A few years ago, when we told people we were moving to Panama, many assumed we meant Panama City, Florida. This spring,we were in the US for five weeks. Traveling up and down the East Coast was an eventful time, and we bounced from Georgia to Virginia to Massachusetts, Vermont and New York State. Throughout the region, we've talked with a lot of people. When they ask where we're from and we say "Panama," there's no more confusion. Not one single person during this trip has tried to place us in …
International House Sitting is a Thing?!
Guest Post by Ashley Mudra Note from Susanna: You've heard my side of the experience, now it's Ashley's turn! I’d never heard of it before. Why would anyone trust their home and pets to me, a total stranger? And how would I even find these international trusting people? While researching for my upcoming travels, I read about people house sitting abroad to mitigate the accommodation costs of traveling. After reading more, I wasn’t surprised to find that house sitting is gaining momentum …
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We Trusted a Housesitter in Las Tablas, Panama: The Rest of the Story
My husband and I have just returned to Las Tablas after a five-week jaunt in the US. We left our dogs back in Panama with a housesitter. I've written previously (this is the third installment) about our quest for the person we could trust with our pets and our home while we were away. What did we find when we returned home? Did we find our car missing, our dogs running loose, and our house stripped to the bare walls? Was our kitchen hip-deep in garbage? These are the kinds of …
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Choosing a Housesitter in Las Tablas, Panama
A few months back, I wrote about our search for someone to stay with our dogs while we traveled back to the US this spring. After uploading our request to the Trusted Housesitters site, I was astonished to see 30 applications slam into my inbox in the same number of hours. It seems like a lot of people wanted the chance to visit Panama and Las Tablas! 48 hours later, I had to turn off the stream. I wasn't sure how I'd pick through the applications I'd already received. It was not an …
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Options and Choices — Expats have More
Our goal in moving to Panama was to live within our income following the big financial meltdown in the US. We've met that goal easily – and so much more! Life is all about options and choices – that's true whether you're an expat or not. But by embracing the options available to us as US expats in Panama, we found much more than just financial benefits. I believe that widening your options by choosing to live outside your home country is a smart thing to do. Choosing to live in a new …
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8 Tools for Organizing Your Portable Career
If your notion of the perfect workplace is lounging with your laptop on a sandy beach, or listening to the splashing of a nearby stream from a porch in the mountains, you need to plan and set up your systems differently than if you’re always working from within the same four walls. In order to work from anywhere, it's important to find ways to keep your files, notes, schedules, and everything else in a form you can access from wherever you happen to be. If you have a permanent office …
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