The best things about living and retiring in Los Cabos – La Paz and especially where we are, at La Ventana, about 40 minutes south of La Paz, is that the weather is very nice 10 months of the year. The other two months, we can have humidity and be threatened by hurricanes. We start to get our rains in the end of August and they usually coincide with the hurricanes. And once the rains come you get humidity and that changes everything. Plus, the water in the sea warms up. Right now, as we’re doing this even in late June, the water is still fairly fresh and you feel the breeze right now coming in. It keeps the temperature down. But when the water warms up and you get the rain and humidity, the bugs come out. This is an issue in September and first two or three weeks of October. August is not too bad. It doesn’t get much hotter than in mid-June but the water starts to warm up a little bit more. But we usually don’t get any rain until end of August, or the end of September.
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Other than that, the climate is pretty nice 10 months a year. No rain. It’s a little bit windy in winter, so for people who aren’t into wind sports maybe they don’t like it so much and it can be a little bit cool in January and February. But people who are into wind sports are exercising, biking, and so on. The weather’s pretty nice all winter.
Also, it’s very affordable to live here in La Ventana, as far as food and even gasoline or your basic cost, electricity, all of those things.
Another great thing about living here is that the people are just the best. They’re so warm. Sometimes you don’t feel it because they’re shy with gringos and they don’t speak English much but once you break through that, you will see how warm and helpful they are.
Also related to this, there is very little crime in the La Ventana area. I just don’t know about Cabo or La Paz, but here in La Ventana, there’s very little crime and very few related problems. As an example, and particularly in my projects, which are a little more isolated because of how I structured it to be in a residential area and we don’t really run a walk in bar and restaurant, we lock the gate but we don’t have any keys for the rooms. Guests leave their iPhones, laptops, etc., in the restaurants and in the rooms and we’ve never had anything stolen in the entire 15 years we’ve been here.
As far as the bad things, from my perspective, doing business here can be frustrating, with all the red tape. They really got a handle on the corruption which is nice because when you grow up in North America you’re just not used to that system even though in Latin countries it’s pretty standard. From a personal perspective, I don’t pay anybody off because I just feel like once you go down that road, it’s never ending.
As opposed to doing business here, if you’re just in retirement here you don’t have to interact too much with the government. The banking has gotten a lot better. Phone services are now a lot better. The Internet’s gotten a lot better. Everything has improved. It was not that long ago when we started here there was no power, no roads, no phone, and no Internet, so it’s come a long way. The Internet is still not lightning fast but it sure has come a long way from fax speed we had when I started here.
(Mountain bike riding, La Ventana Bay, Baja California Sur, Mexico, pictured.)
I am not retired yet but I can say that if you are an expat who wants to retire in Bocas Del Toro, you have to have something to do on this Caribbean island. If you are retired, you have to do something. It can be either volunteering for some type of social activity, which we have a lot of here in Bocas. There are lots of different things that expats can help the locals with. Retirement in Bocas means you have to have a hobby. To just retire in Bocas with nothing to do does not work;...
There are no golf courses here in Bocas but there is plenty of snorkeling. You can go into the jungles or walk on the beach. It really helps if you get yourself setup with some social environment where you volunteer to put water systems in an indigenous Indian village or volunteer for spay and neuter programs for dogs and cats here in Bocas. You can volunteer to teach children in schools or volunteer to teach people how to play guitar. 
Dental care is cheaper in Portugal than anywhere else comparable. I have heard that there is a move by the government towards trying to get the Algarve to be a health holiday place but this is still in its early stages. Compared to India and other places like that, dental tourism in Portugal is still highly negligible. 
Truly, remember Belize is a foreign country, and use a good lawyer. All our clients are required to use a lawyer befor buying real estate. .jpg)
Wouldn’t it have been nice if, when you were growing up, you had an aunt who was always there when you needed her, who understood you, who always seemed to know what you needed and gave it to you, but who didn’t ask for anything in return? The one who, if you got into an argument with your parents, you could go to? Who would not be judgmental, and would help to make everything right? Putting aside the lopsidedness of such a relationship, we came to view Ajijic as that...
In 2011 I took a short holiday in Bodrum, south-west Turkey, popular with British tourists. Enjoyed it and spent a few days looking at property, helped by several generous locals; we were driven all over to visit several locations up to 100 km away from our hotel without obligation, all offers of payment refused.