Travel and Vacation Archives

Traveling to Panama? The Ultimate Guide in Going from the U.S. to Boquete

15 Comments / Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 23, 2021 March 22, 2021

I’m very excited to say that my in-laws have officially booked flights to visit us next month. But traveling to Panama isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re not an avid traveler, you’re probably going to run into some stumbling blocks along the way. Heck, even if you are a regular traveler, you’ll probably run into your share of quirky issues. The difference is that it might be a little easier for the regular traveler to know what to …

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Boquete, Panama in Photos – Beautiful!

10 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 9, 2021 March 5, 2021

As I was looking at some of the pictures we’ve taken during our time so far in Panama, I realized that I haven’t shared enough of them with you. So today, I’m happy to present Boquete, Panama in photos for your enjoyment! We’ve been lucky enough to be living in Boquete since 2019 and get to experience this beautiful place. But then, we also have the privilege of reliving it at night because all our photos show up as a …

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Traveling to Ohio in February… Um, Why?!

22 Comments / Geoarbitrage, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 16, 2021 February 12, 2021

I started writing this post just one day before we started traveling to Ohio from Panama. By the time you read this, we’ll be in the dead of winter in Northeast Ohio. We’ve left the 75°F daily temps of Boquete to head toward the Akron/Cleveland area where the high has been hovering in the teens lately. It’s snowing off and on as well, but that’s par for the course in February in Ohio. We might be the worst snowbirds ever …

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We Decided Not To Move Back Home to the U.S. Yet!

29 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 2, 2021 January 29, 2021

I’m excited to announce that Lisa and I recently made the decision not to move back home to the U.S. just yet. We’ve been taking this year by year since we moved here to Boquete, Panama in the summer of 2019. Over the past couple of months though, it looked like our time here was going to be ending in the fall. But I’m happy to tell you that we finally came up with a new plan. We’ll have the …

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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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