Best Places In The World To Retire

When one speaks of the dress code in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area, one has to make several distinctions:
 
Mexican vs. expat.  The local Mexicans take great pride in their appearance and their clothing, a trait which extends to maids and gardeners.  They almost always have very clean, well ironed clothes in very good condition, usually significantly superior to the typical expat man’s clothing (more on that below).  Mexicans from Guadalajara who are visiting...

When one speaks of the dress code in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area, one has to make several distinctions:
 
Mexican vs. expat.  The local Mexicans take great pride in their appearance and their clothing, a trait which extends to maids and gardeners.  They almost always have very clean, well ironed clothes in very good condition, usually significantly superior to the typical expat man’s clothing (more on that below).  Mexicans from Guadalajara who are visiting are even better dressed, with women many times wearing flashy, somewhat seductive clothing, usually with high heels.  (And this is just normal, walking around.)
 
Expat women.  Expat women (especially those from the US or Europe) are generally tastefully and very well dressed, with clothing usually purchased during trips "back home."  They wear nice and not overdone jewelry and their hair and nails are generally impeccable.  With the low beauty parlor and nail salon prices here, why not?
 
Expat men.  Expat men can sort of be slobs (like I have been accused of being, and not without justification), wearing shorts, tee-shirts, sandals, etc. Other expat men can be better dressed, but are usually significantly outshined by their wives.
 

The weather here in the Lake Chapala / Ajijic area is usually so very nice that you can wear almost whatever you want without looking too out of place; even a jacket or sweater, almost any time of year.

 

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Boquete is a town that produces some of the best kinds of coffee in the world, and Boquete also has great weather. The activities of Boquete revolve around the coffee and the weather. The weather helps us grow beautiful flowers and good coffee. The traditions of Boquete go around the coffee and the flowers.
 
We have two local festivals. One is the festival of flowers, where you can enjoy the beauty of the flowers in Boquete. We also have local activities in November. We have...

Boquete is a town that produces some of the best kinds of coffee in the world, and Boquete also has great weather. The activities of Boquete revolve around the coffee and the weather. The weather helps us grow beautiful flowers and good coffee. The traditions of Boquete go around the coffee and the flowers.
 
We have two local festivals. One is the festival of flowers, where you can enjoy the beauty of the flowers in Boquete. We also have local activities in November. We have November parades where the Panamanians celebrate Independence Day.
 
The expat community also developed additional activities that have now become part of Boquete. They are the Bid 4 Boquete Auction, Tuesday Market, and the Jazz Festival.
 
The Bid 4 Boquete Auction is a charitable organization that was founded and run by expats but there are some Panamanians who are part of it as well. They have an auction once a year where they generate a good amount of money that is given to poor people. That is the good thing about the expat community in Boquete. They give back to the community or to the town where they live since Panamanians have welcomed them into the country of Panama. 
 
The Jazz Festival is another activity here in Boquete and it happens every February. During this time, you will see that all the people of Boquete celebrate the Jazz Festival. I am not so sure about the origin of the Jazz Festival but it is an activity mainly for expats but at the same time, they also show us a different kind of music ,because in Panama, we are not used to listen to Jazz music. Jazz musicians from other countries come to Boquete for the Jazz Festival. 
 
Another activity here in Boquete is the Tuesday Market. By the name itself, it is a market and it happens every Tuesday. Not only do they sell stuff at the market but there are also seminars or speeches about different topics such as make up, clothes, buying a property, medicines, or all about the new laws that help investors to buy properties here in Boquete and in Panama in general. You can go to the Tuesday Market to sell your natural products, cooked products, etc. The origin of this activity was to have a market that targets expats but right now, it is aimed at everybody in. You can learn interesting things from the Tuesday Market.

 

(Musical activities at  Hacienda Los  Molinos Chiriqui Province , Panama, pictured.)

Portugal is divided into three regions—north, center, and south. The southern part of Portugal is more rural and is where we tend to get a lot of European expats from Germany, England, and France. The center of Portugal, where Lisbon is included, we tend to get other nationalities, such as Brazilians, we’re starting to get some Americans, Canadians, and even from Asia; Japanese. And then in the north of Portugal, we get a lot of expats from the the wine producing countries,...

Portugal is divided into three regions—north, center, and south. The southern part of Portugal is more rural and is where we tend to get a lot of European expats from Germany, England, and France. The center of Portugal, where Lisbon is included, we tend to get other nationalities, such as Brazilians, we’re starting to get some Americans, Canadians, and even from Asia; Japanese. And then in the north of Portugal, we get a lot of expats from the the wine producing countries, people from New Zealand, Chile, and South Africa because this region is very famous because of the Port Wine.  There are a lot of wine vineyards up north in Portugal and these people come to retire because of the weather, because of the lifestye, and many other factors. They tend to come straight to the north of Portugal.  There are also a lot of old beautiful palaces and villas for which the purchase price in Portugal is very affordable for people coming from these countries. So it tends to be divided. Europeans go more to the south of Portugal, the wine-producing countries go to the north of Portugal, and in Lisbon it’s a mixture of many cultures.
 
In order to make any generalizations about the expats in Portugal depends a lot on the age factor.  Several weeks ago the Portuguese Tourism Board released a brilliant video just with foreigners, expats talking about our country. In this video are shown people from all ages, from all sectors talking about our country. From a scientist to doctors, to architects—every single field is represented and there’s someone telling their story about Portugal.
 
The view of these people of Portugal is that it’s great living here.  When, as a country, we struggled economically a few years ago, we immediately understood that we’re dependent on every single penny that entered our country. So for a long time, 500 years ago when we started discovering the world, we’re all in contact with many cultures and we had to have a lot of public relations in our blood to achieve what we did. We negotiated with India, Asia, Brazil, and that made us a very easygoing culture. We’ve adapted through all these years and when we had the economic struggle a few years ago, we knew immediately that we had to treat foreigners very well coming here so they would remain and they would spend their money here and they would help us economically. So therefore, we got used to that way to exchange information with foreigners and the process had been like this for the last 20 or 30 years.
 
In Portugal we like foreigners because the foreigners have done a lot of good for us that helped develop our country. So we are very grateful for the foreigners; very, very grateful. And we all have open smiles, we open our houses to foreigners, we invite them with food because we’re so eager for them to get to know our culture that we receive them very well. Our opinion about foreigners is wonderful; it’s great, absolutely great. 
 
Recently, there have been a few issues because the European Union now is wide open, and because of all these problems with the Middle East and we have become a bit suspicious of some of the people from Middle Eastern countries, but with the rest of the world we are completely open-hearted.  

 

(Visitors at Blue Hostel and Suites, Cascais,  Portugal, pictured.)