How We Came to Consider Living Abroaad

A time and place for every season of life!

Standing on the equator outside of Quito Equator!

Like so many Americans, we spent a lifetime working and raising our children. We often joked with each other about being "caretakers". We promised that we would always take care of each other and, when the time was right, we would relax and just enjoy our time together.  Living in Florida made that easy. In Central Florida you can turn any day into a vacation at a moment's notice!

What some people consider the vacation of a lifetime, Disney World, is just 1.5 hours down the road. We would often take advantage of Disney's Florida Resident Specials and vacation at one of their resorts 2 or 3 times a year. 

Port Canaveral, which is ranked as the world’s 2nd busiest cruise port in multi-day embarkations, is just an hour away, so a 3-5 day cruise was also easily accessible and often relatively cheap.

However, The real magic of exotic places did not truly take hold until we began utilizing vacation rental services to secure a week or two in some other country. Even though our cruises had taken us to many ports, we had never before immersed ourselves in a foreign culture. That all changed when we decided to spend Christmas in  Ecuador!

 

 

Bob waiting to grab a taxi in Quito Ecuador.

 

Our Grandson, who was only 11 at the time, summed it up by saying "People in America think America has everything -- but it doesn't!"

This trip was the beginning of our new travel style. We would pick a place, do some research, then plan a visit where we would be embedded with the people who lived in the area.  This opened up a whole new world for us. 

We quickly learned that the "fly-in, stay at the Sheridan, fly-out" vacations we had taken in the past were hiding secrets.  Once we learned about the true lifestyles of the people and the warm and welcoming nature of their communities, we knew that we wanted to find out more about living abroad.  

Keep reading to find out what we found and hopefully you will decide to travel with us as we move forward with this journey! 

 

Keep in mind that we are not looking to start a business in another country or become digital nomads burning up the internet with travel videos and amassing a million followers! We are retired and we intend to stay that way. Nor are we "abandoning" America. We, like so many people our age have worked, fraught for, and loved the United States of America for many years. We have voted and marched and contributed in many ways. We also raised our children to do the same and they have not disappointed.   However one of the best lessons you can learn in life is knowing when to leave. 

One of the things that make us so comfortable about becoming expats is the fact that (contrary to some of the things that may seem real right now), the young people of today are taking up the fight and they are well prepared to do so. We shall overcome.

But for Bob and Charlene? Time to find a seat and enjoy God's beautiful world! Want to come along?

Nothing Much happens before my morning Coffee, (not even make-up), but once I'm fueled I get busy!  Below are just a few of the questions that we worked hard to answer before we settled on Panama:

 

 

We will be answering the questions below and sharing the answers with you as we move forward.

• What is the cost of living?
• What is the quality of healthcare?
• How safe is this place for seniors?
• How much does it cost to get a permanent visa?
• What is the best way to move our "stuff"?
• How can we reasonably Downsize?

...And you can bet that in finding the answers we found a lot more questions and a lot more fun!