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I was tired of working 40, sometimes 50 hours a week as a designer for an international furniture manufacturer. Working on commission only, I often worked on my days off to facilitate clients, and meeting my required goals had become increasingly difficult. Continually declining markets, escalating real estate taxes, and the rising cost of electricity and heating oil were other factors that made me decide it was time for a change.
Life here is busy, but it’s a good kind of busy. We have less driving and commuting than when we lived in Ohio…and we don’t miss traffic jams, shoveling snow, and de-icing the car in the morning, which used to take up so much time. Here, grocery shopping or paying bills involves a bike ride or a walk in sunny weather, where you can hear birds and see the beach.
Have you ever wondered what life in the jungle would be like? If you’re like me, it could be your own personal paradise. The funny thing is, I never set out to live in the jungle. I’ve lived in several places, including Patagonia, Chile, where I worked for five months as an English teacher before I returned back “home” to Kentucky. But I missed Latin American culture, so I found a job as the marketing manager for Outward Bound Costa Rica, an adventure school based in the mountains of Tres Rios.
I’m up a bit after sunrise for my daily ritual. It starts with a long leisurely walk on the beach. Something about the sound of crashing waves, watching anchored boats bob on the horizon, and the cool weather before the heat of the day hits…it just puts me in the right mood. I live in Tamarindo, on Costa Rica’s northern Pacific coast. It’s a small town, popular with tourists, where life revolves around the beach. Surfing, which put Tamarindo on the map in the 1990s, is still huge here.
An argument with a girlfriend was how I ended up in Spain. Having set sail on a cruise ship from Genoa, Italy, and following a tour of the Canary Islands, we were on our way home, and docked in Spain's southern port city of Malaga. In a moment of stubbornness, and after being told there was no other berth for me to move in to, I packed up all my worldly belongings and walked off the boat. My Spanish life had begun...and it was probably the best decision of my life.
When I decided to get away from the cold winters of Colorado, Panama attracted me with its warmer climate, low cost of living, and first-rate infrastructure. That alone was worth moving for…but as a retiree here, it gets even better. One of the national laws of Panama can make the already low cost of living even lower. Law #6 entitles any resident of the country who is a female over 55 or male over 60 to receive a discount on specific services.
I start each day with a freshly brewed cup of local coffee...and think about how lucky I am to live where I do, the beautiful city of Alajuela, in Costa Rica's expat favorite of the Central Valley. It's always been a dream of mine to live abroad and now I can say that it's a dream come true. Back in Seattle I worked in nursing, specifically Alzheimer's care, a career I'd had since graduating high school.
Fed up with the harsh Midwest winters and tired of working too much to pay for a life we didn't have time to enjoy, my husband, Junior, and I decided we weren't willing to wait for retirement to see the world and enjoy life. Just before Christmas last year, we started researching our overseas options. We sold all of our belongings after New Year and at the start of April this year, we landed in Costa Rica...without ever having been here before.
With the coming of fall, my family and friends in the States find themselves thinking of the long, cold winter approaching. It's not just the ice and snow they have to cope with, but the enormous heating bills, and not being able to enjoy the outdoors. But not me...living in Panama I don't ever have a heating bill and I haven't seen snow in years. The great outdoors is my playground all year round here in the Chiriqui province of western Panama. And that includes being able to go to the beach anytime I want.
"In the U.S., you're always going, going, going...it's so easy to lose sight of where you're headed. Life got too fast-moving for us", explains Ray Granade. "We always needed to be somewhere, quickly, then somewhere else. It seemed like we were spending an extraordinary amount of time sitting in traffic. Now the longest we wait in the car is usually for a herd of cattle to cross the road," he adds, saying he and his wife Kim, both 63, also wanted to escape the consumerism in the U.S.