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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
    DISCOUNT
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
    LEARN MORE
    PRE-REGISTER
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    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
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    From Outside North America:
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    Working Hours
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    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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Home Retirement/Living

While Away Your Days In Paris

Why Kathleen Peddicord Chose Panama

by Kathleen Peddicord
Feb 12, 2023
in Retirement/Living
0 0
Skyscrapers of Panama City, retirement in Panama

Adobe Stock/Matyas Rehak

In 2007, I left the publishing company where I’d been working since the age of 21.

I thought I was taking early retirement.

I was 44-years-old, and we were living in Paris. Our 18-year-old daughter was in college in the States, and our 8-year-old son was attending

the local French primary school.

I’d worked every day of the 23 years since I’d finished school, hard.

I’d moved up the ladder from copy editor to publisher, from employee to partner.

I’d done breakfast meetings, dinner meetings, board meetings, conference calls, and red-eye flights. I’d opened new offices in new countries, moved entire businesses across continents, launched new divisions, turned around failing ones, hired, fired, and managed growth.

I was ready for a break.

If you’re going to do nothing, Paris is the place to do it, I figured, and I thought I was ready to do nothing for a while.

I developed a routine

I’d rise early, with young Jackson, ready him for his day, and then walk him the 10 blocks from our apartment to his school. I’d kiss Jackson on the cheek, wave goodbye as I backed out the door of his classroom, then continue out of the building and on down the street for another two blocks to the bistro on the corner.

One of the greatest delights of Paris is sitting at a bistro table street side, sipping, reading, and watching. I’d choose a table with a view of the park across the way, and I’d order a pot of tea and a tartine with jam. I’d drink the tea, eat my breakfast, read my newspaper, and watch as this corner of Paris got about its day.

It was autumn. A walk through the heart of historic Paris is one of the best ways in the world to pass your time any time of year; however, exploring this part of this city on foot in autumn, the temperature crisp, leaves crunchy under foot, can be particularly pleasing.

Although we’d been living in Paris nearly four years and I’d been traveling to this city for more than two decades, I’d had little opportunity in all that time to be a tourist. This was my chance.

I bought a guidebook, and, each morning, after I’d finished my breakfast, I’d flip through it to find a new destination. Some days, I’d walk all morning, stop for lunch, then continue on until 4 in the afternoon when it was time to collect Jackson from school.

Other days I’d choose a park or a courtyard or a bench alongside the river and settle in to contemplate.

I’d watch the city gardeners as they trimmed the hedges and collected the crunchy leaves from the sidewalks… the restaurant staff as they dumped the previous evening’s cases of empty wine bottles into oversized garbage bins, sending out reverberating clatters… the building guardiennes as they polished giant brass door knockers and scrubbed ancient courtyard cobblestones…

Central Paris is always tidying and sprucing itself up.

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One afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I was sitting in the park behind Jackson’s school, face turned up and eyes closed to enjoy the afternoon sun while I waited for the 4 o’clock bell telling me it was time to walk around the corner to meet Jackson for the walk home. Toddlers ran all around me, calling out to each other and laughing.

I was in a half-asleep state with the warm sun full on my face, so I couldn’t say how long my friend was there before I realized it, but, finally, I heard my name called out sharply and opened my eyes.

Emanuela’s face was just in front of mine, and she was looking at me as though I’d gone daft.

“Kathleen, what in the world are you doing here?” she asked.

“Waiting for Jackson to finish school,” I replied.

Emanuela’s daughter Emma was in Jackson’s class. That’s how we’d become friends.

“But it will be another hour before they’re out for the day,” Emanuela said.

“You’re just going to sit here and wait for an hour? How long have you been sitting here? Why aren’t you at work?”

In the four years since we’d met, Emanuela had never known me to while away my time. I was the full-time working mother who missed school meetings and had a full-time au pair who collected my child from school at the end of each day because I never had time to do it myself.

I wasn’t a pass-the-afternoon-in-the-park mom. I hadn’t spoken with Emanuela since I’d opted out of the working-mother role and transitioned, overnight, to this hang-out-in-the-park one.

“But why?” she asked incredulously when I explained that I’d retired from my post. “Why would you quit? You loved your job. What have you been doing since you stopped working? You haven’t been sitting here in this park every day, have you?”

Sitting in a Left Bank park, just off Boulevard St. Germain, is one of the most enjoyable pastimes I can imagine. Still, Emanuela had a point. How many afternoons was I going to fill this way?

I continued doing nothing in Paris for a few more months… five in total. I remember this as one of the sweetest phases of my life—nothing to do all day and all historic Paris to do it in.

I traversed the heart of this city on foot, seeing every major and many minor monuments, indulging my interest in classic architecture by inspecting some of the best of it anywhere in the world up-close, and learning, finally, to speak French.

How Live And Invest Overseas started

Then, one afternoon, I returned home with Jackson and walked straight into Lief’s home office where he was at work.

“I’d like to start a publishing group,” I informed my husband. “I think I’ve done nothing long enough.”

Five months later, Lief, Jackson, and I arrived in Panama City with six overstuffed suitcases and installed ourselves in our Avenida Balboa apartment, the one we’d been renting out but that now, until we could find a bigger place, we’d call home.

Two weeks after that, my first employee arrived on the scene. Harry took up his place alongside me at the single desk in our little loft space. I began writing daily dispatches like this one… which Harry emailed out to interested readers.

Live And Invest Overseas was born.

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

Tags: 'retirement'architecturebusinessleisureParissight-seeTravel
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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

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  • Cyprus
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Best For:

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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

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Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

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Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

Store

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

Services

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  • Global Property Advisor: Global Investment Opportunitites
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