Altoona, PA, but raised all over the NE - Boston, Philadelphia, Northern & Central New Jersey. School in Michigan, then lived in the South Bronx/NY (Yeah!), Milwaukee/WI, Littleton/CO, and ended up, before coming to Panama, in Ventura/CA.

-In which country and city are you living now?

Boquete, Panama high in the Chiriqui mountains.  We have a little coffee farm outside of Boquete up the hill in a little crossroads called Pamira Centro.

-Do you live alone or with your family?

Live with my wife and four dogs: two Dalmatians and a Rottweiler, and Bobbi a street dog adopted by an Indian farm worker who left and went back to the Comarca (kinda like a reservation) leaving Bobbi behind, so we've adopted each other.  Four farm cats also, rescued from Animales Spay Neuter clinic.

-How long have you been living in Panama?

Going on seven years now, and love it! Only wish we had made the move sooner.  Wow!  Time flies when you are having fun, living in Paradise and have "the best job in the world" (lecturing on luxury cruise ships)!

-What is your age?

65, but who counts?  At least not me . . . now 65"ish" is probably more accurate!

-When did you come up with the idea of living in Panama?

For 15 years we owned travel agencies and sent hundreds of passengers through the Canal. I had taken three trips through the Canal, but during the US occupation of the Canal Zone cruise passengers were not allowed ashore for "national security" purposes. After the transfer of the Canal to Panama, cruise passengers were allowed to set foot in Panama, and on the ROTTERDAM I went ashore at Gatun Lake where I met the Embera. After 5 hours of drinking free beer, courtesy of the ship, and talking - me not knowing Spanish and Erito not knowing English - we became friends and I promised to visit his village in Panama. When I went back to California and started searching the Embera on line I accidentally discovered all the benefits of living in Panama, and we added Panama to the short list we were "country shopping" for retirement . . . and here we are!!

The MBA in me forced me to do lots of quantitative analysis of the places where we were considering retiring (Short list: US Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Panama or just staying in Ventura) and Panama came out on top.  The how of all we did it is in my book ESCAPE TO PARADISE.  [BTW the reason why I wrote the book is that on the ship people were always asking, "How did you decide to move to Panama?" or "Why Panama?" - so I wrote it all down.

-Was it hard to get a visa or a working permit?

I'm retired so it was fairly easy to get a permanent "Pensionado" visa. I can't work in Panama, but hey, I'm retired. My avocation is lecturing on cruise ships, which I do at various times, 6-7 months out of the year.

-Was it difficult for you to get medical insurance before you went there or when you first arrived?

If you're in your 60s most medical insurance schemes won't cover pre-existing conditions, and given the low cost of good medical care in Panama (compared to the US!) it just works better for us to self insure. One of the local hospitals has what they call insurance, but it is really a discount plan that we have, but our primary coverage is self insurance.  After two years they do cover pre-existing conditions.  I have Medicare which I can use if I go back to the States for treatment.

-How do you make your living in Panama? Do you have any type of income generated?

I'm retired. Only Panamanians can be employed in Panama without getting a special work visa. Companies are limited in the number of work visas they can obtain for non-Panamanians. That being said, it is very easy to open your own business, and there are lots of incentives for doing so, especially if you are going to hire people to help, even if it's just a maid and a gardener.  And if you do snag a job, as I have with the cruise lines, Panama doesn't take you on income earned outside of Panama, and the US allows you to exempt $91,500 per person of foreign earned income provided your permanent residence is outside the US and you aren't in the US (including US waters and airspace) for more than 30 calendar days a year.  [Which is why I can't work Alaska cruises!]

-Do you speak Spanish and do you think it's important to speak the local language?

I speak some Spanish and am learning more. As many people speak English in Boquete as do in Southern California, and a whole lot more than in Miami! (Nobody speaks English in Miami!) This is their country and I am a guest so I will learn their language. How it works out in practice is that once you start stumbling with your minimal Spanish and making a fool out of yourself, it turns out the other person knows some English, and soon you are both laughing, having a good time and most importantly . . . communicating.

Panama may be the only country in the world that still likes the US and sometimes seems to ape everything US/American. I cringe when I see a Pizza Hut opening in David (although I'm famished for anything like US pizza!), but Panamanians love anything US/American. So part of the respect for local customs is to realize that the locals want US/American stuff.

The long, if at times confused and violent (the violence being the US invasion of Panama) history between the US and Panama, means that there has been a lot of cultural cross-over and adaptation. Many Panamanians have dual citizenship because one of their parents worked in the Canal Zone and was US.

-Do you miss home and family sometimes?

In Ventura our home looked out over the Pacific: I miss waking up and seeing the ocean every morning. I miss our great neighbors and a few dear friends, although since we were busy working in California we really didn't have a lot of time for friends - something I now realize. My kids live in Seattle and San Francisco and are both teachers, so usually love to visit us in the US summer months. We're not that far away.

I dearly miss Home Depot!!!!! My wife misses Bed, Bath & Beyond. Believe it or not we both miss big box stores like Costco. (Our local Price Smart pales in comparison!)  In the seven years we have been here we have seen major changes.  We now have two hardware stores [Novey and Do It Center] in David [40 minutes away] as well as two big department stores and two big appliance/computer stores. 

I don't miss the traffic, the hassle, the high cost of living, the injustice or the police-state type atmosphere of the US.

There's lots to do and lots of touristy things like incredible white water rafting, birding, hiking, canopy tree trekking . . . We do a lot of getting together with friends for dinner, sometimes quite spontaneous events . . . walking, reading, being walked by three dogs! I enjoy blogging and getting ready for cruise lectures . . . and I'm gone  6 or 7 ymonths of the year. I've finished the two books mentioned above and am working on a third about the Panama Railroad.  We have a small coffee finca. Growing coffee is fun and a lot of work and has opened a whole new adventure for us. You can see info about our coffee on my http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com blog.

-Do you have other plans for the future?

We had a piece of property down by the beach which I was planning on developing and another commercial piece in town, but I'm tired of building.  Cruising half the year makes me just want to take time to enjoy Boquete and farm life when I'm home, so we're selling those pieces of land.  Your future needs to evolve!

-What about housing, have you bought, or are you renting a home? How much do you pay for it?

I sold real estate in Southern California. When I bought our first home in a beautiful gated development [Valle Escondido].   I had just sold a new 1,200-sq-ft manufactured home in a nice senior mobile home park in Ventura, California. For the same price (!!) I bought a 3,000 sq-ft-home overlooking the 9^th hole of the golf course in Valle Escondido! We're selling that home now for $365,000 - in case anyone is interested! Prices in Boquete soared for a while, but when the worldwide financial crunch came on demand lessened and prices have moderated.  We designed our present house ourselves and built it.  I would not recommend building, and I explain all that in the book.  There was a time when there wasn't a stock of resale housing available: now there is, and in price ranges from $80,000 to $3 million.  Even if a place isn't exactly what you want, it's easier to remodel than to build.

-What is the cost of living in Panama?

Panama uses the US dollar, so as the dollar has been devalued and things cost more in the US, they also cost more here.  We import a lot, so as the cost of oil has gone up, so have prices in Panama.  But since the cost of living has gone up in BOTH the US and Panama, it works out that our cost of living is about 35% of what it was or would be now in Southern California and we live a much better lifestyle in Panama. . A beer that used to cost 35-50 cents in a local bar, now costs 85cents. But rice and gas and anything imported has gone up. Cement that costs $1.50 a bag is now $7.50 a bag and that's due to the devaluation of the US Dollar and increased demand, largely from China. The double ice cream cone that used to be 25 cents is now 35 cents.

-What do you think about the Panamanians?

Panamanians are warm, wonderful, gracious and patient people. They are non-confrontational which has required me to mellow in my sometimes strident US-style of doing business. There are honest and dishonest locals, just like anywhere in the world. Most are genuinely friendly: a few see "gringos" solely as cash cows.

-What are the positive and negative aspects of living in Panama?

In terms of living in Boquete (rural, mountainous, not at all the big-city style of Panama City):

POSITIVE - Beautiful, peaceful ("tranquil'), clean air and water, healthy locally grown food, small town, growing community of ex-pats from all over the world, culturally diverse, still "affordable", wonderful Spring-like weather year-round.

NEGATIVE - Adapting to "Panamanian time", doing business with any Panamanian business ("The customer is the enemy") is a challenge if you are used to US-style culture of customer service, having to drive 40 minutes to David for lots of things, Panamanians do not have in general a strong US-style work ethic, no Home Depot or Costco, limited cuisine (Panama cuisine is chicken, rice, beans, bananas and for variety beans, rice, chicken, bananas!)

-Do you have any tips for our readers about living in Panama?

Stay home.

Seriously, if you are thinking of relocating to Panama, or anyplace else in the world, spend 6 months renting a place, living there, and checking it out before you make the leap. Be sure that you are the kind of person who finds cultures and values that are different than your own to be stimulating. If you like Miami (or Los Angeles, or Podunkville) then stay there: don't come to Panama and try and make it like Miami.

I've written an ebook, ESCAPE TO PARADISE, about this very thing. I tell a little about how we made our decision, and talk about things you should consider if you ever have a wild idea about relocating to Panama or anyplace else.

-Do you have any favorite Web sites or blogs about Panama?

Richard Detrich's Boquete, Panama Weblog - http://richarddetrich.wordpress.com

About our lives in Panama including some stuff about cruising the world. Check it out!