Life in Early Retirement

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 / /

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

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

4 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / /

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

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Alcohol Tracking – I Spent Hours Creating This Spreadsheet I Hope to Use Very Little

Alcohol Tracking – I Spent Hours Creating This Spreadsheet I Hope to Use Very Little

13 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / /

I love beer. I do! And if you know me, alcohol tracking probably wouldn’t be something you would think I should waste my time with since I’m not a huge drinker. But it’s a fun little experiment I’ve decided to do regardless. Did I mention that I love beer? Even a glass of lemonade on a hot day just doesn’t quite have the same refreshingness that an ice-cold beer seems to provide. Nevertheless, I know it’s not good for me

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An Epic 2 Nights in the Jungle at Rambala Jungle Lodge

An Epic 2 Nights in the Jungle at Rambala Jungle Lodge

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

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!

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

32 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama / /

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…

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

6 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement / /

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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Strength Training – One of a Few Big Workout Changes I’ve Made

Strength Training – One of a Few Big Workout Changes I’ve Made

2 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / /

That’s right, baby – I’ve now switched my workouts from bodybuilding to strength training. That’s just one of the changes that have come up for me in my fitness track this past year. Welcome to another workout update! Over the past few years, I’ve tried to provide you with status reports and some other facets of working out that have been helpful to me that I thought were worth sharing: Although I post about fitness a few times a year,

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Why Early Retirement Isn’t Just About Escaping a Sh*tty Job

Why Early Retirement Isn’t Just About Escaping a Sh*tty Job

20 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / /

It seems that more and more folks in the FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community are jumping on the bandwagon of bashing the idea of early retirement… because early retirement now somehow conveys a negative connotation. I even heard some of my favorite hosts talking about this recently on a very popular podcast. The message was basically that early retirement is bad and if you don’t like your job, early retirement isn’t the answer – find a job you

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Going to the Movies in Panama: 5 Interesting Lessons Learned

Going to the Movies in Panama: 5 Interesting Lessons Learned

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

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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Time Marches on… Getting You Up to Speed

Time Marches on… Getting You Up to Speed

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

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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