Panama Retirement

This is Panama Joe. I’m starting this site because it’s all about retirement in Panama, my chief interest at the current time.

I got sick of living in the rat race of the big city in North America. Got sick of the cold winter, I figured that out one winter three years ago. It was a cold, frosty morning and I’m not into “frosty” by the way. I was outside ready to go work for another day in the rat race. It was bloody cold. The first thing that happened was my car door was frozen shut. Finally got that open. I turn the ignition on. Damn engine stutters before it finally chokes on. Turn on the heater full blast. It’s blasting more of that frosty cold air. Get the window scraper out. All the windows are covered with that Jack Frost nonsense. Start scraping and scraping and scraping the windows. Nothing but a stupid struggle. It’s all seeming more and more pointless. Takes me 15 minutes to get the damn car ready just so I can make it to work on time. I’m tired of this shit. Don’t get to work on time.

I’m 54 years old. A guy that’s getting fed up with it all. Sick of my job. Sick of this winter weather and all this damn frosty stuff. During that mind numbing 9 – 5 shtick, I open up the internet and mindlessly search for winter getaway vacations. Obviously, I needed a break from the winter. Don’t know how much longer I can put up with this and winter’s only just started. We’ve got another five or six months of this shit. So I’m browsing through this winter escape website. All the usual destinations, Mexico, the Bahamas, Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica… And then I see it. Panama. Something cool about that. I hadn’t heard of anyone going there before. Must not be a common vacation destination. I click on the link. Prices just about the same as everywhere else. I open up another web browsing tab and search for pictures of Panama. I find other sites with information about Panama. I start passing the hours at work, surfing sites about Panama. Suddenly I find myself back at the vacation destination site for Panama. My fingers are doing the clicking. Suddenly, I’m booking a vacation for one week in Panama at an all inclusive resort in Panama. My credit card is being entered by my fingers which are doing the walking all by themselves. The submit button is pressed. An online receipt is before my eyes. I’m printing the online receipt. I’m walking over to the printer like a zombie. Picking up my online receipt from the printer. My vacation is booked.

Approximately two weeks later, I’m on an airline Panama bound. Leaving the frosty winter behind and landing in the hot humidity of the international airport of Panama City.

That was how it all began. I spent a week in Panama at an all inclusive resort and besides laying around the pool and the beach, I spent a lot of time in the City of Panama during that week, falling in love with everything that Panama had to offer. The Casinos, the nightclubs, the food, the people… A few trips later, one even in the hot humid rainy summers of Panama, I’m thinking to myself, what the hell am I doing, continuing to slave away at some stupid mindless job that I hate, waiting for retirement to kick in so I can bundle up indoors when winter comes with the heat turned up high and thinking of when I can plan my next escape to Panama.

The idea then dawned on me to take my early retirement package and head on down to Panama to spend my retirement in comfort.

And this is what this blog is all about – my retirement in Panama and how you too can retire in Panama. And when I’m feeling a little too warm in Panama, I just think back to that frosty winter morning when I had to scrape the Jack Frost stuff off the windows of my car. The thought gives me a little chill as I suddenly recall reality and look along the beach I find myself laying on as I am living the life of my retirement in Panama.