Chapala and Ajijic have many traditions and religious celebrations. They have lots of fiestas where the patron saint of each church is celebrated. During fiestas, they decorate the streets, play music, dance, and light up fireworks. It’s very noisy during fiestas. 
To move furniture and other stuff to Nicaragua, you need to use a local company to ship your stuff. Expats need to be patient. You need to find a good company that understands the process; otherwise, you'll be stuck for months or a year and feel frustrated because you are not getting good results. Do good research to find the company that has the best reputation for shipping furniture. 
A person who goes to a public medical center in Boquete must go early in the morning to get in line to get an appointment with a general doctor because there is a limit to the number of patients these centers can accommodate per day. The local social insurance system in Panama also has a call center where you can call to set up an appointment with a public general doctor. 
Sad to say, I have English friends who have been in the Algarve for 22 years who don’t speak a word of Portuguese or hardly a word in Portuguese. So sadly, the answer is yes, you can get by in the Algarve by just speaking English. 
The best reason to retire abroad is to save money and be able to live within your means. Most of our retirees are maybe not on a livable income if they stayed in the US because of the various problems in the American system and Social Security or it could be the economic collapse affecting people's investments or 401K’s. There are a lot of different factors that can result in people not having as much money as they planned when they were saving for retirement.
The average foreigner and potential retiree expat comes to Belize as a tourist with a tourist visa. There are tourist visas that are good for 30 days and then they can be renewed. I’ve never seen a tourist visa renewal be resisted or not granted outside of that person or that tourist getting into some trouble or them becoming persona non grata in Belize. If you just enjoy living and live within the guidelines of the Belizean law, you would be able to get your tourist visa...Now That Our Road Trip is Over, I Can Tell You What It Was Really Like to Live in Mexico for a Year
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Maybe my wife and I lead lives a lot like yours.Or at least we did, until about a year ago. That’s when we sold our comfortable home in Arizona, sold, gave away or put into storage about 90% of our “stuff,” packed the rest into a big white van, and along with our two dogs, spent a year traveling around Mexico.
Why did we do it? For an adventure before we were too old to do it and to see if we liked anywhere along the way as a place to...
We have many friends who are living the day-to-day hardship of the crisis in America. They choose to stay and deal with the political, economic and emotional stress on a daily basis. It takes a toll on everyone of all ages.