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  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Argentina Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    Learn More About This Event
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
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Home Countries Panama

Pacific Sunsets, Red Clay-Tiled Roofs, And Lasting Legacy

by Kathleen Peddicord
Aug 04, 2025
in Panama
0 0
Couple standing on a hilltop at sunset with an ocean view and small islands in the background.

LIOS

When we made the decision to purchase the finca known as Los Islotes, Lief and I had years of experience buying and selling property around the world.

However, developing a five-star resort community in the jungle isn’t the same as amassing a portfolio of condo rentals. We needed professional help.

A friend recommended a Panamanian architect. For our first meeting, Ricardo walked through the door carrying six oversized hardback books.

“Would you like to take a look?” he asked as he sat down next to me. He held out his books as though sharing a treasure. I reached over to pick up the one on top. “Las Casas De Leon.” Beneath it was “Haciendas De Cartagena.”

Ricardo had my attention. I had a shelf full of books like these myself. A light went on. Now here’s an idea I hadn’t considered, I thought. It was a notion so big that I almost didn’t let myself have it.

Since the first time I set foot on the property, I’d been convinced that, in context, a Los Islotes development community, even a five-star one, seemed base.

But what if we built something more noble? Something more lasting?

What if we built a city?

I’ve been in love with Spanish-colonial cities since my first visit to Granada, Nicaragua, when I was 23 years old. In the decades since, I’ve spent a lot of time in that and other New World cities that Spain built. I don’t have to squint to imagine beyond the crumbling plaster, rusting iron, and rotting wood they’ve been reduced to by the passage of time. I see only how glorious these places must have been in their day. I prefer them to museums. When I visit the Louvre, I’m more interested in the architectural details of the palace than in the art it houses.

Spain’s greed-based agenda meant that New World cities came to be at a staggering cost. Those realities can be hard to set aside, but the cities themselves are an architectural legacy.

Spain’s New World outposts were developed according to formal guidelines, each around a central plaza anchored by a church. Classic Spanish-colonial design features soft arches, white stucco walls, red clay-tiled roofs, carved wooden doors, balconies, interior courtyards, fountains…

Why go to the trouble of building an arch when you could make the opening square? Because you can and because the resulting structure is more pleasing. Everyone who passes through benefits.

Architecture is art, and great art boosts our spirits, lifts our souls, challenges our minds, and inspires our imaginations. I appreciate as much of that as I can get.

My first day in Granada, I walked to the square at dusk. The setting sun tinted the city’s blue and red structures golden. Children ran and called to each other in play. Old men read the day’s news; old women shared the day’s gossip. Young lovers sat close on wooden benches, vendors offered warm tortillas and roasted corn, and wandering guitarists serenaded.

I returned the next night and the next to watch the show replay against the backdrop of buildings that’d stood that ground for 500 years. I appreciated the beauty of the scene but even more the continuity of the experience. Generation after generation has played their part on this stage. Each picks up where their fathers left off, adding their marks for the next in line.

Surveying the scene from the shade of one of the lemonwood trees that grow here, I would feel connected to the past of this special place and part of its future. For me that’s the upside of great architecture.

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The Spanish started their development on the island where Columbus first set foot in the New World. In 1496, in what is today the Dominican Republic, Columbus’ brother Bartholomew founded Santo Domingo, the capital of Spain’s first colony.

Calle Las Damas, the first street of the original city and so the oldest paved street in the Americas, is lined with pale stone facades that have borne centuries of witness. Here the Columbuses built a customs house, a hospital, a cathedral, a university, and a library, everything required for a considered, comfortable, fulfilling life.

I left my first meeting with Ricardo with the start of a grand plan.

At Los Islotes we wouldn’t just create a luxe-level coastal resort. We’d also build a city. My mind lit up at the thought.

My favorite spot in Paris is the center point of the Tuileries. Here, one of history’s most successful attempts at city planning is on display in one view.

Standing in that garden lane, you have the Louvre on one side and the Place de la Concorde and its obelisk on the other.

Beyond Concorde is the Champs-Élysées and its triumphal arch.

If you shift your head slightly, you see the Eiffel Tower.

The Tuileries are the work of Catherine de Medici, a diabolical woman by accounts, mother to three French kings, famous for sacrificing her children, her country, and her principles for power. Alas, another contradiction in human history. I can’t help but thank the woman for her part in the efforts that, over centuries, have created a spot where I feel grateful to be alive every time I pass through.

Along the Veraguas coast where Lief and I are pioneering, Nature seems to extend a challenge. Could we make a place here that does justice to the Eden she’s provided?

We’ve decided to try.

Until next time,
Kathleen Peddicord signature

Kathleen Peddicord

Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has reported on opportunities for Americans to live, retire, and do business overseas for 40 years. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 24, established businesses in 7, renovated and built properties in 6, and educated her children in 5.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets from the east coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland, then to Paris, France, and finally to Panama City, Panama, where she has based her Live And Invest Overseas business. Peddicord and her husband, Lief Simon, now divide their time between Panama and Paris.

Peddicord was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. She opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Waterford, Ireland; Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France. Peddicord launched Live And Invest Overseas group in 2008 and has built it into a successful multimillion-dollar business. Today, she shares her firsthand experience of expat life with more than 500,000 readers of her publications, including Overseas Opportunity Letter and Overseas Living Letter.

Kathleen has been featured often in The New York Times, MSNBC, AARP, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and more and writes monthly about expat matters, international real estate, and offshore diversification for Forbes and U.S. News.

Kathleen has written several books including the memoirs “At Home In Ireland” and “At Home At Los Islotes” and her latest title “At Home Abroad,” all published by Lahardan Books. Her best-selling "How To Retire Overseas: Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad” was published by Penguin Random House in 2018 and her “Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)” was published by Wiley in August 2020.

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Budgets

How Much Will It Cost
To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
  • Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
  • La Rochelle, France
  • Mazatlán, Mexico

Luxury

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • The Panama City Beaches
  • Paris, France

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Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

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Lahardan Books

  • Titles on living and investing around the world

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