I ’m putting my three-day weekends in Europe to good use. I’ve visited Germany, Britain, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Portugal, and the Netherlands…all from my Spanish base in the beautiful city of Salamanca in the region of Castile and Leon. Everywhere I go, I seek out cheap places to stay, eat, and play. I love traveling and my job gives me the opportunity to do so while still making some money.
My youngest daughter, Katherine, slammed her bedroom door, stomped into the living room and shouted out, “I want to go HOME! I hate this place! I hate school! Why are you making me do this?”
Buenos dias from Costa Rica! My wife, two kids, and I currently live in the town of Atenas in the Central Valley region. We’ve been here for a touch over a year…and we love it. I established myself with a remote income before I set off. I am a partner in a small software development/consulting firm that we formed a couple years before my family and I moved abroad.
Jennifer Posner fell in love with San Miguel de Allende during trips there as a young girl. In 2007, when it came time for her “to unplug from corporate America,” San Miguel was the first place she thought of. Now she makes her living there from a quirky, but successful, catering operation. She’s taken the American food truck concept from the streets to private catering gigs and just about anywhere there’s a gathering that needs to be fed.
My husband, Kevin, and I both turned 30 this year, and while the rest of our cohort is punching a time clock and climbing up the bitter corporate ladder, we’re sipping sangria on the balcony of our seafront apartment on Spain’s Mediterranean coastline… savoring café con leche (Spanish coffee) as the sun rises…or celebrating with cava (sparkling wine) under the moon.
In the heart of rural Panama, nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano, El Valle is a place of orchids, rainforest greens, and canary-yellow flowers. Though it’s relatively unknown beyond Panamanian borders, locals argue that no other town can match it. And not just because of the singular beauty of the velvety-green mountaintops.
When a serious health issue and the loss of my job occurred at the same time as the international financial collapse, we took a huge hit emotionally and financially. Our family’s income was instantly reduced by 65% when I lost my job. Saving for a rainy day had been tough enough…but we were ill-prepared for the several “rainy years” that followed.
My first overseas experience was a summer homestay with a family in Mexico when I was 16. It was the beginning of a lifelong love of the country and a belief in the benefits of exposure to a foreign culture. I later became a Spanish teacher and took groups of students to Mexico. Eventually, I moved there with my own children and became part of a large community of expats raising their children there.
I had a cute house with a backyard, a great job, a wonderful marriage, and two beautiful little boys. I was living the American dream, but it didn’t feel like it. The long hours at work meant I didn’t have time to enjoy gardening in the backyard. Our sons Diego and Dante spent more time in daycare than with us. My husband and I were once so stressed that we both forgot our wedding anniversary.
When I first started uploading photos to an online stock agency I had no idea how it would change my life. I had stumbled on stock agencies while looking for a photo for a small design job. But once I saw how much money people were making from their photos, I realized I could do the same. A year after I started, I was making $600 a month. And my best-selling photo has now earned me more than $3,500.