Like many expat business people, Eric and Stephanie Slater spotted an opening in the market and came up with a business idea to fill it. In their case, it was a need for good bread. It’s an issue across Central America but particularly in San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua where the couple decided they wanted to settle down. San Juan is a beach town with a ready market of hungry surfers, backpackers, and other travelers.
Few places are more excitingly diverse than the classroom of an international school, and this is where many expats choose to earn their living while exploring the world. There are now thousands of such schools offering opportunities to live and work for an academic year—or longer—overseas. Your position will typically include a housing allowance… travel back to your home country at least every other year… bonuses…work visas…sometimes health care…a nine-month work schedule…free education for your children…and other perks.
Belize is a small country, with only 330,000+ residents. Ninety percent of businesses here are small or microbusinesses, making it a good place for an overseas venture. I’ve lived here full-time for six years now, and I know expats running all types of businesses. It’s surprisingly easy. For example, Frik De Meyere, owner of Belize Wind Energy and a real estate agent with Mannsfeld and Associates, says he spent 80% of his time on paperwork back in Europe. But in Belize, paperwork only takes 10% of his time.
The trip to Buenos Aires was only meant to be a quick one. Success for a Tour Guide Photographer in Argentina Amelia McGoldrick, who hails from Toronto, had always been attracted to Spanish-speaking countries and decided to make a trip to experience the city for herself in 2010.
Michael Crowther has been working for the same company for years now. Last year he was able to persuade his employer to let him keep his job… but work remotely from Costa Rica.
When we took our lunch break during a seminar I was teaching recently, our group walked a few blocks to the student union. Nicole Relyea, the youngest member of our group, turned around to face me, but kept walking—backwards. “I’m thinking about being a tour guide,” she said. “I gave campus tours when I was in college and I enjoyed it. I can walk backwards for two hours.”
Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula is a place set off from the rest of the country, as peninsulas often are. That helped it keep its distinct Maya culture… and a culinary culture that is now making waves. As cooks and food enthusiasts seek out the origins of various ethnic cuisines, they are looking to Yucatán for answers.
On a typical day in Tulúm, Mexico, I get up before the sun and come out onto the beach to watch it rise. Then I come back in, check my emails, and have some breakfast. After that I go for a run, have some more breakfast, and go back out to watch the water. Some days I go into town and get a bite to eat. Other times I drive up to Playa del Carmen, which is 45 minutes away, for provisions. Most of the time, I just hang out here at home.
Thanks to a climate that features warm weather year-round, a stable democratic government, excellent health care, low cost of living, and a laid-back lifestyle, Costa Rica has been welcoming expats looking for a pleasant place to live and retire for more than 30 years—and is still going strong.
In the jungle of Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, where monkeys howl from coconut palms, sloths lazily cross the street, and reggae wafts in the air… is a café you might expect to find in a neighborhood in Brooklyn.