Living in David Panama for $1200 a Month

[Music] well my name is chris i'm from the united states i grew up in new york but we lived in florida for many years before we moved here now we're in the north side of david panama in chiriki province in a nice little panamanian neighborhood and next month will be nine years we've been here in the same house so it's obviously working out really well for us why do i like living here how long do you have i have a list a very large list well we came here for money because we can't afford to retire in the u.s it's just too expensive any place we'd want to live so we needed a cheap place to live and i never in my wildest dreams imagined that we would be so happy here and now i'm really glad that we had to move because it's been a wonderful experience just to have the worry about paying the bills every month taking off your plate is just a big relief the people here have been super kind and welcoming to us we just feel so included in the community and the weather is chilling or everybody says daffy is so hot but we like the warmer weather coming from florida we have an air conditioner if it gets too hot in the afternoon so for us it's working out really well we love this climate the natural beauty around here is just incredible the main topic of weather related conversation is is it going to rain is it not going to rain we don't have hurricanes we don't have tornadoes we we have some brush fryers in the dry season in the winter but nothing like you see what's going on in california and other parts of the world so there's really not much to worry about here and being here in cherokee province all the produce has grown right up the road in the highlands so we got fresh fruits and vegetables every day all over town i swear that i felt like a new person after being here for a month and i think it's the good food i've had lifelong dental problems with gum disease gone disappeared don't ask me why so for for many many reasons i really like living here and it's more relaxed you want to go take your car apart in the middle of the road people just drive around you in the u.s the homeowners association would be you know hey hey hey you know you kind of do what you want people are very respectful of each other's space and each other's needs but if you want to do something out of the ordinary they're like okay no problem so you don't feel judged like you do in the u.s if you don't have so much money good job go to the right church all the stuff that we look at people in the u.s and go hmm good one bad one none of that here you know if you're nice and you're friendly you're family so it's just i've never felt as at home anywhere i've lived in the u.s as i do here in this foreign country so figure that out with a foreign language on top of it so yeah like i said i could go on and on about how much we love living here i'm arriving in early october i want a house between three and five hundred dollars he says okay he sent me pictures of three or four houses and when i got here we met down the road in front of el rey he drives up here he drives into this neighborhood we see this house i said this is exactly what i was hoping for i go walk down the road i see there's nothing but woods behind us and he says am i hearing water he says yeah the big river down there done you know just show me anything else but i have other houses no no you can't possibly top this this is perfect and he convinced me to see some other houses and it's like no no i was right the first time this is where we want to live and we've been here ever since it's worked out wonderfully we like the neighborhood we like our landlords so it's just really worked out we got lucky lucky lucky the main challenge here for me has been the language i'm not good at languages so trying to pound spanish into my head was a process i am so thankful for my teacher who had the patience of his saints i swear but you know you use it here every day because my neighbors don't speak english so little by little it gets better and better and when it works it is so cool it's like he understood me and i was able to tell him what i want to say you know so that is really cool and they say it's really good for your brain too so we'll see beyond that it was just you know any new place you go you got to figure out where stuff is and how to get around and things don't make sense to us all the time here because they do things differently like i mentioned i went to buy some fabric they don't sell patterns i don't know how people sew clothes but somehow they do and they didn't sell like pins and thread but i found those in the supermarket so it can be a challenge figuring out where to go for various things and if you want printer ink they may not have it where you bought your printer but they may have it in price mart you know it's stuff like that but if you're retired or if you have time and you're willing to go with the flow and just understand that if you go out and get things done in short order you've had a very lucky day because it can happen you'll have to go to three four places to find what you need or if you want to get something done with government entities they want copies and go to this office and go to that office and bring the receipt over there and we're like these guys are so inefficient but it gets done and when you leave it's done you don't wait for something to show up in the mail in two weeks you know you're done so it's just a learning curve probably more here than it would be if you move from one location in the u.s to another or wherever country you've been from so if that kind of thing drives you crazy you might be frustrated here if it's just like ah you know i'll wait in line i'll talk with the people in line i'll give it some new friends then you know it's not that big a deal well the first thing i noticed here was greetings everybody you pass on the street buenos dias hola como estas you don't see that in the states but that's routine here you get on a bus you say hello to everybody or you go in a waiting room in an office you say hello to everybody that makes you feel really different here and then if you're outgoing and like my neighbors go over there and say hey i'm your new neighbor they're like oh welcome welcome i hope you're happy you need anything you come see us so you've got to be careful who you talk to you'll have so many friends you can't keep up with them all but i ride my bike around town a lot so i've met a lot of people that way hey what's that flower that's really pretty and oh that's that's it come let me show you my other flowers and next thing you know you have a new friend and so it's just been really interesting if you can communicate and if you're outgoing enough to approach people they will welcome you in and it's this just feels really nice you'd never ever feel alone here so i like that being kind of a outgoing kind of person [Music] you live in david oh my god how do you stand it it's so hot and i'm like you live in boquete how do you stand it it's so cold up there so you know it depends on what you like and there's towns between david and boquete if you want something in between climate wise so it's all depends on you know what you like but we like it because we don't mind the warm weather we like it and five minutes down the road is three major supermarkets two banks a little farther is a hospital all the doctors everything that we need on a daily basis is very close and at our age having medical care like that accessible is important to us even though thank goodness we haven't needed it but you never know so being close to everything that we need on a daily basis is really nice yet in this neighborhood you don't feel like you're in the middle of town you see it's quiet you hear the birds the roosters down the way so for us it's been just a perfect balance between quiet and town and the supermarkets here tend to have their own personalities they'll be different so it's probably good that you go look around and see who sells what depending on what your preferences are we go to el rey usually because it's close it's got plenty of parking we don't have to cross the highway we know where everything is and they have pretty much everything we want across the street is super baru they'll have more imported stuff more stuff that you don't find in the other supermarkets so sometimes if we want something in particular it's like oh we should go look for that at baru and then there's super 99 which is like a huge general sells everything in the world supermarket and we're like well we don't know where to park and we can't find anything in here so you know being lazy we just go to what's familiar and pricemart is probably our second favorite shopping place it's like costco in the u.s bulk items lower costs so we go there and stock up on things that you know maybe every couple months to bring home so that's mainly but there's many supermarkets all over town some are kind of more cheaper stuff some are more high-end stuff everything in between so just do some exploring and see what works for you ah mercado frio yeah well it used to be downtown was just full of street vendors and they thought if they made a place where all of them could go they get them off the streets which doesn't exactly work we still have street vendors but they have this huge building now with multiple fruit and vegetable vendors people selling meat and chicken and fish i haven't been there in a while i think there's like a beauty shop there's a judicial office there's all kinds of stuff going on down there and it's under roof in the air conditioning so it's much more comfortable to shop than you know downtown but downtown is still thriving because people need to go to the bus depot or they're working down there and they can pick up something on their way home from work so those vendors still have their place here we're not really good at recommending restaurants because we both cook really well and you want me to like put clothes on and go out so yeah we don't eat out too much [Music] [Music] well when i got here i started a blog and i was really interested in photography and i was kind of a new photographer so you look around here oh my gosh there's the trees and the plants and the bugs and birds and scenery so i had a good time with that and then my neighbor introduced me to a painter so i took painting classes for a while see i'm an appraiser boquete they say panama relocation tours parliament here is awesome and i bought a bicycle and a gardener here says yeah you can go downtown on your bicycle you just have to be patient with the traffic so one sunday when it was quiet i screwed up my courage and i went downtown and the rest is history i've been all over the area on my bicycle which has really helped me know the area and see different you know what's going on beyond the city meet people make friends so that i spent a lot of time on my bicycle i've even done some traveling on my bicycle i've gone to pedestri i've gone to nicaragua i did some traveling in the states so that was really interesting and my husband's a lifelong musician he had a three-piece rock band and the bass player moved to columbia and i'm thinking areas they're dead in the water do you think i could figure out how to play this bass so everything kind of changed right then because i had three months from picking up the bass to my first gig and that was a lot of intense practicing but now that's the majority of my time [Music] but i've gotten good enough now to bring back some of my biking and other activities that i used to do so it's worked out but i'm kind of the type that i'm never at a loss for what to do especially in a new country and a new culture and new friends i mean it's just endlessly interesting [Music] there's a bus service that goes from david to panama city it takes about seven or eight hours depending on traffic one time i went down to the airport which is just on the other side of town down on a plane 45 minutes here in panama city and that was it no more bus but it's really easy you know copa flies out of the david airport lands you in tukelman the international airport so if you want to go anywhere from there it's like a travel hub so that's another reason we like david having the airport right here you know if you're someplace else you're either going to have to drive to panama city or drive to david to catch a plane so it makes it really convenient and that was one thing that was important to us because i have family back in the states and i want to be able to go back and see them so that's worked out really well and air panama also flies out of here but they land on the other side of panama city by the canals so if you're only going to panama city that's a good option my grandson's eight years old and he's a fan of minecraft so when i went to visit last time he showed me this game and he told me about it and i had it but i couldn't get started so he taught me well you got to do this you got to go there and then i instantly became addicted so you would find us sitting next to each other on the sofa going grandma chris i built you a building over here now come visit me in my world so that has become my newest addiction so when we talk to each other it's i found something new in minecraft so we have really a lot of fun with that but he's into finding all the monsters and strange creatures and going to new lands and i'm into building houses and roller coasters and exploring the forest so we kind of come at it from different directions but we have a lot of fun talking to each other so when i go back we will check out each other's worlds driving here can intimidate a lot of people it's like if you see an opportunity go for it and stop signs or suggestions but on the other hand people don't forget that the other cars have people in them like we tend to do in the states road rage is not a thing if they see you're really jammed up i mean they'll stop so you can get out on the road or whatever it is you need to do so people tend to be more flexible here but downtown there is a lot of traffic there's a lot of taxis so it intimidates a lot of people i don't like to drive downtown myself my husband's like no problem these guys are really cool to be with there's a ton of taxis everywhere they don't cost a lot of money there's many people here who live their whole lives without owning a car there's also buses that go everywhere this little neighborhood here before covid we had a bus that would take you down to the bus terminal or you know anywhere on the road uber is a brand new thing here i just looked that up a week or two ago somebody was asking a question there was one uber car in all of david and i went back that night to look there were no cars available so you really can't count on uber but i know it's a huge thing in panama city so it's probably only a matter of time before that business grows here in david also so there's many options for getting around i feel safer here than i ever did in the states i'm sure you drove up in your car the neighbors were like who is that where are they going and if nobody knows they will come out on the neighborhood whatsapp group does anybody know what this car is it's a white toyota sedan with license plate blah blah blah you know we don't know if they belong in the neighborhood so yeah yeah people really look out for each other and if you make friends with your neighbors they will look out for you too so and of course no place is a hundred percent you leave your power saw out you know it may walk off you know something like that but violent crimes against people are very rare so for us we feel safe and even when i first arrived in panama city huge city i noticed single women after dark walking alone like they didn't have a care in the world and i thought this bodes well well look david is made of neighborhoods if you say you want to go to the supermarket in san mateo people go oh that's that neighborhood they know exactly what you're talking about and i haven't learned the names of all the neighborhoods but it's kind of we don't have addresses like we're used to i mean you want to contact me i have to tell you go to via del carmen which is our neighborhood and then take a right and take a left and the house is the yellow out at the end so that's been kind of interesting and as far as shopping areas and there's shopping areas all over town i see new shopping complexes springing up there's construction everywhere the biggest deal is a federal mall it's huge it's north of town just over there via boquete and it came to a standstill with covid but now stores are starting to open up in there again and just south of us is a well-established area called toronto they have supermarkets banks you know appliance stores all kinds of various things to go shopping down there there's plenty of parking there's pharmacies so you know for us here it's really convenient there's a lot of places you can go to get what you need and you know same all over town there's a big new shopping area south of town with more hardware stores a pizza place and who knows what all super mark in so you're never too far from what you need here and if you don't have a car you're on foot you can go to the chino which is what they call the little convenience stores that are everywhere we even have one here in this little neighborhood you need a quart of milk you know something like that you go to the chino and go hey the main park is parque cervantes downtown it's a big square park people hang out with trees and benches and iguanas in the trees and it's a lot of local color down there and just not too far south of us is parque de las madres which really touched me it has a statue in the middle honoring the mothers and what they do for all of us caring for the children so those are the main two parks that i encounter on a regular basis i know there's other green spaces all over the place that may not be named as parks but if you you know i just want to see some greenery just you never have to go too far and the people who don't succeed i see kind of expect the u.s here in panama for less money but they expect things to be done efficiently they expect to be done to us standards and it doesn't really work that way you know your plumber may say he's coming over tuesday at one o'clock and he may not show up till four or it may not be till wednesday and if that kind of thing makes you crazy you probably have a hard time here but you know you can also hire people to get stuff done we didn't want to get new license plates for the cars hey we got a job for you you know so there are workarounds for things that drive you crazy so i think that's the main thing but people leave because they just don't like the changes they've had to adjust to here or lots of times they leave because they have health concerns it takes them back to states or family concerns or they miss the grandkids or that kind of thing i think that's the most common reason for leaving and a lot also depends on who you hang with you know if you go to boquete and you only hang out with other expats you're not really going to experience panamanian life as you would if you come to another location where there's no expats in your area and your friends are panamanians which is kind of what we've done which i've really enjoyed i'm not really a beach person i sunburn like crazy my florida friends would want to go to the beach on saturday afternoon it's like no no no no i come home read as a lobster but there is 30 minutes south of town la barcata beautiful beach you'll find the beaches like nobody there you'll have the whole beach to yourself and there's there's dangerous riptides there so be very careful swimming there further east is boca chica or west where the heck am i anyway boca chica has got a lot of islands out there and it's my favorite area it's chill quiet you can hire a water taxi for three or four dollars to take you to boca brava you can have lunch you can run around look for howler monkeys i mean it's just really nice and then farther away is los lajas which is a very popular sand beach also without the dangerous riptides so sometimes people go there for the weekend if they enjoy the beach so yeah there are beaches nearby and they're basically unused it isn't like florida you can't go until late afternoon because there's no parking you know here you can go anytime enjoy quiet time and also we have mountains right above us so if you want to go hiking you want to go whitewater rafting you want to do all kinds of mountain activities that's available too so we're in a good location for that we got beaches to the south mountains to the north so whatever you want it's not very far away [Music] [Music] [Music] so you

Channel: Panama Relocation Tours

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Keywords: Panama, Retire in Panama, David Panama, Move to Panama, Living in Panama, Expats in Panama, Panama expats, Panama Relocation Tours

Id: ltOq3MUnBEk

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021