About three years ago my husband, Scott, and I started talking about leaving Indiana and moving abroad, possibly to Central or South America. We had both traveled there and loved what it had to offer in the way of lifestyle.
If you’re going to do business in Panama, you’ll need a local bank account to facilitate the day to day operations of your business. Any legitimate business can open a bank account in Panama, and you're not required to be a Panama resident.
They have a thriving and long-standing business in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, but Rob and Kelly Thomas, owners of El Gato Negro Coffee Shop and Bookstore have the most relaxed workdays of their lives.
My new life started in late 2008, just after I had been certified to teach English as a Second Language. I knew I wanted to live in Latin America, so I looked for a job – where else – on Craigslist and responded to an ad from a placement agency.
Ecuador, Costa Rica and Belize are three of the Latin American countries in the “cocoa belt”—the 10 degrees either side of the equator where the cacao tree grows. Here you'll find a burgeoning cottage industry devoted to this type of chocolate making.
Panama is a great place to start a business. It’s easy, everyone uses the dollar, and you can tap into a well-educated English-speaking workforce. That last point is crucial if you want to start a tourism-based business—and you should.
One look at Cotacachi, Ecuador’s famous leather street, and I knew—“I’m going to need a bigger closet…” Turns out I wasn’t far off the mark! The gorgeous, buttery leather handbags, wallets, backpacks, briefcases, and jackets were as inexpensive are they were irresistible. Heck, I almost bought a saddle…and I don’t even own a horse!
When Elizabeth Ballard Slagle and her husband swapped Florida for rustic Panama five years ago, they wanted to extend their youngest son’s childhood and give him a different perspective on the world. She and Larry—an ex-bartender—run a restaurant called Big Daddy’s Grill in “downtown” Boquete.
“If I’d known just how capable I was, it would have saved me a lot of doubt and angst,” says Californian Vicki Johnson, a tireless self-starter who’s been mixing business with pleasure at the southern tip of Chile’s beautiful Lake District for the past 35 years.
“Recovering, 40-something, Type A American couple who learned that living large is not necessarily living well.” That’s me, Betsy, and my husband Warren…The Talbots. We did all the typical things people do in their 20s and 30s: climb the corporate ladder, get married, buy a house, climb the ladder some more...