Why So Many Americans Choose Boquete For Retirement

Intro

Kathleen Peddicord

Hello and welcome to the Retired Overseas Podcast. I am Kathleen Peddicord.

Today I had planned to have a conversation with Boquete expat Gabrielle Reynolds. Gabrielle and her husband, Patrick, moved ten years ago to the place that we at Live and Invest Overseas have again named for 2026 as the number one place to live or retire overseas.

Boquete: The Best Place to Retire in 2026

Kathleen Peddicord

I have been promoting and recommending Boquete for more than 27 years, and over those two and a half decades it has been at the top of our index at various times.

Throughout that time, it has remained a very appealing choice for two main reasons. First, it is in Panama, which is hard to beat and checks a lot of boxes. Second, it offers some particular advantages you do not find elsewhere in Panama, primarily better weather than you get down at sea level.

Boquete is in the highlands, so because of the elevation you have a much milder climate, cooler temperatures, and less humidity. Some houses even come with fireplaces because it can get cool enough in the evening that you may want a fire.

It also has a very large and established expat community, with hundreds of North American and European expats and retirees who have been in residence for the past couple of decades. So you have a ready-made community to connect with.

These are all among the reasons why we have again named Boquete the world’s best place to live or retire overseas in 2026.

Gabrielle, welcome. Great to see you.

When did you think of retiring abroad?

Kathleen Peddicord

I want to back up in the conversation and start at the beginning. When did you first have the idea that you might like to retire outside the United States?

Gabrielle Reynolds

It’s an idea that kind of has to seep into your mindset because we are so used to things as they are in the United States. That is where we are, where our friends are, and it feels comfortable because you understand it.

So it took a little while. In 2005, we came to Panama. We only made it as far as Panama City, Colón, and Barro Colorado. We went to see the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

But I said to Patrick that the trip didn’t feel complete because we never made it to the highlands of Chiriquí. So on the next trip, we came up here, and as we were driving from David up the mountain to Boquete, I had the weirdest feeling.

I looked at Patrick and said, “I have the weirdest feeling we’re going home.” And that feeling has never gone away.

Did you consider other countries?

Kathleen Peddicord

Did you consider other countries other than Panama?

Gabrielle Reynolds

Yes, we did. I loved a lot of the European options, like Italy or Portugal, but from California, where our family was, that felt like a much longer trip.

So we thought going straight down to Panama or somewhere else in Latin America might make more sense. We started with Costa Rica, and we loved it. But as soon as we got on the bus from San José and crossed the border into Panama and arrived in David, we started noticing several things about Panama that appealed to us more than Costa Rica, mainly cost and crime.

Kathleen Peddicord

Okay, so you knew pretty quickly that Boquete was the place for you. Can you tell us how your move went? Did you move right away? Did you sell everything in the United States? Did you have a one-year plan?

What was moving to Boquete, Panama like?

Gabrielle Reynolds

We had no plan. We had lost our home, and we were not gainfully employed at the time. I had a small pension from Disney, not much, but it could be liquidated partially, and that is what we used to move before we had Social Security income.

Because we needed so little, we found our casa on Craigslist in Los Angeles and rented it sight unseen. When we got here, we realized it was just perfect. It was within walking distance to town and had everything we needed, and whatever it didn’t have, we could buy, even if it was just a new frying pan.

At first, we were still here as tourists, so every six months we had to leave the country. We would go back to Los Angeles, pack more things, and come back. So we made the move in little slabs like that. It worked out great.

Kathleen Peddicord

So you really took a big leap of faith, renting a house online long distance and then just showing up and saying, “Here we are, we’re staying.”

What is health care in Boquete like?

Kathleen Peddicord

Boquete is very close to David, which is a large and developed city with shopping and strong healthcare resources. Is that where you go for your healthcare?

Gabrielle Reynolds

Actually, we now have a couple more clinics that have opened in Boquete itself. Over the ten years we’ve been here, we’ve watched a lot of expansion.

We have a couple of local doctors who are excellent and have their own clinics here. If needed, we also have ambulance service to take patients from the clinic down to one of the hospitals in David.

But we are very happy with the clinics here. We can get everything we need unless it is something major or highly specialized. And we have really excellent doctors here who speak English.

Kathleen Peddicord

Okay, that’s great to hear.

The expat community in Boquete

Kathleen Peddicord

Let’s talk about that very established expat community in Boquete. Have you joined various expat groups? How have you connected with people?

Gabrielle Reynolds

The first thing that happened is that, during our recon trip in September of 2015, I saw the theater, and I’m a theater person. Patrick made his living as an actor, so the theater immediately appealed to us.

No sooner had we arrived than we were cast in The Play That Goes Wrong, and we had a ball. And if you know theater at all, you know you meet everybody through it. We made a lot of friendships that way, and once we got into that, we really didn’t need anything else.

There are also many other organizations here. There is Amigos de Animales, which handles animal clinics and sterilization. There is Buenos Vecinos, which helps indigenous families with food. There are lots of organizations you can join, and through them you meet many people. You really don’t have trouble connecting.

The cost of living in Boquete

Kathleen Peddicord

Let’s speak a little more practically. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you paying in rent for your house?

Gabrielle Reynolds

We pay under $1,000 where we are here. Our landlady has sort of kept the rent down for us.

It is definitely rising because of the influx of new expats from Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Europe. So we’re seeing what happens when demand increases and more people compete for the available housing supply.

We’ve been lucky to have our rent stabilized at under $1,000 for a full three-bedroom, two-bath house.

What residency path did you take?

Kathleen Peddicord

At first you were in Panama as tourists and doing the border run, which back then was easier than it later became. So what residency path did you eventually choose?

Gabrielle Reynolds

We went to a wonderful attorney here and said we needed residency, and by then we were both old enough to qualify for jubilado status, so that is the path we took.

We still need to get our E-cédulas, which give us many of the rights Panamanian citizens have while still identifying us as extranjeros, foreigners.

But we have had no trouble at all with just the residency cards. It is like carrying a driver’s license. You show it at the border, and you also use it to get your 25% jubilado discount, which is fabulous for restaurants, pharmacies, and airfare.

Kathleen Peddicord

So it is recognized and honored around Boquete?

Gabrielle Reynolds

Yes, absolutely.

Where do you go shopping?

Kathleen Peddicord

Where do you go grocery shopping?

Gabrielle Reynolds

I don’t know if you knew this, Kathie, but they have just built a big, gorgeous Rey grocery store here. It is huge.

Before that, if we wanted to go to that particular supermarket, we had to go down to David. But now we have it here. And that is only one of seven major grocery stores.

You can go from a full-on Panamanian shopping experience all the way to a very North American-style grocery experience. It is very easy.

When we didn’t have a car, we would go down with our backpacks, buy everything, and take the bus back up. Shopping for everything else is also easy. There are small department stores in Boquete, and if you need larger stores, you can still go to Federal Mall in David, where you will find the bigger options you might know from Panama City.

What is the transportation system like?

Kathleen Peddicord

You have mentioned several times that you used the buses, especially when you first arrived. And that speaks well of the infrastructure in Panama, because the national bus system really is excellent.

What is the cost of a bus ticket from Boquete to David?

Gabrielle Reynolds

If you take the nicer bus, the one that is air-conditioned and has better amenities, it costs about $1.25 each way.

And then if you take the little buses around town, which go everywhere, including up into the mountains where a lot of communities sit with incredible views, those are about $0.60 per ride. But after they recognize you as a local, it can be $0.40.

Who should move abroad or to Boquete?

Kathleen Peddicord

Who do you think would be the right kind of person to make this move, first of all overseas in general, and then specifically to Boquete?

Retiring overseas is not for everyone. It is work. You do not just show up and wake up the next morning in a perfect new life. You have to work to build the life you imagined and dreamed of.

So who do you think is best suited for this?

Gabrielle Reynolds

I think adaptability is key, and also the ability to value other people even when they are different from you.

There are many different parts of the community here, and you absolutely want to be a good neighbor to Panamanians. You need to reach out to them. That matters.

We have had a lot of friends come here full of enthusiasm, bringing a whole container of their belongings, and then realize they just could not make it work.

Another thing is expectations around housing. If you come with a very North American idea of the kind of home you want, there are lots of houses built to those standards, including extravagant homes that still cost much less than comparable homes in the United States.

But there are also many Panamanian-style homes, like the casita we rented. You have to be willing to say, “Okay, this is more rustic. Maybe I don’t have hot water plumbed to my kitchen sink, but I can work with that.”

If you have that adaptability, you will be fine. But for some people, that is hard.

Kathleen Peddicord

That is another great insight. We often talk about asking yourself from the start, “How local are you willing to go?”

Housing is the easiest metaphor for that. In Panama, and especially in Boquete, you can absolutely buy a house built to North American standards. It can even be luxurious. And it will still cost much less than it would in the United States.

But it is still going to cost much more than a local-level house. If you go more local, you may be living in concrete block construction, with simpler infrastructure, fewer built-in comforts, and a more rustic feel, but your costs go down dramatically.

So the more local you are willing to go, the more affordable your life can become, in housing and in everything else, including groceries and day-to-day living.

That is one of the biggest advantages of Panama. It offers all those choices along the spectrum. It offers a genuine luxury standard, which is not true everywhere.

In some countries, even if you have a lot of money, that kind of high-end lifestyle just does not exist to be purchased. But in Panama, it does. It is still cheaper than in the United States, but it is far more expensive than a local-level life.

So really it becomes a matter of choosing where on that spectrum you want to live.

Gabrielle Reynolds

Exactly. I feel really lucky that because we rented our casita sight unseen off Craigslist, we kind of walked straight into a Panamanian-style living situation and did not have any other expectations.

So we were perfectly happy with it. But people who arrive after seeing only the pictures of the luxury homes go and look at the Panamanian-style houses and react very differently. And I think they sometimes miss out on some of the opportunity because of that.

Kathleen Peddicord

I agree, and there is no right or wrong. It is not that one way is good and the other is bad. It really comes down to knowing yourself.

As you said, some people show up all in from the start, bringing their whole life with them in a container, only to find that it is not actually the right fit.

So it is important to be honest with yourself from the beginning. What is important to you? What do you want your new life to include? And what do you definitely not want it to include?

This whole adventure comes at a cost in money, time, and effort. It is work. And the point of doing it is to create a better life, the life you have dreamed of.

You do not want to go through all of this only to show up and realize that the new life is not actually better than the one you left. So it does need to be thought through carefully.

For some people, I often recommend taking it step by step. Though to be fair, neither you nor I did that. You went all in, and so did I when I moved to Ireland.

Gabrielle Reynolds

For us, the fact that we had to keep going back for more things and also because we had to leave the country anyway gave us the chance to keep adjusting our thinking.

And I think watching other Americans arrive with strong expectations made it even clearer. Expectations can really throw you off.

Kathleen Peddicord

Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it, and we are also so appreciative that you came to Panama City for the conference last week and then took time again to join us today for this Retired Overseas Podcast.