The International Living Guide to Retiring Overseas on a Budget: How to Live Well on $25,000 a Year

Chapter 21Moving OnThis Is Not a One-Way Highway

DURING OUR SECOND MAJOR RELOCATION WITHIN LATIN AMERICA we discovered an important truth: There is really no such thing as your “last move.” There is only your latest move. It may turn out to be the last one you ever make, but you simply can’t know that for sure. As we love to say, life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.

When we first moved to Quito, Ecuador in 2001, we thought for a while that we might possibly spend the rest of our lives there . . . until we moved to Ajijic, Mexico. We thought about settling there for good . . . until we moved to San Miguel de Allende.

By the time we moved from San Miguel to Panama City, we’d stopped looking at every place we lived as the last place we’d ever live—which turned out to be wise, because, after that, we went on to Nicaragua and back to Mexico and now on to Ecuador once again.

Moving abroad is not a trivial undertaking, and just entertaining the idea in the first place takes some real courage and a healthy sense of adventure. At that first critical point you’ll concentrate on finding that perfect place to relocate—and it’s very doubtful you’ll be thinking about the next location after that.

But believe us, there could very well be a next one. And not just because the first place you try turns out not to be perfect. It could just as well be that you find another perfect place. And if you end up getting hooked on relocating like we have, another. And another.

THIS MAY ...