Best Places In The World To Retire

The average cost to rent a single-family house here in the Quintana Roo area in the Yucatan Peninsula is about 20,000 pesos (around US 1,100).  If you’re renting more for a vacation, a single-family house right on the beach, would go up to 50,000 pesos (around $2,800) and even more for larger houses.
 
In Playa del Carmen, if you look for rentals in the northern end of town (8 to 10 minutes away from downtown by car), you can get a nice single-family, 3-bedroom house...

The average cost to rent a single-family house here in the Quintana Roo area in the Yucatan Peninsula is about 20,000 pesos (around US 1,100).  If you’re renting more for a vacation, a single-family house right on the beach, would go up to 50,000 pesos (around $2,800) and even more for larger houses.
 
In Playa del Carmen, if you look for rentals in the northern end of town (8 to 10 minutes away from downtown by car), you can get a nice single-family, 3-bedroom house in a gated communities for about 20,000 pesos (around US 1,100) a month. There is a nice project here that we consulted upon. They have a lazy river pool in the backyard and two to three bedroom, very comfortable homes, which are practical for the American and Canadian snowbirds. The distance to the beach is not very far, 5 to 10 minutes and they’re right on the beautiful Mexican Caribbean. There are lots of people who have bikes and golf carts. Some rentals come furnished and some are non-furnished. The houses that go for 20,000 pesos (around US 1,100) are usually furnished and 15,000 pesos ($870) for non-furnished ones. These are all long-term rentals so utilities are not included in the rent.
 
If you go to Tulum, which is south of Playa del Carmen, you could rent a single-family home for about 11,000 pesos (about US $630) in downtown Tulum, to about 25,000 pesos (around $1,400).  If you go inside the Aldea Zamá, the rent is usually 25,000 pesos (around $1,400) in a gated community. Tulum is a beautiful little pueblo or village. The population there is about 28,000, and you will see a lot of Europeans living there along with Mayans and Mexicans. It has a very nice atmosphere. Tulum is cheaper by about 15% to 20% compared to Playa del Carmen.

 

(Rental home, Costa Maya, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)

I am a Canadian who has lived in Panama for 6 years.

 

The most important -- and difficult -- lesson I have learned in Panama is this:

 

If you arrive in your new country with an open mind and a willingness to adapt to its culture, you will thrive.

 

If you arrive with a 'gringo mindset' and believe that your new country has an obligation to adapt to you and your values, well, you are going to end up being miserable and...

I am a Canadian who has lived in Panama for 6 years.

 

The most important -- and difficult -- lesson I have learned in Panama is this:

 

If you arrive in your new country with an open mind and a willingness to adapt to its culture, you will thrive.

 

If you arrive with a 'gringo mindset' and believe that your new country has an obligation to adapt to you and your values, well, you are going to end up being miserable and will probably return to your previous country.

 

Remember, folks, when you move to a new country, it is their country.  If, for example, you think the service is bad in Panama, as it usually is, you need to bear in mind that they have a right to run their country the way they want -- bad service and all.  And if we foreigners are not comfortable with that, then we are the ones who need to change or go back to our home countries.
 

Follow this simple rule and I promise that your new life in a foreign land will be much happier!

Granada, Nicaragua has two American-style supermarkets with a version of just about anything you could want.  There’s always a spice we can’t find or you may not have four types of beans and four brands of ketchup, but you’ll be able to find pretty much a version of everything you want in Granada.
 
If you buy your fresh produce in the American-style supermarket as opposed to “the market” or from a street vendor, you’ll probably pay two to...

Granada, Nicaragua has two American-style supermarkets with a version of just about anything you could want.  There’s always a spice we can’t find or you may not have four types of beans and four brands of ketchup, but you’ll be able to find pretty much a version of everything you want in Granada.
 
If you buy your fresh produce in the American-style supermarket as opposed to “the market” or from a street vendor, you’ll probably pay two to three times more than you would at the market.
 
If you want a specific imported brand or item, you’ll probably only find it at the American-style supermarket and you’ll pay more in Granada than you pay in the States.  For example, I wanted to make a cherry pie recently, and they had these little 16-ounce cans of cherry pie filling, which cost $8 here.  Anything imported is going to be a lot more expensive than other items in Granada.
 
In addition to the supermarkets, there are mom and pop shops everywhere in Granada where you can get the basics.  Living in Granada, Nicaragua is a lot like living in the States in the 1930s and 1940s where, on every street corner, there was a little grocery store and mom and dad live behind it or above it.  I grew up in a small town in Vermont, and on the street corner, half a block from my mom and dad’s house, there was this little, tiny grocery store; not a huge supermarket you would find today, but you could always get your rice, beans, eggs, flour, snacks, candy bars and cokes.  There are lots of those kinds of places on every street in Granada.
 
What we call “the market” here in Granada, but what North Americans think of more as a street market or farmer’s market (lots of individual stalls in an open area), has every sort of fresh fruit and vegetable you could think of and priced very, very inexpensively.
 
There’s one large “market” here in Granada that has expanded over the years and has now flowed out two or three blocks away from the central market itself.  In Latin culture, there is usually a “Mercado”, or central, or farmer’s market, where everyone brings their produce.  And they usually house it in some large building somewhere, sometimes a city block or so in size.  Well, we have one of those, but Granada has grown so rapidly that there are dozens of these farmer’s market type booths that have spilled out of the market, onto the street, going two or three blocks in every direction.
 
In addition to this, in Granada there are people who have baskets or wagons pulled by horses who drive around the streets selling vegetables out of the backs of their carts.  So, "the egg guy" will come by your house once a day.  The milkman doesn’t have bottles of milk.  Rather, he has a five-gallon pale of milk on the back of a horse drawn cart, and he rides his cart up and down the street yelling “leche, leche, leche” (“milk, milk, milk").  If you need a gallon or a cupful, you stop him, and he dips your cup or gallon in his pale and you’ve got fresh milk from a cow that was probably milked just two hours before.
 
If you don’t go to the “market’ or you don’t go to the grocery store in Granada, the people with the baskets or wagons come to you.  They’ve got fresh flowers, mops, brooms, disinfectant, clothing, all being sold on the street.  There’s an avocado woman who goes up and down the street and sells nothing but fresh avocados.   There’s a woman who goes up and down the street and who sells only papayas and bananas.  It’s fun.

The cost of clothes in Panama is really good.  You can find all the major brands at almost the same price as in the U.S.

 Since Panama is also a distribution center for Central and part of South América you can find good deals at the end of a season.

There are also a lot of stores at malls like Albrook were you will find stuff really cheap, for example, pants for $2.99 and tshirts for $1.99.  Super deals! 

The cost of clothes in Panama is really good.  You can find all the major brands at almost the same price as in the U.S.

 Since Panama is also a distribution center for Central and part of South América you can find good deals at the end of a season.

There are also a lot of stores at malls like Albrook were you will find stuff really cheap, for example, pants for $2.99 and tshirts for $1.99.  Super deals!