Kalispera
Shell would be the best to answer this, but in my opinion, Larnaca is more a working town than Pafos so has the less visitors, but in winter the visitor numbers drop dramatically,as do the visitor numbers to Agia Napa and Paralimni [Protaras/Permera areas]
the demography of visitors to Cyprus has also taken a dramatic change over recent years, visitor numbers from western Europe [including uk] have taken a nose dive over recent years, in many areas you will find majority of visitors are either east European [former soviet countries] or Chinese, so if your product is likely to sell to either groups I strongly suggest your learn not only Greek, but also Russian and mandarin as these groups don't seem to speak English or Greek , early this year whilst in Pafos I noticed many of the signs [which use to be in Greek/English/German] were in one or other of the new languages

yasus
wizard

Well I heard a great rumour today that the Chinese have bought the golf courses on the west side of the island (Paphos area)! So make of that what you will, Brian...

For Rachel:
As for the areas, if it was toss up between Paphos or Larnaca I too would suggest Larnaca mainly for the simple fact I think you may struggle with schooling in Paphos as it's either a tourist resort or a large place filled with lots of retired UK expats. Personally, as a 30 year old in Paphos I think you may not be too happy once the novelty of living in a holiday resort has worn off.

Larnaca is more of a working area and has a nice seafront at Finikoudes but whether that will be enough to support a business if it's going to be reliant on tourist trade, I wouldn't like to say.

Most of the people who tend to visit Cyprus in the winter months and Paphos especially are usually the older, early retirees and long stays. So again, it really depends on what the business is and where you would situate it.

Where did you get married? I'm assuming you must have taken time to have a look around and get some idea of the place.

Quite honestly, if you are having to ask people where is the best place for you to settle it doesn't sound as if you have done very much research yet. It sounds more like you have an idea in your head but that's about it.

You really need to come out again and spend some time taking a good look around the island before you decide it's for your and your family.

To do that, I urge you don't put yourselves in a hotel or holiday apartment. Book a private rental - not on a complex with a swimming pool but one where you will have to be self-sufficient for the duration of each stay.

Hire a car and take the time to go local produce and food shopping, cooking, driving around and dealing with day to day life rather than constantly being in "holiday mode". Go and look at the price of electricals (such as white goods and consumer electricals) and do some price comparisons at different outlets - no easy task in Cyprus! But, as the saying goes "that's life".... We don't have any great shopping malls or the likes of Curry's so you will have to constantly jump in the car and drive to each different store. The meaning of "mall" here relates to designer shops with no prices in the window.

You will find everything related to business has to be done in the mornings. Banks and government offices all close at lunchtime and shops close on Wednesday afternoon and Sunday (other than the bakeries and periptero/similar to a UK corner shop).
In August, a lot of places close for 2 weeks and it's difficult to get anything done in that month as there's a public holiday on 15 August for Assumption. Doctors and Chemists close so you have to rely on a list posted in the window of a local pharmacy or newspaper telling you which chemist will be open on a particular day as they work to a rota system during this period. You will get a street or road name (in Greek) with a telephone number.

All of the above is why I suggest taking 12 months to rent a place and live the local life before committing to anything more permanent than that. It's no more than what we did in the 3 years of our final planning before we fixed in our head where we needed to be located.

We chose Limassol for a reason. If we had our own choice, we would have gone along the east coast around Ayia Napa and towards Protaras because we love the coastline there. Sadly though, I needed to have full time work and for that we chose Limassol because it's more cosmopolitan with a multicultural business industry as well as being in the centre of the island so pretty much equidistant from either airport - and, it's open all year round. It has the added bonus of cruise ships arriving into the New Port most weeks.

As well as working full time I also run a website and online shop with my husband. Our items are not reliant on tourism, it's a collectibles store so our products get mailed out of Cyprus worldwide.

We originally looked at Paphos as we got married there in 1999 but had holidayed in Limassol several times before that. After spending some time in the local bars with friends of friends and amongst other expat residents we completely changed our mind because of animosity we came up against. I had a job to come to because I transferred my employment with my UK company at the time and we found they were very jealous and wanted to know the inside out of our business. It actually made us think twice about whether we wanted to move to Cyprus at all but, we decided to look back at Limassol with new eyes and this is where we started - and we're still here over 9 years later.

I'm going now to give you the names of some of the forums so you can take a look and perhaps do some more research.

For Paphos, google the following:
Cyprus Living forum
Paphos People forum

For Larnaca and east coast, google:
Cyprus Eastern Owners & Buyers Forum

For general info on Cyprus and relocation information, google
Cyprus AngloInfo

And keep an eye on the day to day news in the Cyprus-Mail.com

There should be enough information there for you to do some more research before you start thinking about where the best place to be is in Cyprus.

As I said before, don't give up hope but don't rush in without getting everything in place first.

Brilliant, helpful advice Shell

Agreed a brilliant post there Shell

My sister stayed in Tremithousa, just outside of Paphos. It was a great little community and her son went to the local school there, where he thrived. You need to start learning Greek now and perhaps do as they did- hire a tutor over there. My sister found it difficult working with Greek men. They can be a bit abrupt when dealing with women business wise. There are loads of empty houses there as loads of expats could no longer afford to stay in Cyprus. So there will be no problem with getting a rental. (Sister has been lucky to have a long term rental for her house). They had a great social life there. Its an outdoor life. She wants to return someday as she misses it.
There were certainly a lot of Russians buying up property and businesses.
Best to rent out your house in the UK as well until you know for sure that Cyprus will work for you.