content is going to be coming here in 2026. So stay tuned. It's all going to be good stuff.

Now, disclaimer. I slightly click baited you into clicking this video. I put in the title three things I do not like about life in Paraguay.

Um, the truth is, I kid you not, I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to record this video. I came here to record and I thought to myself, okay, I had kind of an idea as to what my first two things I don't like will be. and I was thinking of the third one and I'd like walked around and just paced did laps for half an hour trying to think of the third one and I just couldn't come up with it.

Um, now I know that sounds kind of facitious, right? It's like I I I start the video saying it's not perfect. Um, but I'm being genuinely serious that I couldn't come up with a third reason that's significant enough or important enough to include in this video.

At least as of now. I'm sure I'll make a future video on this topic and I might have 10 different things to include. But what I do want to do is give you my first two.

And then for my third, instead of having like a concrete reason, I'm going to give you a couple of honorable mentions. Tell you about why they're things I don't like, but also tell you why they're honorable mentions and why they're really not that big of a deal, at least for someone like myself. Um, so essentially, they like almost made the cut, but they didn't make the cut.

But I'm going to include those as like our our placeholder for the third one. So reason number one in Paraguayan culture it's very common to be indirect and unconfrontational. Now this has its benefits right generally as I've mentioned ad nauseium already.

Paraguayans are incredible amazing people. I love them to death. Part of the reason why they're so incredible and amazing is because they're very nice.

They're very hospitable and they're very respectful. Um and they're just good vibes, man. They're just they're just friendly, cool, chill people.

But with that, with being nice and respectful, they they don't like confrontation and they they'd rather just tell you things the way you think the way they think you want to hear them as opposed to telling you things that the way the way that they actually are. Um, so in a lot of cases, if they have bad news to deliver to you, they're not really going to deliver it. Or maybe we'll kind of sugarcoat it and put it in a way that gets them by without addressing the truth for the way the way it really is.

This can be on an important level, right? Like say you're you're buying a property and you're dealing with the agent or you're buying a car. Um or you know you're you lost your luggage at the airport.

Um which recently happened to my dad actually when he came here. Um, you know, it can be something important like that where, you know, maybe, let's just say, for example, you're buying a property and there's something about the house that they know that that the agent knows you're not going to like, they might just kind of not mention it. Um, or, uh, let's just say you ordered a car and it's being imported.

Uh, this one I've heard specifically from someone and you know, they tell you it's going to be two weeks and then you call them in two weeks and the person knows it's going to be four more weeks, but they say, "Oh, it'll come anytime now. Don't worry, I'll let you know. Instead of just saying it the way it is, instead of saying, "Hey, sir, it's going to take four more weeks.

I apologize. " They say, "Oh, just it'll come. I'll let you know.

" Um, or it can be something that's super inconsequential, right? Not that important. For example, uh, you invite someone to hang out and they can't come.

This is s this is super common in all of Latin America, by the way. This is not just Paraguay, but it is very prevalent here. Uh, instead of saying, "Sorry, man.

I can't make it," it'll say, "Yeah, I'll let you know. " Come on, man. Will you really let me know or do you just not want to tell me no?

Just tell me no. Um, this also falls into I'm just going to blanket this with uh or parawaya, right? Paraguayan time, which also is not exclusive to Paraguay, but it is very common here.

Uh, where people will just kind of arrive late. You know, you tell them to meet at 6:00, they'll show up at 7:15 like nothing happened. Um, especially if it's like a social gathering, right?

Like you show them to show up at 8, bro, they're they're coming through at 10:30. Uh, and if it's like a meeting, like say you're meeting with someone at a coffee shop, like, you know, meeting an agent, for example, a listing agent or, you know, a lawyer or something like that, you know, you tell them meet at 6, they'll be there at 6:45, they'll be there at 6:30. Um, and a lot of times, like, they just don't sweat it, right?

They won't even tell you that they're being late. Like, they'll just show up late because they'd rather just do that as opposed to giving you the bad news of, "Hey, I'm going to be late. " Um, and this it's not a huge deal, right?

You know, we it's fine, right? Like if if you are decently socially aware, you can read between the lines and you can find out what the truth is without them needing to deliver them needing them needing to deliver it to you directly. Um but if you're if you're doing important transactions, if you're dealing with things that matter a lot, it's just something that you're definitely going to have to be aware of.

Um because of course over time, uh it just it might make things a little bit more inefficient than you need them to be. >> No, no, no. see.

Okay. Okay. Uhhuh.

different. Mhm. All right.

So, back to it. Um, what a nice guy. What a nice guy.

Just came through said, uh, for those of you guys who don't speak Spanish, said, "Hey, like, sorry, am I bothering you? " Said, "No, no problem at all. " So, yeah, I live here just out for a walk.

Um, telling me a little bit about his experience there. It's nice guy. Nice, awesome guy.

I thought that, you know, he might be like, you know, in America, right? Like where where where I'm from. Um, it's like if you see an older gentleman approach you while recording, you think like, uhoh, he might give me some problems.

Um but no, hey man, how's how's it going? Sorry. He said, this is this is a part of his lap and he wanted to do it and I was Yeah, totally fine.

No problem at all. Um awesome. Yeah, incredible gentleman.

Great people, man. I love the people here so much. Uh always social, always willing to to talk and and tell you, you know, give you advice.

Uh yeah, great great little interaction right there. Hope that guy hope that guy enjoys the rest of his walk. So, I'll see how much of that I clip in and and cut out.

But yeah, cool little blooper, right? Um, we continue. So, uh, yeah, it's just as westerners, we're used to things being more black and white, right?

This is how it is. This is how it is not. If you want it this way, it's like this.

If you want it that the other way, it's like that. Um, I can help you if you want this, but I cannot help you if you want that. But here a lot of times people instead of telling you no, I cannot help you, they say yes, I can help you and then figure it out and then apologize if it goes wrong or they'll say I maybe can help you, maybe not.

Let's figure it out. I'll let you know. You know what I mean?

Um, that's like kind of from a business perspective. And then of course, like I said on a day-to-day basis, just like hanging out with people, they're more indirect. Um, also, by the way, I made a short about this one time.

If you smell bad, for example, they're not going to tell you. They'd rather just keep it to themselves and not let you know, "Hey, man, by the way, you smell bad. Uh just just looking out for you.

" They're not they're not going to say that. Or if you've got something in your teeth or, you know, it's like or if you say you you say something that maybe you shouldn't have said, um or you just made a bad first impression, unless somebody's really tight with you, they're not going to correct you. Uh they're just going to let you do your thing.

But then by you doing your thing, you might suffer some consequences along the way, right? If you make a bad impression or if you smell bad. Um, you know, there's there's there's a price to pay for that, right?

Um, but they're indirect or they're they're less confrontational sense that they don't want to bother you by telling you, hey man, correct this. Um, but me, I'm someone who really appreciates that. You know, I I like people who are honest.

Even if it's not necessarily what I want to hear, as long as I know you're doing it in good faith, I really appreciate that. But yeah, um that is my first reason. Not a huge deal.

Again, you know, you can you can get by just fine, but um if you're going to be doing business here, definitely keep that in mind. And then just understand, you know, for friends, you know, dating stuff like that might be a little bit little bit of navigating you're going to have to do to get to the real truth sometimes. So second reason Paraguay.

Now this this is this is going to be more specific to Asunion which is I'm going to imagine is going to be most of you guys's first starting point. Asunion um is walkable. Yes, walkable.

You don't need to have a car in order to live here. Especially if you work online and you don't commute to like you don't commute to work, you work from home. Um, it's walkableish, but it's still quite car dependent.

Meaning, if you live in a nice area, like a centralized area like a Viamora, Alas Lomas, Recoleta, Las Mercedes, um, you know, one of those areas where you have like coffee shops and supermarkets and gyms kind of close to you. You can walk to some of those things. You're still going to be Ubering on a quite frequent basis.

Like I Uber at least once a day for sure. If not, I probably average two to four trips a day. Um there I mean there's some days I take like six trips if I'm having to go around and do chores and stuff like that.

So it's like it's a middle ground where it's like it's still a breath of fresh air if you're from the States, but it's not Europe, it's not Buenocidis, it's not Santiago, it's not um even Medí. I would say it's a bit more walkable. Uh so if you're here for a short bit, you can get by without a car, but eventually as you start to really establish yourself here, you are going to want to get a car.

And I personally don't love that. I would rather live in a place where not having a car is the final destination. Meaning it's like no matter what I I I I really don't need one.

But that takes a lot of urban planning. that takes, you know, that's a seed that needs to be planted back in that needed to have been planted back in the 1800s, right? By developing the city differently.

Um, and then of course now having more public transit, which there's definitely a lack of. There's a bus system, but there's no uh Montreal or subway. Um, bus system is decent, by the way.

I'm not The buses themselves are kind of low quality. It's kind of they're kind of famous for not being that great, but the system is quite good, all things considered. Um so from an urban planning perspective this is not cream of the crop at all.

And then especially let's say you know you set up here in Asunion as you want to start expanding yourself right going out of Asunion right going to the Cros uh out east going to San Bernardino going to Awa Luc San Lorenzo um Incan obviously right if you start going really really far then you're definitely going to want to have a car so yeah keep that in mind it's not a place where you can fully escape car life. And then when it comes to your day-to-day kind of transit situation, sometimes calling Ubers can be a pain because the traffic can get pretty bad, especially around rush hour, like between 300 p. m.

and 8:00 p. m. If you say for example, say you want to go from downtown from El Centro to um shopping del that route on Marisa Lopez or Aanidaspa or even Artigas is going to be congested and that Uber that should take you 18 minutes without traffic can take you 37 minutes with traffic.

If you live in Luc for example and you want to get into Asunion with traffic, that can take you an hour and a lot of times the Uber app or the Bolt app does not estimate the ETA correctly. It might say you're going to arrive at 6:15 and you might not arrive until 6:40. So, you have to keep that in mind when you're getting around, especially during rush hour.

the traffic can get pretty bad and I think it's only going to get worse as more people start to move into asyong. I I heard an interesting stat uh fact the other day from an Uber driver. He said that uh as of today like this is a recent development.

It didn't used to be this way, but nowadays during prime time, like during the middle of of the the workday on the on during the week, like say at 2 p. m. on a Tuesday, there are more cars than people in the city limits of Asunion.

Meaning so many people commute into Asun that the population of cars outnumbers the population of humans during prime time. Think about that. And that number is only increasing.

Yes, there's a lot of foreigners who are moving into Aong, but right now we are barely making a dent when it comes to that sort of thing. What's really making a big impact is as Paraguay is becoming more economically developed, the people out in outside of Asun um in you know the uh Grand Asunong area like the suburbs as well as out in the countryside are able they're finding more economic opportunity in the city. Like there's more jobs opening up in the city for them.

So, there's a lot more people commuting into the city and it's just a lot more hustle and bustle and it's becoming a lot more lively. Um, is that great for economic growth? Yes, absolutely.

There's also a young population, a strong cohort of people in their late teens and early 20s that are now aging into the workforce and that is drastically increasing the amount of people that are commuting to work. So, asong has gotten very hectic and the roads aren't that big. the network isn't that developed and it's starting to face the problems that a lot of American cities have been dealing with for decades now.

Right? I for example am from Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia is infamous for its traffic and infamous for terrible urban planning.

It didn't used to be that bad. Right? in say 2005, you could commute from the down from downtown Atlanta to Alpharetta uh which is like u you know a city you know 10 20 miles north uh at 5:00 p.

m. and not deal with that much of a nightmare. Nowadays that takes you over an hour, right?

Because the city grows, more and more people move in, more and more people start to find jobs, more houses, more apartments, people, people, people people, activity, activity, activity, and the road network isn't strong enough to support that growth. So, but then their the solution they go to is let's build more roads. Let's widen the highways, and it's it's a never-ending pursuit.

Then there's more growth. then more people decide to drive, then the traffic becomes worse and it just it's it it spirals into chaos and it's it's unsolvable without good urban planning and good public transit. So what I'm starting to see now is Asenong is going to go down that route unless they make drastic changes to the urban planning of the city which is not going to happen for many many years if not decades.

Um, so yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if like by 2030 2030 2035, let's say, it becomes like really bad to the point where it's like you if it's 5:00 pm you like don't want to leave the house. I hope it doesn't get that that bad, but it is kind of heading in that direction. And then we're also seeing that a lot of the new sort of luxury developments are very car centric, very similar to what happens in the United States where they build these nice gated community type of neighborhoods outside of the city that you can only access only access by car.

For example, right here we have the Edo Del Chako bridge where you can cross and then there's some nice brand because the the bridge is the bridge is brand new. So, the land across it is being developed very recently, and they're putting these nice um suburban developments, like these nice neighborhoods that are like, you know, they're luxurious, they're they're they're beautiful, they're well built that, you know, people with money, they go and they live there. Um, but it's just it's it's just putting a band-aid over the problem, right?

It's like, okay, I'm going to escape the city to go live over there, but you can only get there by car. And then if that person wants to commute into the city, the traffic only gets worse and worse and worse, right? So yeah, basically to sum it up, it's urban planning.

It's walkable. The urban planning is not that great. It's walkable, but it's not super walkable.

Um, and yes, having a car is something that you are eventually going to want to have if you want to spend significant time here. So, um, what else? Number three.

Now, like I told you at the beginning of this video, I was trying to think of a firm number three, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't think of of a third reason that made me think like, "Wow, I want that to be my third reason.

" Um, because everything I could think of was bad, but also had like a good side to it. Uh, in the way that number reasons number one and two really don't. Um, so I'm going to give you a couple of honorable mentions.

One, airport connectivity. Now, Asentun's airport is still quite small, and this is a problem that they are going to be looking to solve in the coming years, um, as they either build a new one or upgrade the one they currently have, but it's pretty poorly connected in the grand scheme of things. Um, especially given how centrally located Asun is, for example, there are no direct flights to the United States.

You cannot fly direct to the United States. Um, apparently American Airlines used to have a direct flight to Miami, but they canceled it because it wasn't profitable enough. So, if you're someone who wants to have asunong as like a base um that you spend x amount of time per year in and you're kind of coming in and out, that's something that you're going to want to keep in mind.

And then with that lack of connectivity comes very high flight prices because say for example you're coming from the states you're gonna have to connect in Panama. You're gonna have to connect in Bogota. You're going to have to connect in Lima.

Um even Bonositis but like Bonositis has a direct flight to Atlanta let alone Miami. Um you might even have to connect there. And all of that extra travel just creates very high flight prices.

So, in general, flying in and out of here is more cumbersome and more expensive than than than would be ideal. [clears throat] Um, but I do think that that's going to change here in the in the coming years because it's so centrally located in South America. It can become like a pretty significant travel hub for the continent.

uh very similar to like a DFW in the United States or like a Frankfurt in Germany where the location just lends to it being very good a very good place to connect different destinations. Um now reason why I made that an honorable mention and not a main main reason is because the title of this video are is three things that I don't like about Paraguay and I have no plans in making this a seasonal destination for me. I plan on spending a lot of time here and not flying in and out that often.

And I think based off of the type of place that it is and based off of the type of values that it brings, a lot of you guys are going to fall into the same boat, right? Maybe you're here six months a year. Well, that's only two two flights in and out you're going to have to make.

It's not the type of place where you're going to come and spend two weeks and then and then leave for 45 days and another two weeks and another two weeks. Excuse me. For the most part, grab a sip of water.

For the most part, there's not that much of that. it it's it's more of a long-term long-term place to live, right? So, for that reason, it's like it's not good, but it's not that huge of a deal.

Um, so that was a uh was a reason. Another reason, another thing, there's a weird culture of like just leaving things here, like just just leaving like leaving objects. What what I what I really mean by this is like a there's a good bit of litter around the streets.

Litter is pretty common here. There is like a an effort to get rid of the litter in in a sense that what what I see is like there's guys that will go around with like little wheelbarrows and they'll collect trash. Um, and there's also like these little uh baskets, like just unmarked metal baskets on the streets where people put their trash and then guys will come and empty them.

And I think what they do is they take them to a dumpster and they get paid. And I like that system. I like that system a lot because you're you're incentivizing just the local population to make a living out of cleaning up trash and they go and they pick up trash on the streets.

And I think they get paid uh based off of how many kilos of trash that they bring. If I'm not mistaken, I'm just I'm just assuming the part of them getting paid. I'm not sure for for a fact, but I I I can't see any other reason why there would be so many of these guys.

So, I do kind of like that. But there's still a good bit of litter, right? Stuff gets left around.

Like even around like where I'm standing right now, to be fair, this is kind of a construction site. So, like the construction guys just kind of leave Um but yeah, there's just like a culture of just kind of leaving things and not being as conscious of putting it in the trash or in its place. Reason why I make it sort of an extrapolated concept instead of talking about just litter is because it applies to other things too.

For example, if you go to a food court in a mall, you're going to notice that what people do is they get their tray, they put it on the table, they eat their food, and then they just they just leave when they're done. Like they just walk away and they leave their tray with their dirty plate, and then somebody comes after and takes the plate and takes the tray. That works just fine except for when it's really crowded.

Half the time what you'll notice is that you'll you'll go to eat to sit down and eat. Half the seats are are occupied by people and the other half of the seats are occupied by dirty trays that haven't been cleaned up yet. Had everyone taken their tray and stacked it on top of the trash can, that wouldn't have been an issue.

Um but yeah, it's just it's just not as efficient in that sense. Also, at grocery stores, many times what they'll do is they'll just kind of leave the shopping cart in the aisle when they're done and then somebody comes through and and takes them. But again, if there's a lot of people, there's a lot of carts being left in the aisle and that person can't get to them right away.

So sometimes you're having to fight loose shopping carts in the grocery stores. Um, so yeah, that it it stems from just like like I said, just like a just kind of leave it sort of mentality as well as a an industry of having those types of employees, right? For example, in the states where everything is margins are accounted for down to every last penny, the the the business owner would rather not pay that employee to to do the cleaning and just have the customer pitch in and do it themselves.

So they over time, you extrapolate that over the course of the entire economy, that starts to become the norm. That starts to become the like the culture, right? Because business owners don't want to hire that employee.

They want to keep it as lean as possible. here you'll notice that there's an abundance of employees in a lot of a lot of stores and and restaurants and and just in retail like there's sometimes you look around you're like why like how are they making money like there's so many employees um but yeah just because like the businesses aren't that cutthroat about cutting costs um which I kind of like that actually because you're you're giving the person jobs there's more employment um there's better customer service sometimes because there's more people to take care of you I like that I don't like the American mindset where it's like every penny needs to be saved by all means necessary. Um, but yeah, there there's that there's that part of it as well to where it's like people here just they know that the person is there to do it, so it's like why would they do it themselves?

Um, reason why I made this an honorable mention is because it's just not that big of a deal. Um, it did come to mind, but it's just not a huge deal because whatever, dude. Like there's litter on the streets like whatever.

Just walk by it, you know what I mean? Or pick it up and put in a trash can if you if you have one necessary and like kind of pitch in and do your part. But like, you know, whatever.

Like, sure, it's not the most aesthetic thing ever. aesthetic. You know, the the the roads don't look as nice and picturesque if there's trash, but like it's fine, you know.

It's it's not so it's not like, you know, the the videos you see of like streets in India where there's just like absolutely everywhere, you know, it's not that bad. Um same thing with the river. The river is pretty clean all things considered.

The water isn't, but it's not full of trash. Um so yeah, it's like whatever. You know, there's trash.

Just do your thing. Um, and the thing with the trays at the at the mall, it's like, yeah, it's kind of an inconvenience, but just a lot of times what I'll do is I'll take the trays myself and I'll clear up a table and I'll take them to the trash can and kind of pitch in, do my part, and then just eat my food. Um, so yeah, that's another thing that I thought of.

And then uh what else? What else? What else?

That's kind of it. That's kind of it. I was hoping to have a third reason for the honorable mention, but I didn't.

So screw it. We'll just leave it at that. Um, so yeah, that those are my kind of four, two and a half, three if you sum up the last two reasons uh or things that I that I don't like about life in Paraguay.

Just things that you that you that you kind of need to take into account and look out for before you come here. I'm probably going to make more videos on this topic. uh more videos that are more sort of structured and written out and more along the lines of like warning you like things you need to be careful of and then go more in specific into ways that you as a foreigner can make mistakes here.

These were just like inconveniences sort of things. So, thank you for staying tuned all the way to the end if you did. I know this video might be a long one.

Um yeah, if you want any if you have any other ideas, yeah, any of you guys who are watching who have any like specific ideas about things that you want to learn about parag or about expat life in general, please leave it in the comments. Just let me know like, hey, what about this? How does this work?

What should we do about this? Let me know and I'd be happy to make a video on it. Um follow me on Instagram, Estabonexpat if you want to communicate with me with me directly.

That's the best place to do it. Shoot me a DM there and stay tuned. Again, Paraguay is not a perfect place, but I hope the fact that I could barely even come up with the ideas to make this video makes you feel a little bit better about it.

So, keep those things in mind and I will see you here soon.