move to Panama Archives | Page 10 of 10

When I do a Panama Relocation Tours™, I can usually tell by the end of the tour who will relocate to Panama, and who will not. Some people need all the creature comforts of home. Others see the change in lifestyle as a new adventure. If you want to make it in Panama, that is the kind of attitude you need to have. There will be trade-offs when you live in Panama

Some people expect to see all the same brands of food at the grocery stores, a Walmart or shopping center just down the street, the same TV shows (in English) and the same kind of services you have in the USA. In Panama, that will probably not happen.

There are many varieties of food at the grocery store, some you will be familiar with,some will be new. And you may need to go to several stores to find all the things on your list. You can buy the Del Monte brand of can tomatoes for $1.69 a can or you can buy the Panama brand for $0.69 a can. There will be some things that you just cannot find if you live outside of Panama City (like Temptation cat treats or Friskies shredded cat food). You’ll learn that buying produce from the farmers market is fresher and more affordable than buying at the grocery store. Shopping is a whole new experience in Panama.

You won’t find a Walmart anywhere in Panama but there are other stores with even better prices. Conway is the Latin version of Target. You’ll be amazed at the variety of items at Conway. They even have furniture and household items.

Albrook Mall Panama City Panama — Albrook Mall Panama City

Panama City has huge malls with anything you can imagine available but the malls in the interior are small. Think about all the times you went to the huge malls in the USA or Canada and still could not find anything you liked. Do you really need 100 stores in a mall? The good thing about a smaller mall is that you can get in and out faster with fewer distractions. Of course, you can always fly or drive to Panama City for a weekend shopping fix if that’s your thing.

The reliability of utility services will depend on where you live. When I first moved to Boquete we’d have electricity and internet outages a couple times a week. Now it might happen a couple times a month and usually only lasts for 10 minutes or less. So, for me, it’s not a big deal. Some people will be irritated by this slight inconvenience.

In some areas, because you won’t need air conditioning or a heater, you will save a bundle on your electric bill. Plus, if you have a Pensionado visa you can get a 25% discount off your bill. Try getting that back in the USA or Canada!

When you’re looking for a house to buy or rent, you should not ask, “do you have high speed internet?” The answer will always be yes if they have any internet service at all. The better question to ask is who is your internet service provider? how much does it cost? and what speed can you get? If the property is in an area serviced by Cable Onda you can get the highest speeds (25-6–mbps) for less than $50 per month.

But if you’re in an area which is not serviced by Cable Onda you will probably spend $100 per month for 10mbps max.

Luckily, WIFI is readily available throughout Panama. If you need faster internet speeds, you need to find a place to live which is serviced by Cable Onda.

I have Sky Cable TV which has hundreds of channels plus I added the HBO movie channels. Some of the shows are in English, some are not. Just because you watch one show in English on a certain channel, it does not mean that the next show will be in English on the same channel. You’ll do a lot of channel surfing to find shows in English.

None of the network channels like ABC, NBC, or CBS are available through the Cable Onda or Sky TV but you can get them if you have an Amazon Firestick or by using USTVNow.com. Honestly, after you’ve been in Panama for awhile, you get to where you will care less about what is happening in the news”back home”.

Netflix is readily available in Panama with both movies and TV series.

There are also movie theaters with English language movies I have heard. I have not been to a movie theater yet because the closest one is 45 minutes away from my house in Boquete.

Water service could be interrupted a couple of times a month during the dry season in certain areas. That’s why it’s important to have a reserve water tanks. Water is only $100 per year for unlimited service where I live. I paid more than that per MONTH in the USA.

There will be trade-offs when living in Panama. Only you can decide if it’s worth it and if you can make the adjustment.

You will give up the convenience of some things but gain a better way of living for less money if you can deal with the trade-offs. Some can. Some can’t.

Come see if Panama is right for you during a Panama Relocation Tour™. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.

by Sharon Schwartz

Maybe I was ready to be “taken” when I arrived in Panama to study Spanish ….but I sure didn’t think I’d be living there within the year. After being “liberated” from a position I thought I’d be in forever or at least until retirement, I suddenly had the “gift of time.” So why not have an adventure, learn a language, see the world? Panama is where I started. I found an inexpensive Spanish school that offered a home-stay with a Panamanian family and booked the flight. Three short weeks later I was hooked on this small country. I went back home put my house on the market in June, it sold in July and I moved to Boquete in September.

Why Panama? The long and short of it is, I fell in love with the country and its people but it was Boquete that captured my soul. A 45 minute flight from Panama City brings you to a whole different world here in the Highlands; a beautiful respite from the torrid, tropical heat of the capital.

Boquete is surrounded by hills studded with the lush landscape kept green by all the rain, especially the soft afternoon mist. Where else do you find giant green pine trees, palm trees and cactus all together in one spot? They make up just part of the 60 shades of green, as do the coffee “fincas” or farms that dot the hills as they stand in the shadows of Volcan Baru, the extinct volcano that looms large above the town. While the hills are green there are explosions of color at every house with flowers everywhere – after all Boquete means bouquet.

85 degrees F for a high and an average of 65 degrees F at night is not a bad way to live – no heat or air conditioning needed but with 100 inches of rain a year, you do need an umbrella.

But if you’re wondering about the seduction part, this is how it happened:

I got up early one day and walked around town, I looked up to see the pink tinged mountains as the sun came over the volcano, it was stunning. Everyone I passed said “Buenas Dias” or just “buenas” – and everyone smiled when I answered them back in Spanish. Everyone! It was right then with this backdrop of lush, green beauty that I felt something whispering softly in my ear.

Then I met the Gringos or I should say the Giving Gringo’s because they never really stop giving. A nice climate AND giving, caring people? Yes! You see it’s not only the ferocious beauty of the river which runs through the town but the river of kindness that captures the heart of people who come here.

I don’t know anything about real estate or starting a business or stockpiling gold or silver, but I do know what I like and I like what I see.

The woman who became my landlady is an organizer of something called, “Bid 4Boquete,” a United Way type organization but with a stronger heart. Bid4Boquete supports 11 different agencies which vastly improve the lives of those they touch. And it makes Boquete one of the best places in the world to live.

I met a woman who knits hats for newborn infants, another who sews blankets and takes them to indigenous families in the hills. I know a former marine who brings school supplies and protein for the 9 children of a man who is a quadriplegic who lives on a hill with no road and no car and just a jerry-rigged sling to get him up and down the steep incline. I met a lot of people for whom Boquete means devoting a Sunday to the “Animales” clinic to spay and neuter hundreds of dogs and cats so they don’t starve to death. Or those who spend their Saturday’s at the Handicapped Foundation teaching English or giving massages or just helping out.

This is the kind of community where Bid4Boquete puts Gringos and Panamanians together donating goods and services all year long for its big auction that supplies the grant money that does so much for so many here. And so it was much more than the weather and the beautiful flowers that stole my soul and seduced me, it was the soft whisper that said, “This is a good place to live, no, a great place to live, and these are good people.” They seem to live by the old adage: “to those whom much has been given, much is expected.” I like that. And so, from Bid4Boquete to all its supported agencies and beyond, it is the open hearts that abound here that make this a vibrant, vital community I’m proud to call home.

Panama is Not Like the USA or Canada – But Better in Many Ways

60 Shades of Green: How Boquete Seduced Me