Catherine Lefevre is the embodiment of what’s possible in the modern working world. A French-Canadian living in Panama, she works remotely in accounting and compliance for a Colombia-based company that serves clients in the U.S. By choosing to live in affordable Panama City, she’s been able to buy a condo. She’s also a co-owner of […]

A message recently received from one of my friends: “So, like, if I wanted to get a visa to live in Prague, could I? I mean, I’m not saying I want to, yet. But, like, could I—just in case?” It’s the “just in case” that stopped me.  I’m accustomed to questions from friends and acquaintances […]

“You have one of the nicest rooms,” the hotel clerk insisted as she walked me up a flight of wooden stairs. She pushed open the door to a spacious room and steered me to a set of French doors that she flung open, almost cinematically, to reveal the ancient, Venetian port of Chania, Greece just […]

Money magazine called me last week. One of its reporters wanted to chat about Americans who are increasingly interested in skedaddling to destinations south of the Rio Grande—particularly Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, and Brazil. So many Americans now have the capacity to work from wherever, and the cost-of-living is generally so much cheaper, that relocating […]

Once our children left home, my husband, Pete, and I realized the days of big family dinners and holiday gatherings were going to be much less frequent. So, in our 40s, we sold absolutely everything we owned and decided to explore as many countries as we could over a five-year period and then settle back […]

Growing up, my Sunday looked like many other Italian-American’s. From pasta and fresh bread to dinners ending with espresso, Sunday’s were about famiglia. At the time, I took this for granted, not understanding how special these occasions were. When I lost my grandfather and then shortly after my father to cancer, I realized our Italian […]

A larger trend that began several years ago is now ramping up as an after-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: the work-and-live anywhere lifestyle of digital nomadism. What was once mainly a trend among millennials has become a coveted lifestyle among various age groups that now have the freedom to move about the world and work.  […]

What’s the best investment you can make these days? And stick with me—this is not a financial story…which, actually, hints at the answer. Because at this particular moment in history, I’ll argue that the best investment you can make is in yourself. Yes, yes, yes—one could make the identical assertion, regardless of the historical moment. […]

Josh Acree always wanted to move to a Caribbean island, but he’d presumed this dream would have to wait until retirement. Then he and his partner, Chad Sorrow, were presented with the opportunity to buy a business in Bocas del Toro, Panama, and they decided to bring this dream to life…decades ahead of schedule.  The […]

Before I retired from practicing medicine, I began looking for a home base for travel in South America. I wanted a location that was safe, had first-world healthcare, would allow me to brush-up on Spanish, and had a rich history and culture. Ecuador checked all the boxes.  Once I downsize and sell property here in […]

Let’s immediately dispense with the bad news… The U.S. economy will not rebound quickly. We lost 5% of the economy in the first quarter, and another 9.6% in the second quarter. Those are epic numbers. On a more human scale, tens of millions of jobs are gone and more than 100,000 businesses have shuttered for […]

In March 2018, I moved to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon with my three cats. The first nine weeks were challenging as my household goods made the slow trek across the Atlantic Ocean in a shipping container. I spent that time in an empty shell of an apartment with only a bed, a folding chair, […]