Editor’s Observe: This tale in the beginning gave the impression on Are living and Make investments In a foreign country.

For higher than 2½ a long time, Lief and I’ve been running in combination to spot after which place items of our eventual “retirement.”

We don’t plan ever to retire within the typical sense.

What would I do with myself if I didn’t rise up every morning and draft a dispatch to you, pricey reader?

For Lief and me, retirement isn’t about preventing doing what we’re doing.

Certainly, we’d say we’re already retired … although we’re running greater than ever.

A Other Standpoint on Retirement

We’ve lengthy seemed ahead to retirement as a level of perpetual movement and loyal distinction … flexibility, freedom, and discovery.

We adore to transport round, and we admire alternate.

When our youngsters have been at school, our shifting round was once dictated by means of faculty calendars.

We’d base ourselves in a single position, the place our youngsters then attended faculty—first Eire, then Paris, then Panama Town — and we’d plan our travels round their breaks.

Now that each kids are absolutely introduced, we’re ready to include the following section of our plan. Lief and I are ready to return and move as we adore.

A Bittersweet Transition

For me, this transition has been bittersweet. Positive, it’s great so as to wander the place we would like, as incessantly as we would like, and to stick in every position so long as we’d like.

However, I’ve to confess that adjusting to the theory of being a mother with out children in the home has taken some effort.

What’s a mom to do when her kids now not occupy her consideration full-time?

I say: Hit the street!

Our Subsequent Level Plan

Lief and I are running now in a extra centered means than ever to suit in combination the items we’ve amassed over the last 20 years right into a extra formal Subsequent Level Plan.

This plan has Paris and Panama as twin hubs. We’ve been citizens of Panama for greater than 15 years … and we’re in Panama to stick.

Our Are living And Make investments In a foreign country industry is headquartered in Panama Town … whilst this nation’s Veraguas province is the place we’ve positioned our long-term house base on the neighborhood of Los Islotes, on Panama’s Pacific coast.

We’re all-in on Panama … and extra bullish in this nation’s potentialities long-term than ever.

Panama is among the absolute best puts on this planet to run a industry or put money into actual property, and we stay up for each alternative to spend time with the LIOS workforce in our Panama Town HQ.

Plus, in fact, we savor each day we’re ready to spend at Los Islotes. Mom Nature has outdone herself in this coast.

Embracing a Lifetime of Commute

Lately, although, I write from Paris, the place we’ve loved the vacations with our youngsters and native buddies.

Subsequent week, we’ll be repositioning … from the Outdated International to the New … from the Town of Gentle again to the Hub of the Americas.

From our Panama base, we’ve deliberate journeys to Belize, Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic … probabilities to reconnect with buddies and associates at the floor and to test on investments we hang in every location.

As I mentioned, we adore to transport round.

Due to our herbal affinity for where and the 4 years we lived right here when the youngsters have been more youthful, Paris looks like house and is our 2d long-term house base.

As smartly, although, we wish to spend time incessantly within the different puts on our we-love-it-here record … and in different spots, too, that we’ve but to spot.

Residing With Objective

After we come and move from those puts, we wish to do it as “locals,” moderately than as vacationers, and with a goal.

That’s why we’ve labored to construct infrastructure in every location that has gotten below our pores and skin and stirred our imaginations. We’ve made buddies in those puts … and investments.

We’ve discovered companions and introduced companies. We’ve purchased flats, constructed homes, planted bushes, and cultivated gardens.

We’ve transform concerned within the native communities, contributing as we will be able to to toughen native colleges and teaching programs, as an example. We attempt to benefit from each probability we determine to toughen the following era.

After we display up in every location, we wish to have one thing to do with ourselves (along with drafting those dispatches).

We would like corporate for cocktails and partners for dinner, however we additionally wish to be engaged in actions with an purpose.

At House at Los Islotes

Our Los Islotes neighborhood on Panama’s Pacific coast is the fruits of this riding lifetime schedule.

At Los Islotes, we’re growing an oceanfront neighborhood within the Spanish-colonial taste.

I inform the entire tale in my newest ebook, “At House at Los Islotes — Discovering Our Approach on This Veraguas Coast.”

Very lengthy tale brief, in the beginning, Los Islotes was once about making a living. Greater than a decade into essentially the most difficult endeavor of our lives, I know it has not anything to do with money waft.

Los Islotes has been our bridge to a hidden global with secrets and techniques the arena must know. Connecting with them has talented me goal.

As we stand initially of recent 12 months 2024, my No. 1 answer is to open the Los Islotes Studying Heart. This might be a spot for native scholars to return to get right of entry to the web and a lending library, to be informed fundamental laptop talents, to fulfill with tutors, and to take English-language courses.

Simply Getting Began

Giving this actual subsequent era a leg up turns out essentially the most profitable use of my time I will be able to now believe.

For my fortieth birthday, Lief took the youngsters and me to Galway for the weekend. We have been dwelling in Waterford on the time.

Strolling alongside the seafront in Galway the city the eve earlier than the massive day, Kaitlin, then 14, seemed up at me and requested, “Does it hassle you that your existence is over?”

Earlier than I may just reply, she persevered, “I imply, you’re married. You will have two children. You’ve been doing the similar task endlessly. Does it hassle you to assume that the whole thing for you is already all found out and over?”

A 14-year-old’s tackle turning 40. Now that milestone is long ago within the rear view, as is the massive 5-0 … and, as smartly, with 2023 carried out, my sixtieth 12 months.

Does it hassle me? Neatly, certain. We’d all love to gradual issues down if lets. However, not anything’s over ’til it’s over. I’d say I’m simply getting began.