Panama

6 Years of Early Retirement: What I've Learned About Life, Money, and Happiness

6 Years of Early Retirement: What I’ve Learned About Life, Money, and Happiness

16 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

Today is the anniversary of my last day of work six years ago. At the end of the workday on December 31, 2018, I became free in a sense. That was the day my early retirement began. If you’ve dreamed about early retirement for a while like I did leading up to this, there’s a little surprise in store that you might not know… It’s not going to be exactly the way you envisioned. That’s because when we daydream or […]

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Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe

Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe

19 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Spending / /

Things certainly have escalated quickly at the Route to Retire household! We started with the plan to take a couple of vacations over the next year and suddenly we’re traveling the world for 121 days! We seem to have this problem – almost a sickness – where we get an idea and tend to go overboard with it. Instead of visiting the country of Panama for a month or two, we lived there for three years (so worth it!)! The

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The Realities of Adventure: Are the Headaches Before and After Worth It?

The Realities of Adventure: Are the Headaches Before and After Worth It?

12 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids, Panama, Road Trip, Travel and Vacation / /

There’s no doubt we’re making the most out of our early retirement freedom. I left my career at the end of 2018 and we’ve done a lot of unique things since then, including: The point is that we’ve stepped out of our comfort zone to do some different things – some involving a fair amount of adventure. There are two on that list that really stand out though on the adventure list just because of the commitment, work involved in

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A Month-Long Vacation in Boquete, Panama: What I Loved… and What I Didn’t

A Month-Long Vacation in Boquete, Panama: What I Loved… and What I Didn’t

6 Comments / Panama, Health and Fitness, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

Well, we just wrapped up a month-long vacation in Boquete, Panama. Wow, I missed it here! For those of you who aren’t regular readers, we lived in Boquete for just shy of three years starting in 2019 before returning to the U.S. in the spring of 2022. Moving back to the U.S. was a difficult decision that has both its pros and cons but either way, it was great to be back there again. This trip came about because of

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Limited Time, Unlimited Dreams: 3 Steps to an Extraordinary Life

Limited Time, Unlimited Dreams: 3 Steps to an Extraordinary Life

6 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Saving, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

As I find my way closer to 50 (I’ll be 48 in a couple of months), I’m starting to see those small changes creeping up that I thought only happen to old people. Oh crap, am I old?!! Out of nowhere, my eyes have gotten a little weaker – both near and far! I can see close-up pretty well most of the time but I finally broke down and bought some readers for nighttime reading. The same goes for distance.

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Master the Art of Anticipation: How Travel Planning Can Double Your Vacation Fun!

Master the Art of Anticipation: How Travel Planning Can Double Your Vacation Fun!

9 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Spending / /

It’s hard not to enjoy a good vacation… a chance to get away from the “same old” just for a little while. Traveling can be an opportunity to visit places you’ve never been, see new sites, meet interesting people, and maybe even try some different foods! Whether traveling just a short distance away, flying to another country, or cruising around the world, just the idea of travel gets the vacation-goer chomping at the bit. And that’s what’s so interesting –

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A Month-Long Panama Trip for 3 for an Unbeatable Price of Less than $1,500!

A Month-Long Panama Trip for 3 for an Unbeatable Price of Less than $1,500!

23 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

I’ve been excited to talk about this for a while now, but I wanted to hold back until we were sure it was going to happen. Well, it’s now official… We’re heading back to Boquete for a month-long Panama trip! After just shy of 3 years of living in Boquete, Panama, we moved back to the U.S. last spring. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there but it was time to come back. A lot of folks continue to ask us

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The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2022

The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2022

4 Comments / Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Panama, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

Last year, I wrote a wrap-up post with the 10 most popular posts of the year. It was an idea I borrowed from my friend Fritz over at The Retirement Manifesto (with his permission, of course). I liked that idea so much that I’m running with it again this year. And guess what – Fritz did it again as well and beat me to the punch! If you’re interested (and you should be!), you can check out his post appropriately

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Finding My Place Again in the U.S. – 3 Things I’m Worried About

Finding My Place Again in the U.S. – 3 Things I’m Worried About

31 Comments / General Thoughts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / /

We moved to Boquete, Panama back in 2019, just months after I had retired from work at the end of 2018. We had sold everything we owned and moved to a country that we had only visited one other time – a country where we knew no one and almost everyone speaks Spanish. You would think that this whirlwind would be one of the biggest hurdles in life to adjust to and figure out. Funny enough though, finding my place

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3 Attainable Characteristics That Drastically Improved My Quality of Life

3 Attainable Characteristics That Drastically Improved My Quality of Life

14 Comments / Motivation, Education, General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / /

None of us are perfect. That’s life and we all know it. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to improve our quality of life. That applies to us physically, mentally, and spiritually. Doing so can make you healthier, stronger, smarter, and happier. I have this innate tendency to not become complacent. I want to continually work on bettering my quality of life. I want to become the best person I can be. I know that I’ll never be able

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