Panama Archives - Page 2 of 10

An Epic 2 Nights in the Jungle at Rambala Jungle Lodge

6 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 15, 2022 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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 1, 2022 February 14, 2023

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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / January 25, 2022 January 24, 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

6 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / January 4, 2022 December 30, 2021

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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 28, 2021 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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 21, 2021 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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 7, 2021 January 24, 2022

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 / By Jim @ Route To Retire / November 16, 2021 January 24, 2022

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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I’ve Decided to Hike up an Active Volcano…

12 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Panama / By Jim @ Route To Retire / October 12, 2021 October 12, 2021

The thought of hiking up an active volcano might seem out of sorts for me, but it’s now something that’s going to happen in a few months. First off, I skipped another week of writing (I’m getting pretty good at this!). But I do have a good excuse – we had guests for 8 days. Our friends Steve and Courtney Adcock visited us for about a week in Boquete, Panama and we had a rocking good time! As I write …

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We’re Saving Over $800 on Our Trip to Mexico… Here’s the Plan

12 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Saving, Spending / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 14, 2021 July 17, 2022

Moving back to the U.S. from Boquete, Panama next spring is going to be bittersweet. But we’re excited about our new adventures to come… starting with a trip to Mexico on the way back! It’s still hard for us to grasp that we’re not locked into doing the “normal” type of vacations anymore. Since we’re early-retired and Faith’s homeschooling, we have the ability to slow travel or just make up new paths in life on the fly. In this case, …

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