Route to Retire ...the path to financial independence

Our Trip to Panama – What to Expect As Borders Reopen

20 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / October 20, 2020 October 17, 2020

We made it! Our trip to Panama went well and we’re back at our condo in Boquete safe and sound and enjoying the beautiful weather again. It was only a couple of months ago that we thought we’d be unable to get back to Panama at all. But in an unexpected turn of events, Panama announced they were going to reopen Tocumen International Airport to tourists starting October 12, 2020. Although I wasn’t confident this would actually happen, we booked …

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Getting an Antigen Test to Travel to Panama… Ugh!

12 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / October 13, 2020 October 13, 2020

Yeah… ugh. What a mess things are. As you read this, we should be just hours away from flying back to Panama. The key to making this happen… finding a place to get an antigen test done. Oh, and we needed to take the test within 48 hours of our scheduled arrival time in Panama. And somehow we had to have the negative results in hand in that small window of time. That can still be a real hurdle and …

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Free Nights – We’ve Had 5 at Hilton Hotels Recently

8 Comments / Spending, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / October 6, 2020 October 6, 2020

Getting free stays at a hotel can be such a winning feeling. But free nights at various Hilton Hotels makes it even nicer! Our recent 40-day road trip took us through a lot of the country. On leg one and leg two of the trip, we didn’t really need a hotel to stay at. We spent time camping, staying with friends and family, and even had a few nights sleeping in the car (including once in a Cracker Barrel parking …

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To Truly Reach for the Stars, Challenge Herd Mentality

22 Comments / General Thoughts, Kids, Motivation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 29, 2020 September 26, 2020

I had a little bit of a strange realization the other day. We tell our kids, friends, and other family members that we support their dreams. We tell them to reach for the stars and they can be or do anything they want to in life. But guess what – those are just some empty words. Even though we say to reach for the stars, those words can be meaningless due to our actions. We push our kids to chase …

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Here’s Why I’m Liking… RV Parky

6 Comments / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 25, 2020 September 25, 2020

I recently started a new series called “Here’s Why I’m Liking…” to help showcase awesome products, services, and apps I come across. Today I’m going to tell you about a cool website/app I started using called RV Parky. For those of you following along, we recently completed a big ol’ road trip. When done, it ended up covering 5,863 miles over 40 days. It was a wonderful time and we’re blessed to be able to just pick up and go …

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An Overnight at Cracker Barrel and 5,863 Miles Logged

14 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 22, 2020 September 30, 2020

It’s hard to believe that our road trip is now over and we’re back in Ohio. It’s crazier to think that our first night of the last leg of our trip involved sleeping in a Cracker Barrel parking lot! We’ve been across a large part of this country on this journey and have had a ton of fun in the process. It’s been a good way to end the summer and have some fun while waiting and hoping we can …

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El Paso, Tucson, Viva Las Vegas!! – Road Trip Leg 2

23 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 15, 2020 September 15, 2020

The second leg of our road trip was an absolute blast and ended with some time in Sin City… viva Las Vegas! Ok, there wasn’t much gambling and drinking since we have our ten-year-old with us, but we had one of our most fun times there regardless. We didn’t spend a ton of money but it was still just a great time all around. And before we got to Vegas, we spent a night in the desert trying to make …

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Three Weeks in Texas – A Big Stop on the Road Trip

12 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 8, 2020 September 8, 2020

I’m typing this in the car while back on the road and heading out of Texas. Don’t worry, I’m not the one driving! We spent three weeks in the state and now it’s time for us to move on. For those of you following along, we started our road trip out of Ohio on August 10 and made our way to Texas on August 14. My brother and sister-in-law live just outside of Austin and we spent the past few …

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Well… We Booked a Flight Back to Panama!

26 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 1, 2020 September 1, 2020

And just like that, everything changed in an instant. That glimmer of hope is now sparkling so… we booked a flight to Panama! Booked a flight??? What the heck are you talking about, Jim?! Just last week you talked about what it’s looking like to move back to the U.S. for the long-term. 100% true. And it was looking like it would be inevitable that we’d be putting that plan into motion over the next month or so. I ended …

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The Financial Impact of Moving Back to the U.S.

33 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / By Jim @ Route To Retire / August 25, 2020 August 25, 2020

2020 has been one helluva year, hasn’t it? For us, this pandemic could be the sole catalyst in our possibly moving back to the U.S. from Panama. Not only did our first year there get severely hindered by this mess, but it might also be the reason we don’t go back for a second year. That’s a tough enough pill to swallow considering how much we were enjoying our time there. But life happens and you just gotta adapt accordingly. …

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