Archives

What I Miss Most About Panama

October 21, 2024

At the time of writing this I’m preparing for my first return to Panama in two years… Here in Paris, it’s already quite chilly and our summer clothes have been packed away for weeks… my husband and I need both business and beach clothes… warm-weather wear that still fits our rapidly growing 4-year-old needs to…

A New, Better Way To Retire

October 14, 2024

Go to school… get a job… work hard for a few decades… retire… then die. For as long as I can remember, that’s the schedule we’ve been expected to adhere to. Some people make it look good. I have friends now retiring in their early 60s with money in the bank, good health, and lots of…

Escaping The Heat In The Mountains Of Panama

October 7, 2024

Situated in the highlands of western Panama, Tierras Altas (literally, “High Lands”) features comparable scenery to neighboring Boquete—misty hillsides dense with greenery, gardens terraced into slopes, and abundant wildflowers. Its cool-weather climate and the outdoor lifestyle it affords are also similar… But Tierras Altas is also very different to Boquete in important ways. First, it’s…

Trading Toronto, Canada, For Torio, Panama

September 30, 2024

Although firmly on the map as a world-class retirement haven, parts of Panama are still relatively undiscovered. The country’s Veraguas Province is one such place. It sits on the Azuero Peninsula, and its western coast is one of the few places in Panama from which you can watch the sun set over the ocean. And…

Finding Your Personal Paradise In Panama

September 23, 2024

My husband and I just bought tickets to return to Panama, where we lived for seven years. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been back, and this time there was a deadline: we need to renew our permanent residency and get new ID cards. Even though we moved away in 2018, we’re still…

Coming Home To That Vacation Feeling

September 9, 2024

“At least it’s Paris we’re going back to…” I sighed to my husband and daughter as we packed up to leave Mallorca, where we’d been blissfully untethered from reality for the last 10 days. “Because Paris is the best city in the world, right mama?” My four-year-old grinned up at me with this aphorism that…

Peaceful Overseas Escapes

September 2, 2024

With election madness ramping up, even a cursory glance at the headlines serves as a reminder of how volatile and divisive U.S. politics have become. Add to that a string of global crises and conflicts, and the desire to somehow escape from the chaos becomes easily understandable. I’ve long been on a mission to identify…

Why We Picked Panama

August 26, 2024

Why were Lief and I drawn to Panama in the first place… more than 25 years ago… and how have we come to be more invested, personally and professionally, in this isthmus than we are anywhere else in the world? All Panama but especially Panama City has been one of the greatest economic success stories of…

3 Myths About Europe: Busted

August 19, 2024

Europe is a continent of myths and

11 Reasons To Choose Europe

August 12, 2024

Why Europe? It’s been a while since I considered the question… Let’s take a step back today and reconsider Europe from a broader perspective. Why should anyone want to live in Europe? Here are the top 11 reasons I can think of… Café culture. Most European cities have some sort of café culture, which lends…