Travel and Vacation Archives

Being a Perpetual Tourist… the Pros and Cons

12 Comments / Geoarbitrage, Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / January 19, 2021 January 17, 2021

The term “perpetual tourist” was one I wasn’t familiar with until we got serious about the idea of moving to Panama several years ago. Sometimes you might also hear it by the name “perpetual traveler”, “permanent tourist”, “prior taxpayer”, or even just by the letters “PT.” A perpetual tourist is someone who isn’t a legal resident of the country they are living in. Be aware that this is completely different than an illegal immigrant. PTs still play by the tourism …

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A Better Life for Half the Price… Sound Appealing?

14 Comments / Geoarbitrage, Panama, Podcasts and Other Appearances, Product and Service Reviews, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / January 12, 2021 January 12, 2021

I recently finished reading the book “A Better Life for Half the Price” by Tim Leffel. This is the second edition of the book and it was just released this past November. Why was I reading this book when I’m already living that kind of life? Two reasons: 1) It’s intriguing to read about living in different areas of the world and compare my experiences from the U.S. and Panama. 2) I’m quoted in it a few times (how cool …

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Moving to Boquete or Visiting? The Ultimate List of Tips!!

18 Comments / Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / November 10, 2020 November 7, 2020

When we decided to make moving to Boquete, Panama a reality a few years ago, I didn’t know too much about the intricacies here. I knew it would be a lot different but you just don’t know what you don’t know. Now that we’ve been here since the middle of 2019, I can tell you that we’ve learned a lot. There are still oddities that make us raise an eyebrow, but we have a much better hold on things nowadays. …

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Boquete, Panama – What’s It Like Today?

24 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / October 27, 2020 October 27, 2020

When we left Boquete, Panama on a humanitarian flight at the beginning of summer, there were some borderline draconian measures in place here. The reaction to the pandemic here was to shut everything down to the extreme. Everyone was literally on a full-time lockdown. Women were only allowed out for two-hour periods on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays based on the last digit of your cédula or passport. The same went for men but they could only do Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and …

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Our Trip to Panama – What to Expect As Borders Reopen

28 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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Here’s Why I’m Liking… RV Parky

6 Comments / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Product and Service Reviews, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / September 25, 2020 November 12, 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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