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Building a house in Volcan or Cerro Punta, Panama is like building a house anywhere else I suppose - with a few exceptions. These exceptions will be the same or similar in any other Central American country... Read more
In Coronado, Panama a gardener costs between US $100 and $200 per month. If you have a larger property and you want to delegate more things, you can pay a gardener $200 per month but that is the maximum. Mos... Read more
Yes, there are very good vets in Mexico. I don’t have pets, but I have friends and neighbors who do and they are all very well taken care of by veterinarians here in San Miguel de Allende. ... Read more
Belize allows its citizens to own guns. If you come to Belize as an expat, then you must check your gun at the airport and you must apply for a permit. If you move to Belize, you must apply for a permit, then you ... Read more
Evaluating the price of an existing home for sale, I calculate what I estimate it would cost me to build it, figuring I could get the construction done today for around US $60 to $100 per sq. ft. depending on deta... Read more
The cost to rent a home in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area has been moving upwards over the last few years, as demand has increased and supply has not kept up. As with prices to buy, your price t... Read more
Most people will tell you that “High Season” in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area is from October or November through about April, with “Low Season” encompassing the “Rainy Season”, whi... Read more
One of the biggest advantages of living at the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area is the existence of Guadalajara less than an hour away. Like many things in the Lake Chapala area, the existence of a 5 million inhabitant... Read more
The restaurants in the Ajijic and overall Lake Chapala area are extremely good and extremely reasonably priced (perhaps 60% less than in the US). And yes, you can get quite a bit more variety than Mexican food.&n... Read more
The answer to can you buy good clothes in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area depends on what kinds of clothes you purchase. First, the good news. If you buy your clothes at Walmart, we have on... Read more
There is no authoritative census, so these are my guesses. The Lake Chapala area (including Ajijic) is about 20% - 25% expat, with the rest being Mexicans. The expats are about 40% from the US... Read more
"Standard of living” is a bit hard to define, because the elements of it are different for different people. For example, if you are not happy unless they have the feel and excitement of a large city, ... Read more
Driving… in … Mexico. These three words are enough to strike fear into any news watching / Internet reading American. We are led to believe that we would either b... Read more
These places would seem to the native inhabitants to be neglected lands of unruly bushes and trees with views that were pretty, but where one did not linger while on one’s way to somewhere else. But to Mike Cobb, thes... Read more
Presented with permission from Bob Adams of Retirement Wave Folks often ask me what’s important that I do when I get to Panama. “Do I need to learn the language?” “Is there... Read more
"What is Hobbitenango?" Many of my stories involve a place up the hill near us called Hobbitenango, and before I write about building my house here, I must explain what Hobbitenango is. “Tenango... Read more
Here in Guatemala they call themselves Guatemaltecos (Guatemalteca for women) and not Guatemalans. But both are understood. When I came to live here it was a plan for two years, to put this young indigenous woman thro... Read more
I DO feel proud of building a house in Guatemala. I'm not going to get into the doing here, but lay the groundwork for WHY I did it. This is one of our views of the house and one of what we see... Read more
I grew up in the United States, most recently from Northern California, but now in my 70’s I live in a village in Guatemala, five miles away from Antigua, a popular tourist destination and NOT typical of Guatemala... Read more
For retirees/expats considering a cruise, here are a few tips I garnered from a recent Caribbean island-hopping adventure my wife and I enjoyed. It was ap... Read more
They were big, open questions— the “elephant in the room,” the large, unavoidable thing I was a bit afraid to confront honestly and directly. The background is that I was born and rais... Read more
We have been in Nicaragua since 2006 and it has been 11+ years of frustration and work. It has never been boring. The past year has felt different. There was a feeling of increased tension happening that we were begin... Read more
Who among us hasn’t been cheered during an otherwise down time or learned an important life lesson from a dog? About 20 years ago, when I was having a difficult time in a particularly tense business negotiation, ... Read more
Last month while visiting and exploring Boquete Panama just happened to stumble upon a very interesting investment "Factional" Coffee Farm turnkey ownership. Just so happened we arrived the day before they ... Read more
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