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Home Retirement/Living

Retirement Choices In Latin America

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jun 09, 2013
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“Pluses And Minuses”The Worlds Top Retirement Havens Compared

“You’ve liked Belize for a long time, I think. What is it that attracts you?”

We were enjoying dinner with friends at the much-heralded restaurant in Panama City’s Manrey Hotel. It’s an LA-style venue, a place to see and be seen in this city. The menu, the wine list, and the service are all international-standard. SUV’s and other over-sized vehicles line up down the block, awaiting their turn for valet parking. The woman at the front turns away anyone without a reservation…

“Yes, I’ve been writing about Belize since my first visit to that country more than 25 years ago,” I replied, “and I’m a die-hard Belize fan. But Belize isn’t for everyone.”

“Right,” Lief collaborated. “There’s nothing like this place in the whole country, for example. And there are probably more people in this central zone of Panama City than in all Belize.

“There are three highways in Belize. One goes north, one goes south, one goes west.”

“That’s one thing that separates Panama from all Central America, in fact,” I continued. “Infrastructure.”

“In other countries in this region, you hear promises of a new beach road, a new airport, a new bridge, etc. But you dismiss them, because you know, from experience, that the chances of the new infrastructure actually coming online…certainly of it coming online in the time frame initially proposed…are slim to zero.

“Costa Rica promised a new road for so long that maps were published showing it…before it existed! People believed it had been built. It must have been, I guess they figured. It’d been talked about for decades.

“The same is true in Nicaragua, where officials have promised for years to extend the beach road south to the Costa Rican border. They’re still promising, I guess…

“In Panama, though, when the powers that be stand up and proclaim, ‘We will build a new road, a new bridge, a new park, etc.’…it happens. If there’s one thing this country knows how to do, it’s to build things.”

“In Belize,” Lief added, “they don’t even promise to build things. In this way, Belize is almost Panama’s alter ego. While Panama is pushing hard toward recognized First World status, Belize is happy to remain virtually off the world map.

“So, again, I can’t help but wonder,” our friend interjected, “what is it about Belize that appeals to you?”

“I appreciate the comforts and amenities of life in Panama City,” I explained. “This is a great night out, for example, and, as Lief explained, you’d never find anything like this anywhere in Belize.

“What you do find in Belize is something that is harder and harder to find anywhere on earth. Privacy. Freedom…at a very personal level. Belize is about making your own way in a frontier land of wide-open spaces where your neighbors don’t bother you…you don’t bother them…and the government doesn’t much bother anybody.

“Everywhere is a trade-off,” I added. You don’t go to Belize for fine dining or big nights out. You go to Belize to escape all that…to appreciate life at a more basic level…”

“I notice that you’ve also been writing lately about Medellin, Colombia,” our friend remarked. “What attracts you to that city?”

To be continued…

Kathleen Peddicord

 

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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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