Best Places In The World To Retire

The most typical Mexican dessert is pastel de tres leches (three milk cake). It is a vanilla cake that is covered with condensed milk and two other types of milk. This is a very moist cake and it’s one of the most popular desserts in Mexico.
 
Another typical dessert in Mexico is the leche flan. It has different recipes as well. One is where they put Philadelphia Cheese (cream cheese), eggs, condensed milk, and vanilla. To make the flan, you have to first melt some sugar in...

The most typical Mexican dessert is pastel de tres leches (three milk cake). It is a vanilla cake that is covered with condensed milk and two other types of milk. This is a very moist cake and it’s one of the most popular desserts in Mexico.
 
Another typical dessert in Mexico is the leche flan. It has different recipes as well. One is where they put Philadelphia Cheese (cream cheese), eggs, condensed milk, and vanilla. To make the flan, you have to first melt some sugar in the serving container. Then you put all these ingredients together and mix them. Pour the mixture in the container with melted sugar and cover the container. Put it in the oven for a few minutes. The end product will have the texture of a jelly but it is milk.
 
One more popular dessert in Mexico is arroz con leche, which is sweet white rice pudding with milk and cinnamon sugar topping. To make this, you have to cook white rice, and on a pan, put some milk, sugar (or any kind of sweetener like Splenda), vanilla, and some cinnamon. Mix all of these ingredients together with the white rice.

 

(Mexican desserts; arroz con leche and flan served with stewed fruit and a cookie, pictured.)

I live in Managua as well and we get blackouts maybe once a month for an average of about 45 minutes. It is best to get a generator and have lanterns and candles handy for this reason. But it is nothing to get worried about. 

I live in Managua as well and we get blackouts maybe once a month for an average of about 45 minutes. It is best to get a generator and have lanterns and candles handy for this reason. But it is nothing to get worried about. 

If you hire a nurse here in Panama to come in during the day or actually live in for 24 hours, you’re probably going to pay in the range of US $500 to $1,000 a month.  The price will depend on where you are living.  The countryside would be less expensive and the city would be more expensive.  It also depends on whether your caregiver is staying with you full time and you have to supply them with a place to sleep and so on.
 
In the past, I was responsible...

If you hire a nurse here in Panama to come in during the day or actually live in for 24 hours, you’re probably going to pay in the range of US $500 to $1,000 a month.  The price will depend on where you are living.  The countryside would be less expensive and the city would be more expensive.  It also depends on whether your caregiver is staying with you full time and you have to supply them with a place to sleep and so on.
 
In the past, I was responsible for the affairs of my parents in the US, where I paid a fortune for that kind of caregiving. This was before I moved here to Panama and I didn’t have the opportunity to bring my mother down here, so I can’t tell you the exact cost here. But I know now that it would have cost so much less if I had my mom here with a caregiver than to have her in a very large institutionalized situation up in the north where they charge thousands of dollars every month. It was very, very expensive. I’m sure other people in this position understand what I mean.
 
They have very few small nursing homes here in Panama City. We’ll probably have some more in the years to come. Panama is a family-oriented society in which you keep your parents with you as long as you can and you’d hire someone to take care of them in the house. When your parents get to a point that they need to be hospitalized, they go to a hospital, so nursing homes simply don’t exist.
 
Now with increased incomes, a lot more people are traveling and there is now starting to be a demand in Panama for homes for the elderly who don’t have to be hospitalized yet, but require a great deal of care. Those with more income are beginning to look for that alternative. There are a handful of places here that provide that now but this should probably grow into a sizable institution in five years.  It’s something that has attracted growing interest, but it’s just getting started here.

You can bring your pets to Belize; you just have to go through the standard procedure. You have to apply for an import permit for your animal. Then you have to fill out some documents from the USDA Animal Health Department. Then you need to get a vet to check your animal and make sure the animal is healthy. You need to get a rabies certificate that says your pet has rabies shots, and I think there are a few little things like diseases they check for when they do the health checkup...

You can bring your pets to Belize; you just have to go through the standard procedure. You have to apply for an import permit for your animal. Then you have to fill out some documents from the USDA Animal Health Department. Then you need to get a vet to check your animal and make sure the animal is healthy. You need to get a rabies certificate that says your pet has rabies shots, and I think there are a few little things like diseases they check for when they do the health checkup performed by the vet in the States to make sure they don’t have certain diseases that they can bring here to Belize. I am not sure how long it takes, but I think that takes 1 to 3 business days. Once you do all that, you bring your animal down here and you are all set to go.
 
My third animal was self-quarantined, but you do not have to do it at the airport. If you have a house or condo or a place you’re renting you can have them come down and look at it first before you come over. If you have already been here in Belize before you bring the pet, they can look at it and say “okay, you can just quarantine your animal in your house for a couple of weeks.” The reason why they want to look at where you will “house quarantine” your animal is to make sure that your animals are not going to come to Belize, start running around free, and possibly spread disease. That is standard. You can quarantine your pet inside your own property; not necessarily inside your house. The quarantine is only for a couple of weeks and it is a really easy process. There are many Americans here in Belize who have pets. People here have dogs, cats, even birds.
 
We don’t have a “dog issue” in Belize. We did have a regulation on dogs about 15 years ago. We now have spay and neuter. I just saw a dog run off just a few minutes ago.  It has a red collar on and it walks around free but I know somebody from around here owns that dog.

You can definitely bring your dog or cat to Portugal. I have a client who spent 6 months in Antigua and 6 months of the year here. She always traveled with her dogs and it’s actually fine. Portugal doesn’t have quarantine as long as your dog is up to date with all vaccinations and passports. 
 
You can even bring your horses to Portugal. I have clients who moved here from England, who have horses in England and brought them here. You can keep your horses in...

You can definitely bring your dog or cat to Portugal. I have a client who spent 6 months in Antigua and 6 months of the year here. She always traveled with her dogs and it’s actually fine. Portugal doesn’t have quarantine as long as your dog is up to date with all vaccinations and passports. 
 
You can even bring your horses to Portugal. I have clients who moved here from England, who have horses in England and brought them here. You can keep your horses in stables here. There are about six stables in Cascais (just west of Lisbon) where you can keep your horses where they can have lessons as well.

 

(Riding a  Lusitano horse in Portugal, pictured.)

You do not need to renounce or relinquish your USA or Canadian citizenship if you decide to live abroad.  You keep your citizenship, change your lifestyle, enjoy a lot of new and interesting stuff and become a more rounded and knowledgeable person. 

 

I feel it is important to be willing to experience new things, a different culture, different ways of doing things and accept some risks of the unknown.  It is all worth it though when you break the...

You do not need to renounce or relinquish your USA or Canadian citizenship if you decide to live abroad.  You keep your citizenship, change your lifestyle, enjoy a lot of new and interesting stuff and become a more rounded and knowledgeable person. 

 

I feel it is important to be willing to experience new things, a different culture, different ways of doing things and accept some risks of the unknown.  It is all worth it though when you break the routine you are used to and enjoy something new.