Best Places In The World To Retire

By all means, keep your home financial arrangements in place while you are exploring new countries.  You never know in advance if you will be staying, or going back home.  In addition, your new country will most probably have different financial products with a different cost and fee structure than you have at the present time.  Most countries have ATMs that can be used to take money from your home bank account as needed, which is useful while you decide if you want a local...

By all means, keep your home financial arrangements in place while you are exploring new countries.  You never know in advance if you will be staying, or going back home.  In addition, your new country will most probably have different financial products with a different cost and fee structure than you have at the present time.  Most countries have ATMs that can be used to take money from your home bank account as needed, which is useful while you decide if you want a local bank account (if available, with FACTA this is getting more difficult for US passport holders).  Some US institutions will even refund ATM fees when you draw funds abroad, but may require that you have a US residence.  This is easy before you leave, difficult to arrange once you have gone.  Better to be prepared and later decide you don't need the facility, than the other way around.

The history of Portugal is a very broad question, so I will address it just in summary form.
 
500 years ago, Portugal owned half of the world and 500 years later we are just a little small humble country of Europe, which can tell you quite a bit.  We were, 500 years ago, a very important country, responsible for controlling half of the goods produced of half of the world. Spain had the other half. And then came the Dutch, the English; the explorers, and they took over some...

The history of Portugal is a very broad question, so I will address it just in summary form.
 
500 years ago, Portugal owned half of the world and 500 years later we are just a little small humble country of Europe, which can tell you quite a bit.  We were, 500 years ago, a very important country, responsible for controlling half of the goods produced of half of the world. Spain had the other half. And then came the Dutch, the English; the explorers, and they took over some of the rich countries that we controlled.
 
The colonies we had like Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola, survived for the last 300 to 200 years. But as the world developed, it was no longer allowed for countries to have colonies so we released our last colony in 1999, which was Macau in China. We had various dynasties of kings and queens and mixtures of royalty with other European countries.
 
We’re a country of explorers, very brave and courageous because if you could just imagine, 500 years ago, with no conditions, with little wooden boats discovering and crossing oceans and discovering countries, that can tell us a bit of the Portuguese culture. So yes, it’s a very brave culture, and a very brave country. We discovered half of the world and today we’re just a little civilized country of Europe.  

 

(Duke of Vise, Henry the Navigator of Portugal considered the patron of exploration, pictured.)

We have good Internet in Belize. Sometimes, there are interruptions, but most of the time, it is good. The interruptions do not happen very often but when they do have interruptions, it could be for a long periods or a couple of hours so you are down without any Internet. In a month, you might not have any interruptions on the Internet connection and there are times when it is down for a couple of hours. It varies. Internet service is not very often out, though.

 

The...

We have good Internet in Belize. Sometimes, there are interruptions, but most of the time, it is good. The interruptions do not happen very often but when they do have interruptions, it could be for a long periods or a couple of hours so you are down without any Internet. In a month, you might not have any interruptions on the Internet connection and there are times when it is down for a couple of hours. It varies. Internet service is not very often out, though.

 

The Internet speed here in Belize City is at par with the Internet speeds in the US. I am not sure how fast the Internet speed is in other areas of Belize. I have never heard anybody complain about the Internet speed anywhere.

 

The Internet speed is okay and in fact, we work on the Internet. Without it, we could not work.  

 

(Laptops donated to Indian Church Village in Belize, which has no electricity, but a solar generator in the town center with a satellite connection, pictured.)  

Coronado, Panama is mainly English speaking. If you go outside of Coronado, it's not. But in Coronado, a lot of people do speak English.
 
As an example, my wife has been here for eight years and she speaks only English; no Spanish.  If you go shopping with her, you will see that she doesn’t have a problem at all, even in those places where they don’t speak Spanish.  For example, if you go with her to the butcher shop, you will see her pointing to items...

Coronado, Panama is mainly English speaking. If you go outside of Coronado, it's not. But in Coronado, a lot of people do speak English.
 
As an example, my wife has been here for eight years and she speaks only English; no Spanish.  If you go shopping with her, you will see that she doesn’t have a problem at all, even in those places where they don’t speak Spanish.  For example, if you go with her to the butcher shop, you will see her pointing to items and the butchers having a great time helping her.  My wife is very comfortable and everyone has a good time.

 

(A carimanoa made with a fried dough, ground meat, yucca,boiled eggs and shredded cheese,  this one served open faced, a favorite Panama dish, pictured.)