I Need To Find A Deserted Beach Or Island Cheap Within $500

Let's say I got stranded on a deserted island and only have 1L of water. How long could I survive and how should I manage my supplies?

Try, desperately, to find a source of water.  A human can only survive for about three days without water, and humans require (roughly) one liter a day...  Perhaps you could ration yourself to half of that, and get two extra days out of your liter...  Five days total.  You aren't going to need food for a good bit after that, and assuming the weather is decent, you can probably survive with minimal shelter.  (Extreme cold or hot environments may see shelter as a priority).  But you need water, fast.  Look for springs, set up some way to capture rain water, or find coconuts to eat, but do something quickly, before you lose all your strength.

If I was stuck on a deserted island and there was a perfectly working helicopter, do I even bother trying to fly it to get to civilization since I have no knowledge of using a helicopter?

These are some good answers. I’ll go ahead and provide my own answer. That answer is……Drumroll……..NOOOOOOOOOBro you’ll crash the helicopter at the very LEAST. I will guarantee it. I would be willing to bet my life and my mothers life. I would be willing to bet the life of every single person in the world, women, children, everyone. You will crash. Even if you had knowledge of how helicopters work, if you’ve read every book on how to fly helicopters, if you haven’t flown before you will fuck everything up. Flying a helicopter is not at all intuitive when you are hovering, a lot of people liken hovering to trying to balance on a beach ball. What happens to pretty much everyone who’s learning to fly a helicopter is that you pendulum for the first couple dozen or so hours. Helicopter flight is very dynamic, and requires constant, minute corrections. This is not something you can learn in a book, you need to actually experience it first hand and train your reflexes and muscle memory to accommodate these constant corrections needed. So when someone is new to flying helicopters, they inevitably over correct. Say you try to hover in the same spot. Well, the wind pushes you east of the spot you’re trying to hover. So obviously, you try to correct and hover west. OOPS, TOO MUCH. Now you’re too far west of the spot. Then you get pushed north. Hover gently back sou—— SHIT TOO MUCH. Back and forth and back and forth you swing, you try to correct your fuckup but you end up making it way worse. It’s really windy, and the helicopter yaws to the east suddenly, so you try to yaw back west a littl—- TOO MUC- WAIT NOT ENOUG- WAIT TOO MUCH. You’re basically swinging back and forth, yawing back and forth, fucking everything up. To the left of you sits your flight instructor, whos laughing his ASS OFF. WTF? I HOVERED FINE YESTERDAY WTF IS HAPPENING. Now take someone who has literally zero hands on experience, without an instructor to instantly take the controls if something gets fucky, I’d give them 5 seconds before they smack the tail rotor straight into a palm tree and violently thrash into the ground. This is assuming you would even be able to perform the proper start up sequence. Nah, if you were stuck on an island with a helicopter, and the mainland was in range of that island, you would be FAR better off siphoning the fuel and lighting a signal fire, or using the radio.

Where's the prettiest beach in Texas?

“What is the best beach to visit in Texas?”Thanks for the A2A, but I’m not much for beaches, despite growing up in coastal California.That said, this past week I was in South Texas and had the chance to take a quick peek at a few beaches around Corpus Christi, South Padre Island, and Boca Chica.The one I’d go back to (if I were ever to bother to go back to a beach) is Padre Island National Seashore, just off from Corpus Christi. The water was warm, the beach was pristinely clean, and it was not at all crowded. (Note that while this is the northern end of the same very long barrier island that holds South Padre Island, it’s a completely different region and not accessible from the South Padre/Brownsville area.) South of the visitor center, you can even drive on the beach for a ways (and it’s maintained for 2WD cars for the first five miles).The most interesting spot to me was the Boca Chica State Park beach south of South Padre Island. You can drive on the beach here also—in fact, if you’re brave, you can go the three miles to the south end of the beach and literally throw a rock across the mouth of the Rio Grande into Mexico. The water was surprisingly cooler than I expected for the latitude and location, though, and even though the beach was empty, it didn’t feel as clean or well-cared-for as the National Seashore’s further north.FWIW, I failed to see the big attraction of South Padre. The beach looked OK but not especially attractive, and the town was meh. Maybe it’s more exciting during peak season, but then it’s probably so crowded that finding a spot on the sand is difficult.But then again, I don’t really see the attraction in sitting out in the miserably hot sun getting sand in all your cracks and crevices and dealing with slimy salty water, so take my impressions with a large grain of [sea] salt.

Is there any place in the world, where you have a desert, cold/snow mountains, swamp, beach/coast and a rain forest, relatively close to each other?

Okay, I’m going to cheat a little bit. The place I have in mind meets four out of the five conditions you’ve set, being without a rain forest, but I have an incredible substitute eco-system that hopefully makes up for it. What is so amazing about the place I’ve chosen? Well it’s only got a population of about 350,000 and even more amazingly it’s located just outside the Artic Circle. What is this mystical country? Well it is none other than the wonderfully multi-faceted Iceland!DesertThis one is a little bit of a technicality. Most of Iceland is covered by uninhabitable volcanic desert. Vast, vegetation-less and grey the plains are the result of relentless volcanic and glacial activity over the ages.Cold/Snow MountainsHere is where Iceland excels. Not only does it have snowy mountains, it has snowy volcanoes. Not only does it have ice, it has some of the world’s largest glaciers. Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest, is so famous it’s been used in the filming of box office hits Batman Begins, Game of Thrones and James Bond.SwampNot only does Iceland have swamps, it has hosted the European Swamp Soccer Championship.Beach/CoastThe best feature of some of the Icelandic beaches is their dissimilarity to near anything you will have seen before. Located by the country’s most southern (and rainiest) village of Vik is the Black Sand beach, a home to Puffins and wonderful basalt columns. The beach also featured in Justin Bieber’s I’ll Show You video.Lastly, as I mentioned, Iceland lacks rain forests, but I promised a substitute that is beyond acceptable.R̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶F̶o̶r̶e̶s̶t̶ MarsIn the northeast of the island lies the lake Mývatn (meaning midge lake). It’s surrounds resemble a planet far from our own. I took the below picture myself while visiting in August. If you look closely you can spot Mark Watney growing potatoes in his faeces.

Can I camp on the beach or parks of Maui (Kahului) while looking for a room to rent?

Firstly, there are lots of places to camp on the beach on Maui but not necessarily Kahului. Kahului is a busy shipping harbor and busy town. The "beaches" around the harbor are rocky and not sandy. You'll have better luck camping anywhere but there. I suggest heading east to Paia area. The further east you go past Paia toward Hana, the more remote and unpopulated it becomes, and the more opportunities for undisturbed camping.Yes there are tons of homeless people and traveling campers such as yourself. There are more homeless people in Kahului than anywhere else as far as I can tell, presumably because of the airport, big stores, basic services, panhandling opportunities, etc. Thievery is very common. Murder is very rare. Don't leave your car unlocked or valuables unsecured. The closer you are to populated areas, the more likely you are to run into other campers and vagrants. I haven't interacted with many traveling folks such as this, but the ones I have interacted with have been friendly and non-threatening.If you are camping in an unauthorized place, police would likely just ask you to leave if they see you (good chance they don't see you). I constantly see people camped on the beach between Kihei and Lahaina who look like they are staying awhile and this is directly on a major road, very visible. You can legally camp at the state and national park areas on Maui for several days for a small fee, and those will have the added benefit of bathrooms and sometimes showers. There are many beach parks which have showers also, but are not necessarily good places to camp because the parks close at dusk and police run people off at night.Good luck!

What are the facts about Panama that foreigners do not believe until they visit Panama?

I have not had much interactions with tourists, however my dealings with new foreign residents has been fairly consistent in its lack of knowledge when first arriving. Panama is not as inexpensive as they thought.Most foreigners who moved down here without a long term visit, have complained that their only visit was through magazines and blogs screaming how cheap it is to live in Panama because you only need $1000 per individual and $500 for family to get a visa. They quickly determine that that is how the typical Panamanian survives. They come here under the impression that they can live at their current standard on that income. It generally true many of Panama’s cost are cheaper than big cities in the US and Europe, it is not as cheap as living in the cheaper parts of Europe or the US. Also, things that foreigners want to compare to their former country are not available or much higher in price as the average family do not use them.The cost of foreign canned and packaged goods are much more expensive. where local fruit and vegetables are cheaper. Housing equivalent to their former housing is more expensive, but to live where local Panamanians live is cheaper.Overall, if you want to live the life of the average local, it is cheaper to live in Panama. If you want your equivalent life style in you former country, it will be as expensive or more so.