retire in panama Archives | Panama Relocation Tours

Last Updated on January 3, 2021 - by Jackie Lange

5 Things to Consider Before Moving to Panama

Listen to the reply of our first conference call in 2021. I discussed five important things you need to take into consideration before planning a move to Panama. And, I made an announcement about our NEW all-inclusive Private Tour option. The last 30-minutes were reserved for Q & A time!

Of course, before you can even come to visit Panama, you need to get a passport so that needs to be at the top of your list. The other five things you need to consider are:

1. RESEARCH if Panama will be a good fit for you. Our Online Panama Relocation Guide has the information to help you do research. You’ll want to determine if Panama has a Visa that will work for you. Does Panama have the kind of weather you like and if there is a place to live in Panama that fits your budget.

2. BUDGET – Determine how much money you will have to live on when you move to Panama. If you’re retired, will your pension be enough to qualify for a Visa? Once again, our Online Panama Relocation Guide has information to help you determine your budget and which places in Panama will be a good fit for your budget. There are upfront costs involved when you move to Panama so you need to determine if you will be able to afford to get a Visa, rental first money rent and a deposit, will you buy a car, do you need to bring pets. and perhaps get health insurance in Panama.

3. FAMILY – will you be able to live away from your family for extended periods of time or will you need to go back “home” often to see children, parents, or grandchildren. or, perhaps your family will come visit you in Panama. If you plan to go visit them, be sure to budget for additional airfare.

4. HEALTH – if you have pre-existing conditions, you need to determine if you can get the medications you need and the health care you need in Panama. Our Online Panama Relocation Guide has two pharmacies who will let you know if your medications are available and what the costs will be. If your medications are not available, you’ll need to make arrangements to get them shipped to Panama so include that cost in your budget. You will probably not be able to get health insurance in Panama if you have pre-existing conditions. But you can use public or private health care systems but you’ll have to pay out of pocket.

5. ATTITUDE – Panama is different. If you can easily adapt to a new culture and a new way of doing things, you’ll fit right in. But if you want everything to be like the USA, Canada or Europe but more affordable in Panama, you will be disappointed and may have a hard time adjusting.

LISTEN to the replay of the conference call for more details. I also made a big announcement about our new “All-Inclusive Private Tours”

Last Updated on December 28, 2020 - by Jackie Lange

Which Kind of Panama Tour Is Best For You

Since 2010, we’ve been offering all-inclusive 6-day, 7-night Panama Relocation Tours, which travel from Panama City, the Coronado area, the Azuero, Santiago, Las Lajas/Boca Chica, David, Boquete, and Volcan. We’ve completed 124 relocation tours. After helping 1000s of people relocate to Panama, we’ve become the Relocation and Retire in Panama experts. We have the experience you can trust and need when relocating to Panama.

We also know that a full 6-day tour traveling across Panama may not be a good fit for everyone, so we offer Private Tours for specific areas. Private Tours are ideal for those who already know where you’d like to live in Panama or where they don’t want to live. Note, none of these are real estate tours. We will show rentals during your tour but we do not sell real estate so you don’t have to worry about high-pressure sales pitches.

We have information about how to do your own DIY self-guided tour in our Online Panama Relocation Guide for the adventurous types.

There IS a perfect relocation tour for you.

Here’s information about each type of tour to help you decide which tour is better for you.

ALL-INCLUSIVE 6-DAY PANAMA RELOCATION TOUR:

If you have not traveled internationally much, you may prefer an all-inclusive tour because we take care of everything for you. All you need to do is book your flight to Panama (our travel agent can even help with that). Once you arrive, you’ll be picked up at the airport, and all hotel, meals, and transportation are included in your Panama Relocation Tour. You don’t need to make any arrangements in Panama.

If you have no idea where you want to live in Panama and would like to see the variety of towns before deciding where to relocate to, a 6-day all-inclusive Panama Relocation Tour would be a good fit. You’ll learn about prices in each area we visit and the pros and cons of each area too. You’ll visit the beach, mountain, and urban communities during the tour.

The tour itself is like a rolling seminar with daily lessons about how to relocate to Panama. Everything we talk about is already written down in a book, so you don’t need to take notes. After the tour, you’ll get access to the Online Panama Relocation Guide, where we keep the relocation information updates. And, you’ll get access to a private community forum so you can stay in touch with your tour mates. We offer ongoing support before, during, and after your move to Panama for no additional charge.

See Details HERE About the All-Inclusive 6-day Panama Relocation Tour.

One challenge will be getting on an all-inclusive tour. Because our tours are so popular, we’re currently sold out for 2021. But we do plan to open more dates in 2021. You can also get on the backup list to be notified of any openings.

See these video testimonials of people who have been on an all-inclusive Panama Relocation Tour.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

bus panamarelocatointours.com — All-Inclusive 6-Day Panama Relocation Tour

PANAMA RELOCATION PRIVATE TOUR

A Private Tour is ideal for those who know you want to live in a certain kind of community or a specific town. For example, if you know you want to live near the beach, your Private Tour will focus exclusively on beach communities. If you know you want to live in the mountains or a specific town in the mountains, your Private Tour will focus exclusively on those areas.

Private tours are only for 1-2 people in your family and the Private Tour Guide. With the pandemic, you may feel more comfortable doing a Private Tour. These are custom tours to see and do exactly what you want to. Your Private Tour Guide will do all the driving, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost.

Beach people don’t have to go to the mountains. And mountain people don’t have to go to the beach.

The Private Tour Guides have lived in the area for many years and are experts in that town. They know the best neighborhoods, best places to go shopping, where to get your hair cut, who the English speaking doctors and dentists are, and much more.

We recommend that you do a 2-3 day Private tour to do a deep dive into what it’s like to live in that area. You’ll get to see rentals (we don’t recommend that you buy until you’ve been in Panama for at least 6 months). [Read more…]

Last Updated on December 21, 2020 - by Jackie Lange

How to Watch Sports from Panama

I’m often asked if you can watch North American sports (in English) when you live in Panama. I have an Amazon Firestick and notice that all the sports channels are available there. But I don’t watch sports, so I asked my friend Ellen Bailey, who is a sports addict, to explain how they watch sports from Panama.

For sports aficionados who are considering moving to another country, one of the most important and often most asked questions is, “Will I be able to watch my favorite sports and teams in my new home?”

As a huge fan of college football, I can tell you that this was extremely important for my family when considering our move to Panama, and I am happy to say, YES! It’s not only possible but quite easy to do as there are several ways that you can access your favorite sporting event.

Perhaps one of the easiest is simply checking your cable provider’s availability of channels such as ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC, etc. Our cable provider is Cable Onda, and depending on what package you have, you will be able to access channels such as ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3, Fox Sports, etc. There is a channel called COS, Cable Onda Sports, that actually broadcasts CBS games.

The major downside of this method is that most of the games will be in Spanish, so if you enjoy hearing the sports commentators, this can be frustrating. Don’t worry; there are English alternatives.

You will be able to watch College Football, Basketball, Baseball, NFL, NASCAR, Tennis, Soccer, Boxing, and almost any other sport you can think of. While we use this option quite a bit, our favorite and the one we use most often is to watch games on our laptop using a VPN and hooking it up to our TV using either an HDMI cable or something like Chromecast.

By using a VPN or virtual private network, you will be able to hide your IP address, thus allowing you to watch whatever event you want from the country of your choice. The VPN we use is PIA, Private Internet Access, which allows us to choose what country we want our IP address to show and the country’s region. Once you sign in to your VPN, you can go to whatever channel is broadcasting your event, such as ESPN, CBS, NBC, etc. The tricky part is that you have to sign in to some of these using a valid login/password of a cable provider in the country your VPN is showing your IP address. For example, we watch a lot of college football on ESPN, so we sign in using family or friends’ cable providers such as Directv, At&t, Comcast, Charter, Dish, etc. This will then allow us access to the games in the US. While this may sound like a bit of a hassle, once you get the hang of it, it’s like you’ve always done it this way!

Another popular option is to purchase something like an Amazon FireStick and download a sports app like Vola, formerly known as Wow, Sports. Vola Sports has a huge library of over 200 sports channels worldwide that you can watch live. Some of the most popular channels on Vola are Fox Sports, Eurosport, CBC Sport, and Sky Sports channels. You can also catch the highlights of your favorite matches and games! Some features of this app include:

*Being able to watch a live stream of any channel on the list any time.
*The ‘Highlights’ feature lets you watch your favorite moments from popular sports games of all times.
*The streaming experience is completely ad-free.
*It shows you a list of all the matches being played at any given moment anywhere in the world.
*Numerous links for each channel so you can choose the best quality available.
*Extremely user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate.

There are many streaming apps that you can use to watch sports channels live, but only a few are fully dedicated to sports. Most of them have different channels that include some sports channels such as Sky Go on FireStick, DStv on FireStick, Spectrum TV on FireStick, and TVTap on FireStick. The Vola app is completely free, and you don’t need a subscription to download it or watch the content on it. [Read more…]