My husband Lief Simon and I are Irish citizens.
We’re Americans, too… still with the passports to prove it.
That’s a question we get often. Have we expatriated and given up our U.S. passports. The answer is no. We were never running away from America. In fact, we’ve recently re-established a U.S. base in Woodstock, Illinois. We’ve always been about expanding our options… not burning bridges.
When first we left American shores, coming up on 30 years ago, we moved together to Ireland. We lived on its sunny (ha, ha) southeast shore, in Waterford, for seven years.
That was long enough to earn us our Irish passports.
It was Lief’s doing. I admit that I didn’t prioritize the idea at the time.
I could name advantages of holding two passports, even back then—more visa-free travel, shorter queues in some airports, the right to live and work in a number of interesting countries…
But I couldn’t get myself excited enough at those prospects, back then, to research the requirements, fill out the paperwork, submit the applications, pay the fees, and schedule a meeting with an immigration officer.
Those things seemed burdensome to me. I was preoccupied raising a family, building a business, and renovating an old house.
Lief was more forward-thinking. He made our Irish passports happen. Today I value them more than nearly any other asset we hold. They are our keys to the EU.
An Irish passport is the world’s best… more useful than an American passport. An American needs a visa to travel to countries that an Irishman or woman doesn’t.
And it was our Irish passports that allowed us to travel from the United States back home to Paris, via Dublin, during the pandemic.
While we are Irish citizens, we do not currently call Ireland home. I’m hoping to change that in 2027. I’m keen to have my feet back on Irish soil at least part of every year and am actively in search of a new Irish property.
Meantime, Lief and I divide our time between Paris and Panama.
Our Irish passports make Paris possible.
And we’re legal residents of Panama. Have been since 2006.
At first we qualified under the country’s Reforestation Residency Program. Our attorney at the time failed, though, to explain that Panama’s reforestation visa granted only temporary residency. Permanent residency required three renewals over the course of five years, at a cost of several thousand dollars each.
That process was delayed by our incompetent attorney’s inability to keep things on track… meaning that, in 2012, we still were not permanent residents of Panama.
So, that year, when the country introduced its Friendly Nations Visa, we fired our attorney, hired another, and applied anew under the new program… which granted immediate permanent residency at less cost.
When we started down the residency path in Panama in 2006, we had no specific plan to live in Panama. We wanted residency visas for that country as part of our Plan B.
By 2008, our circumstances had changed. Lief and I were both looking to start businesses of our own. Lief imagined a legacy-level property undertaking. I conceived Live And Invest Overseas.
We were living in Paris… my favorite place in the world to be, then and now, but no place for an entrepreneur. Panama, meantime, then and now, rolls out the welcome mat for all investors, big and small.
We packed our bags, put our Paris apartment on the rental market because, again, we didn’t want to burn that bridge, and moved ourselves and our young son to Panama.
Then we hunkered down to build Los Islotes and Live And Invest Overseas.
That was nearly 20 years ago.
Our son has since graduated from Ecole Paul Gauguin, the French lycée in Panama City, where he earned his French baccalaureate. Jackson then went on to attend NYU in Shanghai and Manhattan. Today he’s in Berlin studying for a master’s degree.
Our daughter is in Paris, with her husband and two little girls. When we’re in town, as we are as I write and through the holidays, we see them all the time. Their apartment is a 15-minute walk from ours.
That’s my life today.
It’s a life I never could have imagined when I left Baltimore, Maryland, with a young daughter, a new husband, and a business plan, way back in 1998.
It was a big leap, leaving my home town, my family, and everyone and everything I’d known to that point.
A leap like that requires courage.
It’s easier to be brave when you’ve got help… as I did.
The world can seem a scary place right now. Rising costs… political tensions… civil unrest… war…
But here’s the truth that it can be too easy to lose sight of…
Things are not bad all over.
This world of ours continues—I guarantee you—to offer options for a rich, full life and a bright future.
You just need a plan.
Mine included a second passport (thanks to my husband)… residency in another country… and a few pivots along the way.
What should your plan look like?
Lief has put together an entirely new program, based on his more than 30 years of experience living, working, and investing around the world, to help you find your answer to that question.
You may not know right now what you want your new life to be. I didn’t when I set out to find mine back in 1998.
But I urge you to start down the path to figuring that out.
Taking the first step will embolden you.
Whatever your circumstances today… and however you perceive the world around you right now… that’s all nothing more than a starting point.
Ready, steady, go.
Lief will be online live later this month to walk you through it.
To give you the help you need.
Please take a look here now for the details.
Until next time,
