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    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
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    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
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  • 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

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    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

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    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
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    Offshore Wealth Summit

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    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

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    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
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    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

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 Free Belize Guide

DISCOVER BELIZE

REEF RUINS, RIVERS, AND RAIN FOREST, PLUS EASY RESIDENCY AND TAX-FREE LIVING

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Home Countries Belize

Choose The Lifestyle You Want In Belize

Reef, Rivers, Ruins, And Rum— Why I Love Belize

by Kathleen Peddicord
Sep 25, 2022
in Belize, In Focus: Belize, Retirement/Living
0 0
a boat in belize coast

We believe Belize is one of the best places in the world to live, retire, invest, and chase adventure.

In fact, it’s many of the world’s best options.

For such a small country, Belize offers many appealing lifestyle and investment choices.

Bottom line, you’re choosing between beach or jungle… surf or turf.

Let’s compare them…

The Islands

Caye Caulker a small island located approximately 20 miles from Belize City Belize
Adobe Stock/Aleksandar Todorovic

Clear turquoise waters lapping gently against soft white sand… palm trees rustling in the warm breeze… fishing boats bobbing on the horizon… birdsong and island tunes all around…

For many that’s the ultimate retire-overseas dream… and that’s what Ambergris Caye, the little island off the coast of mainland Belize, delivers… unadulterated, unpretentious Caribbean… the sea, sand, and sunshine of the Caymans or the Virgin Islands without the price tag.

San Pedro town, a former fishing village, is the center of activity and home to a growing expatriate community of North Americans and Europeans catered to now by dozens of restaurants, shops, art galleries, and community organizations. You could settle in here quickly and easily, as the language (like everywhere in Belize) is English.

The real estate market, for both buying and renting, is developed, meaning you have many options at all price points. You can buy a condo for as little as US$100,000 or invest up to US$1 million or more, and you can rent for as little as US$700 to US$800 per month.

Life on Ambergris is relaxed and friendly, carefree and sunny. Adopt this island as your home, and you’d enjoy most all services and comforts of home. And you’d never want for like-minded company.

Your biggest complaint might be the tourists. In season, San Pedro town swarms with them.

That’s one face of Belize. Back on the mainland, life is very different.

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The Mainland

Big Rock Falls, Belize, Waterfall. A great swimming and hiking spot.
Adobe Stock/John Piekos

Mainland Belize can be broken down into four zones: Belize City; the northern coast around Corozal; the southern coast around Placencia; and the interior Cayo.

Forget Belize City. This isn’t a place you’d want to live. The city has a reputation for being poor, dirty, and unsafe… and that reputation isn’t for nothing. My most recent visit, I found the city cleaner and more pleasant than I remembered from preceding visits. You, however, seeing it for the first time, especially certain neighborhoods south of the river, might find the whole scene appalling.

But Belize City is not representative of mainland Belize. It’s simply the place you must pass through on the way to your real destination (as it’s home to the only international airport in the country).

Following the highway from Belize City south (this is one of but four highways in the entire country… as we remind you often, infrastructure is not Belize’s long suit) you come to Dangriga, Hopkins, Placencia and then, way down south, Punta Gorda. This is perhaps the most culturally diverse part of the country, home to the Garifuna, black Carib Indians known for their pounding and sensual song and dance. It’s really something to see, alone worth a visit to this region.

Following the coast north from Belize City brings you to Corozal, where life couldn’t be more laid-back. This is a part of the world where you can still arrange a home of your own directly on the beach with nary a neighbor around if that’s what you’re in the market for. It’s also one of the most affordable regions in the country. You could live a simple but comfortable life on the water here on a budget of as little as US$1,000 per month.

The fourth face of Belize is my favorite. Inland, in the rain forest, is the Cayo District, a land of mountains and Mayan ruins, rivers and waterfalls. This is Belize’s frontier, a land where a man (or a woman) comes to stake a claim and make his own way.

The wide-open spaces of the Cayo appeal to the adventuresome and the independent. Living here, you’d enjoy lots of elbow room and far-reaching vistas.

You’d also enjoy a higher level of support than you might expect. I was surprised and delighted during my most recent visit to Cayo to find many more shops and services than existed when I was in this part of the world last.

I sought out my favorite haunts, including Eva’s, the café and expat meeting spot in the heart of San Ignacio, Cayo’s main town, and was pleased to find them all still operating. Today, though, Eva’s and the handful of other spots I frequented for the first time some three decades ago, are hardly the only places for an expat to connect with his fellows.

Alas, development is coming to the Cayo, today the fastest-growing district in Belize.

I acknowledge this with melancholy exuberance. Cayo is one of my secret favorite places on Earth. I’m happy she’s finally getting the recognition I’ve long believed she’s deserved. And the increased attention, I note happily, means it’s easier than ever to spend time here more comfortably than ever.

On the other hand, for me, Cayo has always been one of the world’s best kept secrets. Alas, the secret is out…

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

Tags: 'Cayo''Corozal'ambergris cayeexpas in belizeexpatslifestyle in belizelive in BelizeMove to Belizeplacencia
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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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