Panama Archives - Page 2 of 10

The 2 Big Reasons We’re Moving Back From Panama… and What’s Next!

10 Comments / Panama, Geoarbitrage, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Self-Employment, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / March 29, 2022

I’ve been regularly putting my entire life out there publicly on this blog since 2015. So when someone is surprised to find out we’re moving back to the U.S. from Panama, I’m sometimes confused for a second… doesn’t everyone follow our journey on this site every week? Of course not! Though you should be! 😉 When friends ask us about why we’re moving back, I usually fill them in. And when blog-reading friends ask us why we’re moving back, I […]

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3 Popular Panama Beach Resorts – Las Olas, Las Lajas, and Show Pony

4 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / March 15, 2022

Beaches are prevalent throughout the country of Panama. Frommer’s notes that there are over 1,000 on the Pacific side and more than 500 on the Caribbean side. That’s a lot of beaches in general, but a heckuva lot considering that the entire country of Panama is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of South Carolina! And with that many beaches comes a lot of Panama beach resorts. In the province of Chiriquí where we live (that’s where the cities of

An Epic 2 Nights in the Jungle at Rambala Jungle Lodge

6 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / February 15, 2022

Wow. I knew this was going to be something different. But who would have thought that a stay at the Rambala Jungle Lodge in the middle of the jungle would be so awesome?! My wife, Lisa, found out about this place and thought it would be something unique to do. A stay in an open-air bungalow in the middle of the jungle… sounds good to me! So she booked our stay at the Rambala Jungle Lodge a month or so

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Holy #$%*… I Just Hiked up Volcán Barú!

32 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / February 1, 2022

Volcán Barú, a volcano that stands 3,474 meters tall (that’s 11,398 feet!)… and I just hiked to the top and back in less than half a day. I’ve heard of people doing this since the day we moved to Boquete, Panama in August 2019. Even so, I just thought the idea was a little crazy. But then we did the 4×4 tour to the top with our friends, Steve and Courtney, back in October. On the drive down, our guide

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A Beautiful Hike, a Cemetery, and a Flower Festival…

6 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement / Jim @ Route To Retire / January 25, 2022

It’s crazy to think that we’re only going to be living in Panama for less than 3 more months before moving back to the U.S. (with a couple of weeks in Mexico first!). In the meantime though, we’re cramming everything from a cemetery to a flower festival into our plans. It’s been a wonderful adventure over the past 2 ½ years here so far – we definitely feel like this is home. But we have our reasons for heading back

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Going to the Movies in Panama: 5 Interesting Lessons Learned

8 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / January 4, 2022

I’ve always been a little curious about going to the movies in Panama. How much different would it be from going to the movies in the U.S.? Are there subtitles in English or Spanish? Are the movies dubbed over in Spanish? Is it cheaper than what we’re used to seeing? What is the experience like in the theater – are the Panamanians talkers during the movie? We’ve lived in Boquete, Panama since 2019 and only finally went to see our

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The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2021… That Aren’t Fritz’s

6 Comments / Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Kids, Panama, Real Estate / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 28, 2021

I was trying to decide what to write for this week’s post. Then I ran across my friend Fritz’s recent post, The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2021. That seemed like the perfect way to end the year… so I stole his idea! Ok, I didn’t really steal it. I reached out to Fritz to see if he’d be ok with me writing a post of my own like his… and he was just fine with the idea. See? We

Time Marches on… Getting You Up to Speed

6 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Health and Fitness, Panama, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 21, 2021

That’s right, folks – time marches on. Time always marches on. And it’s been a while since I’ve updated you on where we’re at and what we’ve been doing. Things are changing quickly for us and it’s tough to stay on top of all our upcoming plans. We have so much going on and time seems to be flying by incredibly fast. It’s crazy to think that we just went to the States for a month-long visit and came back

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Selling Everything We Owned Has Been Truly Liberating

24 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Motivation, Panama, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 7, 2021

Selling everything and just taking off and leaving is a dream a lot of folks have… even if it’s just a fleeting thought. To actually do it though sounds crazy. Who would do something like that?! Yeah, we were those people. We got rid of just about everything we owned and headed to Panama in the summer of 2019. At the time, we were just going through the checklist of moving preparation to make it happen. One of the biggest

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The 2 Most Useful Spanish Phrases I Love to Use

18 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Education, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / November 16, 2021

For those of you who are regular followers of this site, you know that I’ve continued to improve my Spanish-speaking skills since moving to Panama in 2019. That said, some Spanish phrases are more useful than others. Sure, it’s great to know common expressions such as: Buenos días (Good morning) ¿Cómo estás? (How are you?) ¿Hablas inglés? (Do you speak English?) Disculpe/Permiso (Excuse me – disculpe to ask a question and permiso to pass by someone) Terminology like these examples

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