Possible Future Expat

Hello ANtraveler.

Welcome to Expat.com!

A small introduction would be great!

Thank you,
Aurélie

My husband and I are in our 70's, have traveled extensively throughout the US, and plan to visit Panama in the fall.  I am retired from NASA and he is retired Atr Force.  We have been reading IL for about a year, and Panama sounds good.  Any tips you can share with us regarding what we should look for would be appreciated.  We definitely want to visit the canal, but would also like to see the countryside.

Thanks.

Avis

There is so much beauty here. What interests you? How much time do you have?

Maybe spend some time in Panama City, then fly to Bocas Del Toro for a few days. Then make your way over the mountains by bus to David. From there it's easy to visit Boquete and Volcan, and then check out a beach or two. Then you can make your way east, maybe visit the Azuero Peninsula and El Valle de Anton on your way back to Panama City. Buses are an inexpensive way to travel and see a lot of the countryside (bring a sweater, air conditioning can be very cold). The bus trip between Bocas and David is a bit crazy though those windy mountain roads but it is spectacular!

We're just starting to explore western Panama ourselves, but have written about some of our experiences http://thepanamaadventure.com/information.html#Places I'm sure others who are more familiar with central Panama can make other suggestions.

Don't believe everything you read in IL. Few people speak English. This is not like the US in many ways. But, in my opinion, many things are better and it is a spectacularly beautiful country. I hope you have a wonderful visit

Kris

ANtraveler wrote:

My husband and I are in our 70's, have traveled extensively throughout the US, and plan to visit Panama in the fall.  I am retired from NASA and he is retired Atr Force.  We have been reading IL for about a year, and Panama sounds good.  Any tips you can share with us regarding what we should look for would be appreciated.  We definitely want to visit the canal, but would also like to see the countryside.

Thanks.

Avis

Thanks for the suggestions.  Have you been to Santiago or Coronado?  What time of the year did you visit Boquete?  According to what I read, they get a lot of rain, especially In October.

I've been through Santiago on the bus. It's big enough to have a Doit Center and supermarkets but I don't know much more about it. We drove to Coronado on our first visit here but everything seemed to be behind big guard gates so we really couldn't see anything.

I live in David so I'm in Boquete now and then. They get more rain there than we do down here. Dry season is Dec - April and we got almost no rain this year. Now we're back in the rainy season and it doesn't rain every day, and often when we get some sprinkles they get a downpour up there. It rains the most in Oct and Nov, but even then days are usually sunny in the morning. The clouds start arriving in the afternoon and by mid/late afternoon it's raining, and then it clears up in the evening. If you plan your activities accordingly it's not bad at all, and it keeps things cool and green, and the flowers in bloom.

Kris

ANtraveler wrote:

Thanks for the suggestions.  Have you been to Santiago or Coronado?  What time of the year did you visit Boquete?  According to what I read, they get a lot of rain, especially In October.

Hi Kris,

I really enjoy reading your comments, you write in such a straight forward and pleasant way.

I'd like to run our plan by you to see what you think:

We'll be spending 3 weeks in Panama starting on Aug. 8.  We're not much of city people and even prefer to travel the uncommon paths. We plan to visit the Panama Canal, maybe a day in the city - Casco area, and maybe a day on Coronado beach, we want to go to El Valle de Anton on a Sunday to enjoy the arts and crafts market, we'll spend a few days in the Pedasi and Las Tablas area, we'll drive around the Azuero Peninsula, west to Boquete and David area for a few days, drive over the mountains to Bocas del Toro for probably 5 days, then back to Panam city for our return flight to Virginia. 

We're renting a small car at the airport, do you think it will do, or do you advise getting 4x4 because of the rainy season? not sure if the conditions of the smaller and side roads are good enough for a small car with four people onboard.

Do you think our general travel locations will cover seeing the best of Panama, or are we missing special places? 

Thanks,
Fayez

Hello Kris & Fayez,

Just joined blog as I am also looking at retiring in Panama. Wife is having medical procedures in Panama on 3 Aug and we are staying for three weeks. Were looking at about same itinerary, as Fayez. We lived at Ft Sherman 88-90 with army. Can't wait to see how country has changed.

Thanks for any advice.

Randy

Thank you That sounds like an excellent plan. The roads here are generally good, and I believe everywhere you plan to go will have paved roads unless you really get off the beaten path. The road from David to Bocas is through the mountains, very windy with lots of steep ups and downs so you'll want a decent motor. That will also be nice in general because Panama isn't very flat.

There are beach areas near David also - La Barqueta, Boca Chica, Las Lajas if you want to see something else in this area. David is a working town and not a tourist destination (though as a place to live we love it).

Kris

fdajani wrote:

Hi Kris,

I really enjoy reading your comments, you write in such a straight forward and pleasant way.

I'd like to run our plan by you to see what you think:

We'll be spending 3 weeks in Panama starting on Aug. 8.  We're not much of city people and even prefer to travel the uncommon paths. We plan to visit the Panama Canal, maybe a day in the city - Casco area, and maybe a day on Coronado beach, we want to go to El Valle de Anton on a Sunday to enjoy the arts and crafts market, we'll spend a few days in the Pedasi and Las Tablas area, we'll drive around the Azuero Peninsula, west to Boquete and David area for a few days, drive over the mountains to Bocas del Toro for probably 5 days, then back to Panam city for our return flight to Virginia. 

We're renting a small car at the airport, do you think it will do, or do you advise getting 4x4 because of the rainy season? not sure if the conditions of the smaller and side roads are good enough for a small car with four people onboard.

Do you think our general travel locations will cover seeing the best of Panama, or are we missing special places? 

Thanks,
Fayez

Good luck to your wife. I'm impressed with the health care here and hope you feel that way too. It will be interesting to see what changes you find.

Kris

Fleetman1 wrote:

Hello Kris & Fayez,

Just joined blog as I am also looking at retiring in Panama. Wife is having medical procedures in Panama on 3 Aug and we are staying for three weeks. Were looking at about same itinerary, as Fayez. We lived at Ft Sherman 88-90 with army. Can't wait to see how country has changed.

Thanks for any advice.

Randy

Hi Randy, I'm impressed to hear that your wife is going to Panama for a surgery instead of doing it in the States. I have friend that went to Spain for an operation on his back because of the costs advantage, he came back quite please with the results which the doctors in the US could not accomplish for him at an astronomically higher cost.
Best wishes to your wife,  and hope to get your input on the medical service in Panama.

Take care,
Fayez

Kris,

We also plan to attend the Kathleen Peddicor conference "Live and Invest in Panama" for a couple of days. The trick is that we will have out 2 daughters with who will need someone to watch over them while we attend the conference in Panama City.  Any idea how we might be able to locate a trustworthy baby sitter who speaks English that can watch over them and possibly take them some places to keep them occupied?

Thanks,
Fayez

Maybe Chris knows someone? https://www.expat.com/forum/profile.php?id=311734  He lives in Panama City and has kids.

I've got to ask.. about the conference... which I see costs $1595 for two people.... why?
You can get all of that information (and more realistic information) for free on line, from people already living here, from visiting and doing your own research.
http://blog.thepanamaadventure.com/4-useful-links/  That's one place to start. Join those forums and discussion groups.

I'm not a big fan of expensive conferences
http://blog.thepanamaadventure.com/2013 … -paradise/

They try to sell you stuff. They want you to buy a condo in a high rise on the beach in some gringo compound. Ugh. That is not Panama. Panama is so much more than that.
I've probably said more than I should.... get myself in hot water

Kris

fdajani wrote:

Kris,

We also plan to attend the Kathleen Peddicor conference "Live and Invest in Panama" for a couple of days. The trick is that we will have out 2 daughters with who will need someone to watch over them while we attend the conference in Panama City.  Any idea how we might be able to locate a trustworthy baby sitter who speaks English that can watch over them and possibly take them some places to keep them occupied?

Thanks,
Fayez

You are probably right.  We paid around $1,200 for the two of us, but we thought it will give us the condensed version and hopefully some insight about Investing and living in Panama, I'm sure they'll try to sell us stuff. I'll post our impression of the conference after it is concluded.
Thanks for your reference for the child care.
Fayez

Yes, please do! We haven't been to a conference, so before I say any more about them I'd be very interested to hear what goes on, and how useful it is. Thanks!

Kris

fdajani wrote:

You are probably right.  We paid around $1,200 for the two of us, but we thought it will give us the condensed version and hopefully some insight about Investing and living in Panama, I'm sure they'll try to sell us stuff. I'll post our impression of the conference after it is concluded.
Thanks for your reference for the child care.
Fayez

My husband and I thought at one time we would go to the International Living conference.  This is the first thing we were going to do when we started researching retiring to Panama.  But then we paid a little over $100 for the downloaded version and listened to the conference as well as being able to view all of the slides, etc from the comfort of our living room (it is the entire four day conference in an online version). After two visits to Panama on our own and with help from new friends we have made that live there as expats, and with a third visit soon to work on obtaining our Residency Visa, I am glad I spent the  money touring the country and not sitting in a conference room.  There are many experts to give you advice at these conferences, but really try to hook up with the bloggers out there (like Kris!) and those that are actually living the good, bad and even ugly days of being an expat in a foreign country.  Good luck to you and let us know how the conference goes!

I know it seams like a bit of money for a conference to gather info. I'm hoping to get more than just info about living in Panama, but to also gain insight about investing there (real estate or other), legal insights and reliable contacts, as well as US tax advantages and relevant contacts. Certainly this can all be gathered independently and and hopefully getting the correct info without running into costly pitfalls or being misled. So, between the conference and communicating with expats in Panama I hope to cover most basis and weed out potential pitfalls as best we can.

It's a great idea that you bought the online version of the recorded conference, saved yourself a bit of money.

By all means, we won't make decisions just by attending a conference; we will actually be in Panama for 3 weeks starting Aug. 8th to see the country and to meet it's peoples. We're pretty excited about that.

We also have two daughters (9 and 13 years), and we need to get a feel for which areas would have decent international schools for them.

I will certainly post our impression of the conference when we return home if not sooner.

Take care!

Kris,  do you know if there are english speaking international schools in or around David city?

Fayez

I don't have kids here so I haven't looked into schools. But, I have seen schools in that say they are bilingual. One is The American School in our neighborhood. This is an old post and their website link seems to be broken, but the school is definitely there and active chiriquichatter.net/blog/2008/06/11/american-school-in-david-revisited/ 
boquete.ning.com/forum/topics/international-schools-and-the  This discussion is also from a few years ago but seems to have a lot of info. You could post your question there and maybe get more current information.

and also check this groups.yahoo.com/group/Gringos_in_David_Panama/message/10672

Kris

fdajani wrote:

Kris,  do you know if there are english speaking international schools in or around David city?

Fayez

Great. I'll check them out. This will be a determining factor as to how much time we spend in the  David area. Thank you very much

Fayez

Fayez,

I moved to Panama last September and love it!  You can get TONS of information from the expats here.  I'd recommend staying a couple of nights in Coronado - there are 3 international schools so you could learn a lot from the families here.  Stay on a Wednesday night for sure so you can attend the community happy hour at Picasso's.  there are usually kiddos there as well.

Thanks for that. We were only going to spend 1 day in Coronado area, but now on a second thought we just might do two. Not sure if we can be there on a Wednesday because we'll be in Panama City on a conference, but we might be able to drive down there after the conference and join the community happy hour at Picasso's. What time is the happy hour?

We are also interested to go up to El Valle for the Sunday art and crafts fair hoping to find high quality crafts.

Fayez

BTW-some of the guide books say that the market in El Valle is only open weekends-not true. It's open everyday but on weekends, garden plants are on sale too.

Thanks, jonoyakker. That's good to know, because I was having a hard time trying to make the trip to El Valle on a Sunday specifically, now I have the flexibility to go there whenever our schedule allows us.

According to my understanding from what I read is that the bulk of the artists and their crafts come to the El Valle Sunday market, and less so on the rest of the days. Apparently it is just that the plants are brought in on Sundays - which we are not too interested in, it is the higher quality crafts we'd like to see.

Thanks again, this is very helpful!

Fayez

Yes-that info is dead wrong. There might be a few shops closed for certain days but generally things are happening every day. What day were you thinking of visiting? There is actually a fair number of things to do in EV. One of the good things is that being cooler, it's much more pleasant being outside than being around the beach=often hot.

Take what you hear at the conferences with a grain of salt, I'm afraid.

We plan to drive from Boquete on Sunday the 18th and hope to get to EV before dark. Then on Tue afternoon we'll head to Panama City for the conference.

We will try to get a feel for the real estate in EV as well as around beach areas such as Santa Clara where we could be close to an international school for our two children.

Do you live in EV?

Yes. It's about a 6 hr drive from Boquete. Watch your speed all the way. The upper half of the access road to El Valle is twisty with often people walking along-best to arrive before dark!

Property in EV is expensive but you get what you pay for. Great quality of life here and very beautiful. Friendly expats and locals and probably best integration between the 2 groups than anywhere in the country.

Where are you staying? Tues is a slow day here but that's ok.

Haven't selected where to stay yet, but I will today. Any recommendations? We prefer quaint un-typical lodging if available.

We might be able to swing by EV again after the conference as we head to Pedasi, in fact that would be Sunday the 25. Probably a good day to join the tourist rush!

My favorite is the Golden Frog-great all around. Quiet, beautiful, clean, great owners.

Sounds good,  I'll check it out.

Thanks.

We stayed at Casa di Pietra.  Read up on TripAdvisor about it.  Luis (owner) is the best!  Like a treehouse to me (no AC and no screens in windows, but if I survived, I think many people will!).  Have a great trip!

I've stayed at both. Go with the GF-no question IMO.

They both look pretty good, but the Casa di Pietra would definitely be our first choice for being so unique, we love these sort of places. Unfortunately neither one could accommodate us in one room because we have two children, and renting two rooms doesn't make much sense,  so we'll be staying at Anton Valley Hotel.

Thanks,
Fayez

I just returned from a 2 week stay in the City of Panama. This is my 3rd stay there.  I rented a car for $7.00 a day, however, they told me the government insists they charge $18.00 per day for liability insurance (a required item)
As you would in any big city, watch your back, and go where the hotel or casino people suggest.  If you need a cab, have them call for you. Do Not take a cab off the street. It is not common place to have a problem, but why chance it.
I am considering the city as opposed to Playa Blanca  or San Carlos or Coronado. There is more happening in the city.
By all means, visit as many places possible. They each have a distinct like and dislike.  Enjoy it.

Thanks for the info.  I called my credit card company on which I reserved the rental car and they assured me that my international rental car is covered under their policy for liability insurance. I'm taking with me a copy of their benefits package which shows this converge, in fact the credit card company encourages waiving this coverage.

The problem is the Pana working the counter couldn't care less what your credit card company or insurer tells you.  You'll argue and argue and all you'll get is a dumb stare back.  They usually have no authority from their manager (so they say) and usually (not always) the process will involve multiple calls and long waits.  Obviously, the experiences are all across-the-board and can go well, but not usually.

Regardless, many people still buy the coverage to avoid hassles, which in extreme cases have involved imprisonment until your insurer pays the damage or you do so yourself.  Laws are never well understood in Panama even among those (including policia) who should know and are inconsistently enforced at the whim of the officer.  Just know there are risks.  "You're not in Kansas anymore."

I've rented in Panama about a half dozen times and I've always had to pay some insurances at the counter even with my rental car coverage on my credit card.

Never heard of being incarcerated as bond for an accident. There is one issue-you can be charged with time that the car is being repaired. Best strategy is to drive defensively in the interior but in the city, let taxis or tour guides do the driving for you. The city is not for amateurs!

One of the problems in Panama (besides disinterest) is that the laws change all the time. I know some people who have a good poker face and are good at faking knowledge and getting their way because "customer service" people really don't know most of the time.

My #1 rule is: ALWAYS be friendly-don't "get uppity"-they will think you are loco and ignore you. But be firm. They just might give you your way, hoping you will go away... But pick your battles-many things aren't worth the time and hassle. Often the best strategy is to roll with the punches. Panama isn't perfect but nowhere is.

I agree.  The risks of an accident in Panama City are probably 50x to 100x the average and the chances that it will be determined to be the expat's fault over the local are over 99%.  They cut in front and slam on the brakes (to turn or just stop) and stops signs are ignored and deemed "advisory" only for locals.  There are no street signs of prominence and when they do exist they usually differ from what their "real" name is.  This means the expat is often distracted trying to figure out where they are and therefore truly at fault for not seeing the stopped car or pedestrian stepping out in front of them.

I doubt this is going to fly in Panama, so be prepared. A credit card company probably isn't up on the specifics of every country and if I understand correctly, Panama rental companies insist on Panama insurance. Our first time we bought insurance (US travel insurance company) specifically for our rental and they wouldn't honor it even though I had the policy in hand. I'll be very interested to hear how it goes for you!

Kris

fdajani wrote:

Thanks for the info.  I called my credit card company on which I reserved the rental car and they assured me that my international rental car is covered under their policy for liability insurance. I'm taking with me a copy of their benefits package which shows this converge, in fact the credit card company encourages waiving this coverage.