Latest Expat Stories

My wife Jet and I had just left a party in an expat community with mostly retirees when she asked me an obviously rhetorical question.

“Did you notice?”

Of course, the very broadness of the question made it essentially impossible to give her a specific answer, so I gave pretty much the only response possible.  “Notice what?”

“How almost everyone we’ve met here seems to be so happy and at ease.  They’re all telling us about how they love it here and...

My dear husband and I left the good ol’ USA when we sold our home in California in 1994. He told me: “Honey, don’t look back!” We were young and adventurous so we drove from California to Costa Rica.

Since we were young we still had to work.  Some Costa Rican partners and I started our own real estate business and network.  I had worked in California as a top producing real estate agent for Better Homes and Gardens for five years so I had the experience. My husband...

Like any mature, clear-thinking, rational couple, before coming to live in Mexico, my wife and I did research into what it would be like to live there. Maybe you’re in this research phase now.

It’s not easy getting to the truth.

On the one side are the obvious promoters; people, websites, businesses, seminar-sellers, certain magazines and YouTubers, etc., that tell you how wonderful absolutely everything is.  It’s not unusual to hear that you can live for $1,019 a...

After we bought our property in Belize we were getting excited about building something where we could go and hang out

 

Initially it started as a cabin with enough room for us and the occasional visitors/family.

 

We began researching costs and wanted to pay cash for everything. After looking around the country at different types of construction, we realized our budget was not going to let us build a U.S. style home.

 

We...

As much as I disdain essays that begin with the phrase, ‘your experience may be different,’ I have no choice here. Your experience obtaining a residency visa in Colombia may indeed be different. Here’s the latest info, and as the title indicates, it’s rudimentary.

 

You can visit Colombia as a tourist for up to 90 days. This may be extended for an additional 90 days, but the extension must be sought, it’s not automatic. In order to live in Colombia beyond...

Maybe my wife and I lead lives a lot like yours.
 
Or at least we did, until about a year ago.  That’s when we sold our comfortable home in Arizona, sold, gave away or put into storage about 90% of our “stuff,” packed the rest into a big white van, and along with our two dogs, spent a year traveling around Mexico.

 

Why did we do it?  For an adventure before we were too old to do it and to see if we liked anywhere along the way as a place to...

Picture this: you’ve gone to meet your wife after her facial and pedicure at a local boutique hotel.  Leaving the bright sunshine outside, you open the thick, wooden doors and are welcomed into the cloistered anteroom.  Around you is subdued lighting, ornate furniture, and a smiling, perfectly groomed young female receptionist with Old World mannerisms and a sophisticated hairdo.

 

Passing into the dining area, your feet and joints appreciate the thick...

As boomers, quite a few of us had the fantasy when we were in high school or college of getting in a VW van with our friends and hitting the road for parts unknown or taking a year off to travel. What adventures we would have!

Some of us even did it, and have stories to tell. Most of us, however, didn’t....

(We thank the wonderful people and our good friends at Nextavenue.org, where this article was originally published July 28, 2016.)

 

I was at a lecture a few years ago where the speaker casually mentioned that most members of the audience were in the final third of their lives. As I looked around, I saw a lot of “old people,” so it seemed like he was right.

 

Then, I did the math relative to myself.

 

Oh, no! He was...