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Home Retirement/Living

Panama City and Istanbul compared

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jul 20, 2014
in Retirement/Living
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Panama City with it's banking district shown here, pitted against the city of Istanbul, Turkey
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Istanbul Versus Panama City

Comparing Istanbul with Paris comes easy. Less obvious for most, probably, would be a comparison between Istanbul and Panama City. However, the Panamanian capital is my current general frame of reference and the city I can’t help but compare others against in my travels. So, while in Istanbul these past couple of weeks, Panama City kept coming to mind.

Paris, like Istanbul, is one of the world’s great centers of culture and learning, of architecture and art, of history and epicurean delights. Panama City is none of those things. It is, though, like Istanbul, a center of trade and transit. Istanbul has the Bosphorus; Panama City has the canal. Both are big-deal shipping lanes. The Panama Canal passages maybe 14,000 ships a year; the Bosophorus about 50,000. Ships travel back and forth between the Marmara and the Black seas free of charge these days, while Panama Canal revenues make for a big and critical piece of this country’s annual budget.

Both Panama City and Istanbul are fast-growing, though, again, on different scales. Panama is home to some 3.5 million people, with maybe close to half those living in the capital. More than 75 million live in Turkey, with somewhere between 15 and 20 million of those (no one seems quite sure) in Istanbul. In other words, Istanbul alone has more than five times the population of the entire country of Panama…and, as one local we spoke with put it, “there are more people in Istanbul all the time.” I’d say the same is true for Panama City.

All this population expansion means epic infrastructure strains. Cars, congestion, construction, traffic, and delays…they’re all dominant parts of both these scenes. In both cities, the effects can be frustrating though far less so in Istanbul where the chaos is more controlled, even genteel. Definitely I’d take a day behind the wheel in Istanbul over a day as a driver in Panama City any…well, any day.

Both Panama City and Istanbul are attracting foreign investor and entrepreneur attention right now, Panama City mostly from North America…Istanbul from Europe and Asia. Increased business activity means expanding economies and healthy though not always convenient employment scenes. In both cities, the working and middle classes commute long distances each day in many cases. The cost of living city-center has outpaced them…but city-center is where the work is.

Which is to say that the cost of living in both Istanbul and Panama City is greater than in the rest of each country. Life or retirement in Turkey and in Panama can be a bargain…unless you want to live life to its potential in either country’s capital city. Then you’re looking at real-world, not bargain-basement, budgets.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in a Euro-chic lifestyle, I’d say Istanbul could be your best bargain option. That’s why we’re adding it to the editorial calendar for my Overseas Retirement Letter. ORL subscribers can look forward to a complete guide to retirement living in what has become one of my favorite places on earth.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: 'panama city'ComparisonIstanbulPanamaTurkey
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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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