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    • Chitré, Panama
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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

    Greece 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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10 Tips For Moving Abroad

10 Things I've Learned After 20 Years Living Overseas

by Kathleen Peddicord
Feb 27, 2022
in How to, Lifestyle
0 0
Lake Garda with nice walkways and beaches at Bardolino in Italy

Adobe Stock/marako85

Two decades living overseas, in Ireland, Panama, and France, have taught me…

1. Patience… the kind of patience you learn doing time…

I once stood at the counter of a small grocery shop in Panama City watching as the young man on the other side of the counter tried to tally up my purchases. One item I’d presented was missing a price tag, so the young man walked from behind the counter to the back of the shop to find a matching item that did show a price. Several minutes later he returned.

When he looked down to enter the amount into his adding machine (the shop didn’t have a cash register), he noticed that it was out of paper. He walked from behind the counter again, this time disappearing behind the door to the left. Several minutes later, he returned with a roll of adding machine paper.

As he began to replace the paper in his machine, his phone rang, so he laid the roll of paper on

the counter to answer it. Several minutes later, he finished his conversation and picked up the roll of paper again. Several minutes after that, he’d succeeded in getting the paper installed in the machine.

After adding up my few purchases, he reached beneath the counter for a bag to put the groceries in but found he was out of bags, so he came out from behind the counter and disappeared again behind the door to the left. Several minutes later, he returned with a single plastic bag. Four other customers stood in line behind me. I guess he was counting on them not wanting bags.

My items placed in the plastic bag, the young man looked up at me. “That’s US$12.65,” he told me in Spanish.

I handed him a 10-dollar bill and a 5-dollar bill. The young man reached beneath the counter for the cigar box where he keeps his change. No singles. He called out to the young woman stocking shelves, who finished what she was doing then joined the young man behind the counter and counted out change for me from her apron pocket.

This is the kind of scene that plays out all day long every day all across the developing world. You muster the patience to take it in stride. Or you move on from the developing world.

2. To embrace ambiguity…

Will the corner grocer open his shop at 9 a.m. as his sign indicates… or will he open later… or at all?

Will the lady behind the counter in the immigration office accept my prepared dossier or request additional paperwork not indicated in any of my four previous conversations with her?

Will the banker cash my check or question the signature (as happens for me with bankers in Panama City a couple of times every month)?

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Will the car in front of mine turn right from the right-hand turn lane we’re both in or will he turn left across two lanes of traffic?

Will the delivery man show up on Thursday as promised? Sometime this week?

Will the waitress return with my order?

So, I’ve come to see these as philosophical rather than practical musings and have trained myself not to be surprised when the answer is, as it often is, contrary to expectations.

3. Not to mind not understanding what’s going on around me…

Why is that work crew digging another hole in the middle of that street? They dug a hole in that same spot and then covered it over last week. Why dig another one… and why do it now, during morning rush-hour traffic?

Why has the government changed such-and-such national holiday from Friday to Monday (as can happen in Latin America)?

Why does the landline phone go out every time it rains?

Why is the electricity out… and when will it be restored?

4. Not to be bothered by things that don’t matter…

See above.

5. To savor the “Nutella” moments…

The frustrations and challenges of living in a foreign country, especially in the developing world, are many, but so are the moments of extraordinary discovery and delight. Seeing the look of unadulterated pleasure on my 5-year-old son’s face the first time he tried a Nutella crepe when we were living in Paris was one.

As were celebrating my daughter’s 16th birthday at a café on the Left Bank of the Seine with a view of the Louvre… the first time my husband and I dined at a rooftop restaurant in Istanbul overlooking the Bosphorus… the scene of white sheep in rolling green fields outside my bedroom window in Ireland all those years… the view of the long line of ships awaiting their turn for passage through the Panama Canal that I see from my bedroom window now every morning… kayaking with the kids down the Macal River in Belize… watching my children learn to ride horseback in the field behind our home in Ireland… rocking in a big wicker chair on the front porch of the Alhambra Hotel overlooking the main plaza in Granada, Nicaragua, one of the oldest cities in the Americas, as life carries on as it has in this spot for centuries…

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6. To let go…

My mother helped me to pack up my house in Baltimore in advance of my move from the States to Ireland years ago. Standing on a stepstool in front of an open kitchen cabinet, she asked, “What do you want to do with all this?”

I glanced over and told her to put everything in the cabinet into a box and then to take it home with her.

“But all your teas… your spices!” she replied. “You can’t just give all of this away!”

To make the move from Baltimore to Waterford, I had to clear out a three-bedroom house, a basement, an attic, and a garage. That required a lot of letting go. At the time, it seemed hard to give so much away. Now I smile and shake my head at the thought that a reluctance to part with the paraphernalia of my life to that point could have stood in the way of launching the new life I’ve enjoyed all these years since.

7. To bloom where I’ve planted myself…

Ireland was cold, drizzly, and gray more days than it wasn’t, and Waterford, where we were based for seven years, was (is) a backwater. Panama City, where we lived for nine years, is hot and humid every day of the year. It’s also a boomtown, meaning congestion, chaos, and crazy traffic.

In Ireland, I could have complained that I missed sunshine and the trappings of a real city, as I did, and, in Panama City, I could complain about the tumult. The truth is, sometimes I did.

You have to remind yourself of the big-picture reasons why you are where you are. Ireland was the best place for me and my family when we were there, weather and nightlife notwithstanding, and the same was true for Panama City.

8. To downsize on the fly…

I began learning about letting go that afternoon with my mom in my Baltimore kitchen. My graduate lesson in the exercise of downsizing came in Paris. We relocated with two children from a 5,000-square-foot house in Waterford to a 1,100-square-foot apartment in the City of Light. I stored my son’s clothes in the china hutch in the dining room and his toys and games under his bed. My husband and I shared a single desk in the living room when we worked at home (as we often did), and the four of us ate dinner each night at an undersized table that was like something out of “Alice in Wonderland.”

And I wouldn’t trade a single day in Paris or a single memory of our years there for any number of additional square feet of living space.

9. To ask for help…

I’m a resourceful, self-reliant, type-A American woman. I can take care of myself. However, living overseas, I’ve learned that sometimes life is easier and more fun when I don’t. In Panama, we were able to afford a full-time maid. It’s an indulgence I wouldn’t have considered, living in the States, but the help around the house sure was nice.

10. To abandon any idea I ever had about “normal”…

What’s a “normal” way to celebrate a child’s birthday (in Panama, the piñata was key) or to shop for a Christmas tree (in Panama City, we bought ours out of a local wholesaler’s refrigerated meat locker)? More seriously, what’s a normal way to raise children or run a business? My family thought I was crazy to move my 8-year-old daughter from Baltimore to Waterford and to give birth to my second child in Ireland. They still think I’m crazy, I guess, for running my business in Panama.

I used to worry that our lifestyle might translate down the road into years of psychotherapy for our two children. Today, though, they both speak three languages and have a global perspective that makes me both proud and optimistic about their future prospects. Whatever life throws at them, they’ll be fine.

Not normal, maybe… but fine.

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

Tags: 'France''Ireland''panama city''Waterford'americans abroadAt Home AbroadexpatexpatsLive abroadlive overseasmove overseasPanamaParis
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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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Top Countries

  • Spain
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  • Colombia
  • Cyprus
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Best For:

  • Health Care Abroad
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  • Investing in Real Estate
  • Establishing Residency
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BROWSE ALL COUNTRIES

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

Resources

Global Living

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