Best Places In The World To Retire

There is no racial tension here in Belize, especially here in Placencia. There are no problems arising from people being from different races and cultures.

 

I am a caretaker of a property. The property owner is from New York and whenever he comes, there are people from here, within the Peninsula, who have been living here for a long time, who are really close friends with him. Out here, it does not really matter where you come from.

 

There is no racial tension here in Belize, especially here in Placencia. There are no problems arising from people being from different races and cultures.

 

I am a caretaker of a property. The property owner is from New York and whenever he comes, there are people from here, within the Peninsula, who have been living here for a long time, who are really close friends with him. Out here, it does not really matter where you come from.

 

It is not unusual that people have different friends with different colors; that is very common. People of different races inter-marry and that is not an issue either.

 
We first thought that we would like to live in Turks and Caicos, some small islands with a small population in the Bahamas.  One of the things we thought we liked about it was the...

 
We first thought that we would like to live in Turks and Caicos, some small islands with a small population in the Bahamas.  One of the things we thought we liked about it was the beach.  It started out that we walked on the beach every day.  Then, we walked on the beach a few times a week, then, once a month.  It turned out that the beach wasn’t as important to us as we thought.  If we had bought in Turks and Caicos without fully understanding this, it would have been a mistake, at least for us.  (Maybe not for you, if you really love the beach.)
 
Later, we came down to Panama, to Boquete, to visit friends who lived here and were enthusiastic about retiring here, so their attitude influenced us.  In addition, the cost of living and the lifestyle we saw in Panama were totally different than what we had in Toronto, Canada, which is where we’re from, so we decided to build a vacation home in Panama.  Having a vacation home in Panama worked for us because we could visit before making the final move.
 
We knew more what we wanted because we had already done the beach scenario at Turks and Caicos, and even though we enjoyed it there, it became clear to us that our priorities were for golfing, the social activities in a retirement community, and the weather, so the beach started to take a second position, because we found that in Boquete, we had the things that we discovered were most important to us.
 
Another very important factor is the cost of living.  The cost of living in Panama is much, much less than in Toronto, Canada, which you realize when you come here to Panama.  This becomes an eye opener, and you think “I can come down here to Panama with my US $2,000 to $3,000 per month pension and live quite nicely.”
 
This is one of the reasons why, if you’re on a budget, Panama is much better than Turks and Caicos.  The costs in Turks and Caicos are unbelievably high for food and other items.  Everything is imported.  I used to joke that when we went down to visit for two or three weeks, it felt like I had to take out a second mortgage just to finance the purchase of our groceries.  I was talking with a woman yesterday who has her home on Curacao who told me that her electrical bill was something like $1,000 / month.  Many of these places are very nice and have picturesque beaches, but when it comes to actually living there, when push comes to shove, it’s very, very expensive.
 
In Boquete, which is up in the mountains, the weather is especially nice, if you like cooler weather in the evening.  Here at Tucan, in Arraijan, we’re closer to the ocean, so the weather is not as cool in the evening.  We do, however, have other advantages that may appeal to you: 

Is this the best place for you?  Maybe, if these things appeal to you. Find out what you want and then find your best place.

The surfing in San Juan Del Sur is amazing. The winds here are pretty much always off shore, which creates good conditions for the waves. Most of the breaks are sandy bottom beaches, which is nice especially if you come from surfing in Hawaii, where it is a coral bottom and you cannot put your feet down.

 

San Juan Del Sur is a really good place for beginner surfers and it is still un-crowded. The locals are not territorial in the way locals can be in some...

The surfing in San Juan Del Sur is amazing. The winds here are pretty much always off shore, which creates good conditions for the waves. Most of the breaks are sandy bottom beaches, which is nice especially if you come from surfing in Hawaii, where it is a coral bottom and you cannot put your feet down.

 

San Juan Del Sur is a really good place for beginner surfers and it is still un-crowded. The locals are not territorial in the way locals can be in some surf locations where you can get a real “agro” (surfing slang for “aggressive”) vibe from the surfers. Nicaraguans are very humble. If you know where to sit and you are being respectful, they welcome you out there. You will not find the “this is my wave” attitude at all, which you could get in a lot of other surfing locations around the world.

 

There are about seven good surfing beaches here in San Juan Del Sur in a small span of space.  There are lots of takeoff points, which is great. The quality of the surfing is why I moved here to San Juan del Sur.

 

In San Juan Del Sur, there are good swimming beaches and good surfing beaches. Some of the surfing beaches have safe swimming areas and some of them don’t. If you have kids, you have to watch them closely when you go to the beach, just like you would anywhere in the world. I am a lifeguard and a swim instructor so I am all about parents being diligent and really aware when they are with children around any body of water, whether it be a swimming pool, ocean, or lake. 

 

On bigger surf days you will find more currents so you might not swim on those bays but there are protected beaches here where you can go even on bigger wave days.  You can still head to the beach on those big surf days and find that the waves are different than the waves where the surfers are heading. The San Juan Del Sur proper is a bay so you will not find a lot of big waves. Occasionally, surfing conditions do exist there but for the most part, it is more of a swimming spot.  

 

(Children head off to surf from San Juan del Sur Day School, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, pictured.)