Allow me to start off with background information. I am an American, married to another American, and we are in our mid-30s. We own a successful online business, and I also work as a consultant and content producer of an advanced technical nature. So - we can make a better than average income and work wherever we like. We are not millionaires, but we hope to be someday. In addition to my wife and I, our family also includes a toddler.
Our last home in the US was in Austin, Texas...my wife grew up in Southern Texas, and I grew up in Southern California, so we have always felt extremely at home around Latin culture. The food, music, dance...the colors and shapes of our respective childhoods were bright and flavorful.
We spent some time traveling over the past few years, including some trips to Asia, considering where to set down roots properly. My wife, before I met her, had made plans to possibly relocate to Panama...same reasons as most: cheap cost of living, nature, the ocean, etc. We decided to explore this possibility and spent about two years doing our research. We started communicating with individuals that seemed to be living the life we wanted a part of, connecting directly over Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
We were already living fairly spartan, so it only took a few months to sell off our large items, cars, and make the jump. We first arrived in June of 2019.
Our plan was to set down in a rental in Bocas del Toro, and start shopping for real estate...ideally, an island. We knew that new construction was loaded with challenges and costs, but we were well prepared for them, and even had a few good options already established that we were looking forward to viewing.
We also knew that we would need to accept a modicum of risk, due to poverty and corruption. No problem there either...my wife has lived in some of the poorest regions of Africa, and I spent quite a bit of time in Afghanistan (not as uniformed military, but as a civilian). We just countered with preparation, resources, and education.
Our first poor experience with Panamanians was with a baggage handler who literally threatened violence if I did not tip him, after he assured us and our driver that he did not work for tips. After living here a year; I can honestly say that we have written off any poor experience in Allbrook (there have been several): that place is a disaster, as are pretty much any public facilities attached to bus stations...from New York to Denpasar, they all suck. The internet paints it as this magical monstrosity of a retail and food awesomeness. That is totally nonsense.
We took the bus from Allbrook to Almirante, then a water taxi across to Isla Colon. THAT was an adventure, but our only real complaints would be around the speed that the bus drove, seemingly speeding to make up for a dozen unofficial stops that were made. My wife has ridden buses in Mozambique with literal strangers in her lap, so we could not necessarily complain. I will say that the way they handle the Metro cards was an abortion of a procedure, and there is not enough information online to properly guide folks. (Short version: ANY bus you board in Allbrook requires a few dollars per person on a charged and valid Metro Transit card, in addition to the fare.)
The troubles started the second we got to Bocas del Toro. The rental that we had prearranged, owned by a local businesswoman, was a complete sham job...she was just attempting to bilk a few newcomers for a hugely overpriced shack (the 'gringo special'). Every picture and video she sent was of different properties or carefully framed. We did not stay for more than 10 minutes, before setting up shop in a hotel (Diver's Paradise, which I cannot recommend enough...lovely). I have no idea what she thought would happen when we arrived, but she was clearly used to some level of...I guess you would call it acceptance. Well, we intentionally keep ourselves flexible to dodge such circumstances.
We took some time just...being Panamanian. We met up with some friends, started sampling the food options, and explored the local shopping options. At the risk of immediately identifying myself, I purchased one of these from a local surf shop and used it to get around the island:
https://hamboards.com/collections/2019_official_hamboards_classic_surfskate/products/hamboards-classic-surfskate-bamboo-natural-62-hst200
We were having some trouble getting a decent rental...we initially failed ourselves by broadcasting that we did not have a budget (which was true). Expats ended up being the real criminals here. Every desperate-for-cash properly owner (it was the off-season, after all) had some "incredible, bohemian property, recently updated!' for $2500 a month that proved to be nothing more than a surf shack without A/C...or Windows...or running water...or...you get the picture. It also was extremely easy, in nearly every case, to search online for their Airbnb or other listing showing how much they were marking up their price, and most acted poorly when confronted.
We settled for a short-term rental that we stayed in for a couple months, before ultimately packing up and moving to Panama City, where we are currently.
Here are the highlights as to why:
Criminal shop owners: This was a research project for me...the balance of retail and investment in Bocas is HEAVILY Chinese, as are most of the restaurants and hotels. Now, we knew that Panama has a huge Chinese community for the same reason that Central California does - migration for labor jobs. The Canal itself brought in over 100k, and they all, for the most part, stayed. As it turns out, the commonality was in business practices, not in culture/race (make your own assumptions there). The quality of the merchandise was garbage, and returns are usually fought. Most of it is very old, which with plastic items, makes them brittle. Cloth items are dirty, food expired, electronics corroded. You learn to get very careful. And the pricing is quite high for the junk they are bringing in. In short - nobody is trustworthy in retail in Bocas.
Desperate and Frustrated Expats: I know this one will bother some of you, but I am calling it as I see it. Most of the expats we encountered fell into two categories. 1) Retirees that clearly thought they would live like kings/queens (and discovered they were wrong) or 2) delusional expats who thought they could live on social media money and/or the local economy. We wanted to spend time with sexy people, on our boat, or theirs, or at restaurants or clubs or at the beach...having a good time, building a community. We were shocked, after all the pictures and videos of blue waters and #paradise social media posts to find that nearly every expat (though honestly - they are all Americans...only met a few European and Canadians here) was dirt poor. Like, "we can't afford to replace our 20-year-old busted swamp cooler" poor. And worse yet, very few were in the country legally. I CAN NOT BELIEVE how many hypocrites claim to be living the Panamanian life yet must border hop twice a year to maintain their tourist visa, or just do not bother and stay in the country in illegally. They complain about the bad cops, poor road conditions, uneducated locals, and yet: never pay a dime in taxes.
Allow me to point out the biggest lie of all, still repeated daily, about Panama - it is not cheap. It IS for Panamanians, but it is not for you. Because you want electricity, clean water, security for your stuff and loved ones. And If you want quality food, goods and, heaven forbid, Air Conditioning...I will detail our costs below when I talk about Panama City.
I do want to point out that cost was never a factor for us, other than the fact that you can indeed buy undeveloped Caribbean islands here for under $100k, whereas the Florida Keys or the Bahamas will set you back a few more decimal places for the same (and put you in hurricane paths to boot).
Crime: Panama is not safe. It is not. Rape and violence of the most cowardly sort are extremely common, and anything that is not welded to the ground can and will be stolen. And it is getting worse, not better. The cops are lazy and corrupt and will do nothing against a Panamanian committing the same crime they arrest a tourist for. The government does influence reported statistics to shape the impression of safety to preserve tourism income.
Filth: The number of idiots claiming that tourists equals pollution and trash is astounding. Locals in Bocas toss their garbage where they feel like, dump their sewage in the water, and generally have created one of the most disgusting islands I have ever laid eyes on. You cannot even enjoy the beaches because decaying fiberglass boats have disintegrated into fiberglass fibers distributed in the sand...I do not even know if you can fix that. We lived right in the center of town - American and Europeans tourists put their garbage in the bins, as we do everywhere. Panamanians toss it wherever they happen to be standing at that time. We saw the same thing in Bali - garbage in the water was not put there by visitors, but by lazy locals.
Culture: This one is a bit more of an opinion, but I will share it just the same. After living in Caribbean Panama, the biggest absence we noted was in interesting food and music. Putting it simply: there is none. There is good food, but none of it is natively Panamanian...and most imported food is prepared poorly. We have had some fantastic creole, and, rarely - some good seafood. And the music is same junk that you hear blasting from every crappy car in El Paso. Not a problem itself, but it makes one envious of countries like Brazil and Columbia, that have a bit more of their own soul to share via music.
All of this shaped our impressions of Bocas, and we were struggling with finding a lawyer that wasn't out to scam us for a pile of cash, so we decided to relocate to Panama City for a while, get our residency in order, and do our real estate/construction effort more remotely. We were still committed, at this point, to building our paradise.
Our trip back to Panama City was yet again affected by internet liars. We asked around to hire a dedicated driver and found one that was wildly well recommended. As soon as we met up with him getting off the ferry in Almirante, he started in with his lies. He scammed me for a few bucks to hire a local kid to pack our bags in his truck, then lied about 'having a cold so he couldn't run the A/C' (it was broken).
We had made reservations in a hotel, trying to avoid the obvious, American ones (get something quaint and colorful, not a Marriott or the hard rock or anything)...well, they called themselves a hotel, but they were indeed a hostel. And tried to give us a room much smaller than we paid for, then the shower literally caught fire. The next morning, after we came back from breakfast, the owner was in our room, which was now flooded, and our personal belongings were being handled by laborers. A comedy of errors, indeed. We moved into an American style hotel immediately.
We started viewing rental options - Panama City cannot be as bad as Bocas, right? Nope, same problem...owners and reality agents alike. Misrepresent, overprice, lies. Literally no exceptions. We ended up renting a condo in Punta Paitilla, from a lady who swore up and down that it was in great shape, then immediately ghosted us AND her listing agent for repairs and the listing fees. The agent was able to clarify a few things about Panamanians (she was from another South American country...Venezuela, I think...cannot recall exactly). She said that that level of dishonestly is normal here. They will always tell you something works, for example, if in fact it can be fixed after they get some money from you to do so.
Opening a bank - Liars and thieves: We have been told that we require upwards of $100k deposits to open new accounts, we have been asked for reports detailing how much money we have in all our other accounts, and we have been asked for every kind of personal detail a bank has no reason to ask for. We were gringos to be fleeced, not customers.
Lawyers - I have never had so much trouble getting straight answers, and I am still unsure if it is because of the lawyer’s interpretation of the laws, or how convoluted and constantly changing the laws are. I do know that if you spend enough money, it just magically works. We were not afraid of spending money, but we were not interested in spending huge amounts of it without understanding exactly where it was all going.
We have enjoyed some of the benefits of living where we are at (I suppose you say that the 'nicest' part of Panama City is Punta Pacifica/Punta Paitilla). We have spent a decent amount of time at the Multiplaza, Casco Viejo, seen some museums, etc... To expand upon what I mentioned earlier about costs, here are our bills currently:
$1400 Rent (includes garbage, gas, and water)
$100 a month for two smartphone lines
$80 a month for good internet
$750-850 a month grocery
$300 a month electricity
and we probably spend about $750 a month of liquor for the home bar and eating out occasionally.
We spent a month in Europe to reset our Visa and to clear our head, unfortunately coming back to Panama at the end of January right as COVID was blanketing the planet. In the subsequent months we have dealt with the following issues:
Extremely loud neighbors (like, music coming from a block away) coupled with savage alcoholism
My wife cannot go outside alone without being sexually harassed
Difficulty in purchasing quality...anything. Nothing works for long. It does not matter where or how much you are willing to spend.
And since the quarantine went into place, it has been dealing with a country full of people that simply cannot be bothered to follow common sense regulation. The level of ignorance is a factor (Panama is still working to get a functional public education system in place), but refusal to comply with instruction is a deep-seeded trait that is family influenced. Of course, most of the world has their own problems with the ignorant and lazy right now. But the government has stated quite plainly that the steps they have taken are directly due to their knowledge of exactly how undisciplined (their words) most of population is.
Further research has lead me to several other unfortunate discoveries I was not aware of when we moved down, such as how extremely prevalent child pregnancy is (one of the worst in the world) , how ignorance has led to a hatred of Americans, incorrectly blaming them for several of the countries darker moments (i.e. Martyrs day), and how the economic future of the country is looking very dim (including the recent inclusion on the EU money laundering blacklist and the discovery that the Social/Pension fund is effectively empty).
All of this ultimately leads me to a couple simple truths:
Panamanians are very comfortable with dishonestly, as a standard practice.
The religiously dominant conservatives continue to expose women to abuse and harm
That most of the positives being described online were exaggerated by expats who will not be honest with themselves on how poor a decision they have made, or simply have much lower standards then we do.
So, we have the luxury (once this COVID nonsense calms down) to change our mind: to leave. I cannot expose my wife and daughter to so much harm, for so little benefit. We are moving back to the U.S. and we will probably invest in a second home in Europe for vacations. It is not the dream we had, but it is a dream without the lies, filth, and risk that Panama promises.
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