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Life In Panama Is Not What You Think It Is… For Better Or Worse

Panama In 2020—The Truth About Life On This Isthmus

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Nov 20, 2020
in Panama, Retirement/Living
0
Panama City, Panama.

iStock/Andy Korteling

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I woke up this morning, brewed a pot of Irish breakfast tea, and, as has been my custom for decades now, sat down at my laptop to write you a letter.

What do I have to say to you today, I wondered, that’s worth your time to read?

I want to tell you, starting today and continuing for the next week or so, about Panama.

Trouble is… I’ve been talking about Panama for more than 25 years.

In fact, I was the first person to tell people about Panama… at least in the context of a top option for North Americans looking for a place to live better for less in retirement.

I named Panama as a top retire-overseas destination before anyone else, but, full disclosure, I didn’t come up with the notion myself. A property scout who worked for me at the time put the idea in my head.

I was living in Baltimore. My scout, Bob Fordi, called me in my Mt. Vernon office one morning. I’d dispatched him two weeks earlier to Panama, and he’d just returned from that trip.

This was about two years before the United States was scheduled to hand over control of the Canal to Panama as had been agreed in the 1977 treaties signed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos.

“You need to see this place yourself,” Bob told me on the phone that morning. In the five years I’d been working with Bob, I’d never before heard him speak with such enthusiasm.

Bob was a reasonable guy… an investor. He didn’t get excited. But he was excited.

“Panama has everything Costa Rica has,” Bob continued, comparing Panama to the then gold-standard overseas retirement haven that borders it to the north.

“Panama has beaches, rain forest, highlands, wildlife, bird life, surfing, fishing… everything that draws the crowds to Costa Rica…

“The difference,” Bob pointed out, “is that the infrastructure in Panama is head and shoulders above that in Costa Rica and anywhere else in Central America. Panama City is a real city… built by U.S. engineers…

“And it’s also a screaming bargain,” Bob added.

“Plus,” I remember him saying that morning, with emphasis, “the timing is once-in-a-lifetime.

“After Panama takes control of its Canal, in about two years’ time,” Bob told me, “this country is going to begin to reinvent itself.

“I believe,” Bob predicted, “that prices will go even lower after the U.S. military pulls out. When all the GI’s go home, taking their disposable income with them, Panama will fall into recession… creating an historic opportunity to invest in a country that is going to become very important on the world stage in not too many years.”

Soon after that conversation I made my first trip to Panama. I was as impressed as Bob had been. After more research and several more scouting trips, by me and others of my team, I made one of the most important forecasts of my career:

Panama, I told readers, is the world’s next top overseas retirement and investment haven.

Eventually, others caught on. By 2010, Kiplinger, Forbes, The New York Times, Fortune, Frommer’s, Condé Nast Traveler, the Wall Street Journal, and even the AARP had named Panama the world’s #1 place to retire overseas.

So, again, when I woke up this morning and remembered that my plan today was to tell you something about Panama… I panicked.

After more than two-and-a-half decades reporting on this little isthmus of a country… and after more than a dozen years living and running a business here… sharing my experiences and discoveries with you in real time… what in the world new could I have to say about Panama that’s worth your time and attention today?

How about this:

Panama is not what you think it is

I and many others have been telling you about this country for years, but much or most of what you’ve garnered from all of that is not true… at least it’s no longer true.

The City

Over the past two-and-a-half decades, Panama has been one of the fastest-changing points on our planet.

Our home base in Panama is an apartment on Avenida Balboa. From this spot, we have a long view of central Panama City on the Bay of Panama, from Punta Paitilla and Punta Pacífica in one direction…

Panama City Skyline on summer night
iStock/Rodrigo Cuel

To Casco Viejo in the other…

View of Casco Antiguo in Panama City, Panama
iStock/diego_cervo

Between these two landmarks, in the bay on the Pacific Ocean, is a long queue of ships awaiting their turns for passage through the Panama Canal. This queue is perpetual, a constant on the seascape 24 hours a day 7 days a week… even now, during the global pandemic.

Indeed, the Panama Canal has continued its operations, uninterrupted, throughout 2020.

When I visited Panama City for the first time two-and-a-half decades ago, most of what we see from the windows of our Avenida Balboa apartment did not exist.

The two small peninsulas—Paitilla and Casco Viejo—were here, of course, but looking at photos of them from 25 years ago you wouldn’t recognize either.

Paitilla then was a neighborhood of high-end houses; Paitilla today is a mass of high-rise towers overlooking the bay.

Casco Viejo then was a slum; Casco Viejo today is an evolving gentrification project and the hippest night spot in the city. The Spanish-, French-, and American-colonial structures here, a world-class UNESCO-protected collection of buildings, have been renovated into private homes, condos, restaurants, bars, art galleries, and shops. The whole place now is encircled by a highway suspended above the water.

The People

A city street in a popular market district is bustling in Panama City, Panama.
iStock/Wendy Van

It’s not only the Panama City skyline that has been transformed over the past 25 years… it’s also the size and makeup of the Panama City population.

A city of about 1 million in 1996, the Panama City metropolitan area is home to 1.7 million today.

More people, more high-rise apartments housing those people, more cars (a lot more cars), more shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, fitness centers, furniture stores, casinos, bars, pubs, gentleman’s clubs, strip joints, schools, health clinics, grocery stores, fast-food franchises, real estate agencies, liquor stores, delis, dry cleaners… and on and on and on…

You can get anything you might want in Panama City today. Every product and service imaginable is available in this boom town this 2020.

For better or for worse.

The Country’s Growth Under Ricardo Martinelli’s Presidency

Cranes on construction site of new skyscraper building isolated.
iStock/hanohiki

Under former President Ricardo Martinelli, Panama set an aggressive agenda for herself.

Since leaving office in 2014, Martinelli has been accused of corruption, embezzlement, and domestic spying on grand scales. He spent time on the lam and then under house arrest, then, last year, he was found not guilty of the various charges and is now a free man.

That’s all a hot topic of conversation here in Panama, but it’s not the point.

The point is that Martinelli thought big. Panama will be the next Singapore, he decreed upon taking office… and then he spent every day of his five-year term (2009 to 2014) working to make that prediction reality.

The reinvented landscape we see from my window on Avenida Balboa today is largely due to Martinelli’s near-fanatical commitment to making his little country competitive on a global scale.

Love Martinelli or hate him, you can’t deny what the guy made happen while in office. If not for Martinelli, Live and Invest Overseas might not be operating today in Panama.

Without Martinelli’s Executive Order known today as the Friendly Nations visa program making it easy for any national of any of the “friendly nations” on the list to acquire residency and a work permit in this country, we would not have been able to find and hire the English-speaking staff we’ve needed to build our business.

I’ve told you about our eclectic group before. We’ve got Panamanians in our El Cangrejo office, sure, but we’ve also been able to hire Americans, Canadians, Germans, French, Dutch, Irish, British, Jamaicans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Argentines, Guatemalans, and Hondurans.

That’s the better.

The worse is the challenges and frustrations that go along with life in a boom town.

A drive across Panama City during rush hour is one of the most miserable experiences of my life… and, when we’re at home in Panama City, I do it twice a day.

The Streets And Sidewalks

Sidewalk disheveled by tree roots.
iStock/SBSArtDept

A walk down a Panama City street is one of the most dangerous experiences of my life… and I do it all the time.

I don’t worry that I’ll be mugged or encounter violence. The fear is that I’ll fall into an open manhole (I’ve known five people who have), trip over an exposed tree root, or be caught up in low-hanging cables.

You need to keep your eyes open as you maneuver this city, by car or on foot. Accidents are common.

What else do you need to know to be able to take advantage of all the better on offer in Panama today while avoiding, as much as possible, all the worse?

That’s what, I decided as I sat down to write to you this morning, I’m going to share with you over the next week.

I’m calling this special series of dispatches: “Revealed: The Real Panama In 2020.”

Drawing from two-and-a-half decades of experience spending time and money in this country, including more than 12 years living and operating a business here, I’m going to introduce you to today’s Panama.

I’ll look at this country from all angles of current opportunity—living, retiring, investing, buying property, raising a family, and launching a business.

I’ll begin this weekend, in the first installment in this series, where I began this conversation originally, 25 years ago.

That is, to start, I’ll consider Panama as a retirement haven.

Is Panama 2020 still a top choice for retiring overseas?

Stay tuned for Sunday for the answer.

Sincerely,
Kathleen Peddicord
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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