Episode 40 - Exploring Panama’s Charm: Retirement, Road Trips, and Relocation Insights with Julie Tallman and Roy McGinnis

Embark on an exhilarating journey through Panama with us, as we uncover the diverse landscapes and cultures of this fascinating country. We kick things off welcoming our friends, Julie Tallman and Roy McGinnis. They captivate us with tales of their September 2024 exploration, weaving through lush mountain retreats like Anton's Valley and Santa Fe, and finding a surprising gem in Pedasi—a coastal village that might just be their future home. Julie and Roy's stories offer a charming mix of humor and insight, as they navigate Panama's roads and cultural quirks, sharing their delightful encounters over local foods and unexpected detours.

For those entertaining ideas of a Panamanian escape, we dive into the nitty-gritty of relocating. From the contrasts between the Caribbean and Pacific coasts to the nuances of healthcare and visa logistics, we cover it all. With an eye on practicalities, we discuss everything from water quality to the possibility of maintaining Medicare while enjoying Panama's affordable healthcare. As we look forward to the upcoming International Living Conference, we emphasize the importance of preparedness and research for anyone considering a life abroad. Whether you're dreaming of retirement or just curious about the expatriate experience, this episode promises a treasure trove of insights and advice to ponder.

International Living Fast Track Panama Conference,
Feb 7-9, 2025 - Sign up at https://internationalliving.com/events/fast-track-panama-2025/

Chapters

• 0:08 Exploring Panama for Retirement
• 11:17 Exploring Panama's Towns and Roadways
• 20:04 Considering Relocation to Panama

Transcript

Jim Santos: 0:08

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita, and welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increased our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Now that plan is in disarray as I develop pancreatitis in Latvia, necessitating a return to the US for further treatment and surgery. Join us now as we adjust our goals and try to salvage our travel plans. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. This is our first episode of 2025 and we're more or less set up in our home base now in eastern Tennessee and looking forward to traveling again soon. Until then, we'll travel vicariously with our guests and maybe learn about some new destinations.

Jim Santos: 1:11

Today we're talking about Panama, a country Rita and I visited last winter. Panama has a lot going for it. It's easy to get to from the US, has a good economy, both Caribbean and Pacific beaches, there are mountains that provide a variety of microclimates, and they use the US dollar in the same electrical outlets as the US. You can choose from big city life in Panama City, beachfront living, small mountain villages and even cattle and farmlands. So it's no wonder that Panama was ranked number one in the 2025 International Living Global Retirement Index. Now Rita and I have already done a few episodes about Panama City and Playa Coronado, but here to talk about some places we have not visited are two friends of the show, julie Tallman and Roy McGinnis. Now we first met Roy and Julie at an IL conference in Denver, colorado, a couple of years ago, and they joined us on the podcast to talk about their trip to Costa Rica and, more recently, julie's solo trip to experience Serbia on horseback. Julie, roy, welcome back to Travels with Jim and Rita.

Julie Tallman: 2:13

Thank you, thank you.

Jim Santos: 2:15

Now, last time we talked, julie was in Serbia and I guess, roy, you were taking care of the horses.

Roy McGinnis: 2:22

I was.

Jim Santos: 2:22

Yeah, but what we wanted to talk about today was your trip to Panama. How long ago was that that you were actually in Panama?

Julie Tallman: 2:31

We were there last September actually, so September 2024. And we were there right up until we flew back the day that Helene sort of made landfall up here in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Jim Santos: 2:45

Right.

Julie Tallman: 2:45

Good timing.

Jim Santos: 2:49

Now, Rita and I have been to Panama City and Playa Coronado, but I understand you went a little bit further west.

Julie Tallman: 2:56

We did. We went several places actually, initially focusing on some mountain towns that we had researched, of various heights, various altitudes, and then wandered down to the Pacific coast to do a little further exploration in that area.

Rita Santos: 3:12

Now, what did you think? You went to Boquete right we?

Julie Tallman: 3:16

did. Yeah, we started off. That was the third place we went. We started off at Anton's Valley or Valle Anton, Okay, which is not that far from Coronado maybe a couple of hours, I think it was from Coronado and from there went to Santa Fe. And after we visited Santa Fe, that's when we wandered up to the Chiriqui area and went to Coronado Volcan and Cerro Punta and that area up around that particular volcano.

Roy McGinnis: 3:52

Our initial plan. Well, this all came out of the Denver conference, which was what now? Two years ago, I guess?

Jim Santos: 3:59

Yeah, I think so.

Roy McGinnis: 4:01

We. You know, my feeling was I didn't want to live someplace that was really hot, and so we had also gone to Costa Rica before we went to Panama, and in Costa Rica we went to a beach there that was just sweltering Right.

Roy McGinnis: 4:14

And for me this kind of confirms that you know, I don't want to be living at the beach. And so, julie, in her sweetness, when we planned this we kind of went for places and had some altitude and, you know, lower humidity and lower temperatures, and but she said, you know, if we're going to Panama we've got to go to the beach. We can't go there and not go to the beach. So we tagged on three days at the end in Pettus Sea just with the idea that it was going to be kind of a vacation. We really weren't going to explore it as a place to live and we ended up getting surprised by that.

Julie Tallman: 4:51

Yeah.

Jim Santos: 4:52

Yeah, Pettisee, if I recall, is not real developed, is it?

Julie Tallman: 4:56

It is. It's a true fishing village. It's got a fair amount of development compared to some of the other little towns in that it's got a darling little like almost pastel painted town. It's got a few decent sized grocery stores. It has several restaurants.

Roy McGinnis: 5:19

About 4,000 people in Tennessee and about 400 are expats. So that's kind of an estimate. I don't think they actually do count, but that's the numbers I've heard several times.

Rita Santos: 5:30

Okay, what about clinics or hospitals?

Roy McGinnis: 5:35

There's one clinic outside of town and our understanding is they can handle, you know, probably 90% of what you might have. Go on.

Rita Santos: 5:45

Probably.

Roy McGinnis: 5:46

If it's major, they would put you in an ambulance or a ride to David.

Julie Tallman: 5:52

And it has its own little airport as well, in Pettus Sea.

Roy McGinnis: 5:57

Okay, that should be clear.

Julie Tallman: 5:58

Yeah, I mean it's not, yeah, but we're flying there from Panama City when we visit this time.

Jim Santos: 6:05

So you're going back to take another look.

Julie Tallman: 6:07

We are. We're going for two weeks. We head out on Tuesday, Wednesday. Oh, that's great.

Jim Santos: 6:13

Oh, so you're leaving soon. Now, just to give a little background, you guys are where Rita and I were probably about 12, 15 years ago. You're actually looking at places with the idea that you might move there and live there, at least for a while.

Roy McGinnis: 6:26

Yes, I'm a few years older than Julie, so I'm champing at the bit a little bit more for retiring. But you know you kind of can't retire until you have your money plan.

Roy McGinnis: 6:40

Right and so I'm continuing to work. Julie has worked so much and Rita, as you know, as a realtor it's kind of 24 seven. When you're a realtor it is, even though she's a little younger. I'm not going to speak for her, but I all the details and listening to literally dozens and dozens of videos of expats to try to figure out. You know exactly all the ins and outs of what it means to move to another country.

Jim Santos: 7:15

Do you have a schedule yet or a timetable that you're shooting for?

Julie Tallman: 7:20

It has certainly gotten a lot quicker since we discovered this area. If we go back and we discover that second time around we like this town and this area as much as we think we will, it would not surprise me to see us be hanging up a hat on a hook somewhere before Christmas of 2026.

Rita Santos: 7:43

Wow, that's good.

Jim Santos: 7:45

And you're thinking that Panama will be your final destination somewhere in.

Roy McGinnis: 7:48

Panama, we're thinking probably Pettus Sea. I mean, we were there in the rainy season and we stayed on a beach area and I just told Julia. I said it doesn't feel unbearable at all to me and the temperature was probably mid 80s and unbearable at all to me and the temperature was probably mid 80s and you know, it felt very comfortable, but it was the rainy season. Now it's the dry season. We want to check that out. The humidity goes down, so we're hoping it'll be a balance.

Jim Santos: 8:17

Now, you two have a rather special needs, also as a place to live. You have some rather large pets that you're planning on taking with you.

Julie Tallman: 8:26

We do. We have. We have a hundred pounds worth of dogs between the two dogs A border collie and a mixed breed and, um, and we have a cat who has clearly told us he wants to be a tropical cat, so he's uh, yeah, we're planning on taking them and I am still sorting out whether or not I can get my horses there. I would really like to take them both, if I can take them, and they could be safe and happy.

Jim Santos: 8:53

Is Pettisee a place where you could raise horses?

Julie Tallman: 8:56

Not only can you have horses there. When we had originally met someone who told us about this town at the International Living Conference in Denver, he told us that people still ride their horses to the grocery store there.

Rita Santos: 9:15

So you see them tied up on trees just outside of town. You see that some in Ecuador too, if you're in the mountains or in a rural area.

Julie Tallman: 9:21

Yes, yeah, so you'll see people are using horses there to work their cattle and that sort of thing.

Roy McGinnis: 9:27

So it's kind of a perfect. Well, nothing's perfect, of course, but it's good balance for me and Julie because she loves to ride horses. I ride occasionally, but I like to fish, and it is on the Tuna Coast.

Rita Santos: 9:41

Oh.

Roy McGinnis: 9:42

Amazing fishing that goes on there.

Julie Tallman: 9:45

Sport fishing yeah.

Roy McGinnis: 9:46

So I'm really looking forward to that.

Jim Santos: 9:48

Yeah, I just read that that region was originally called Panama, because in the local language, panama meant abundance of fish.

Julie Tallman: 9:55

Oh, oh, I did not know that. Yeah, we've got gotta do a little research sometimes but we did explore other areas that were beautiful and certainly worth knowing about or checking out. If somebody is considering panama, um, you know, from the r you mentioned the Boquete area and that whole region is. You know it offers a lot of different towns and beautiful you know weather, spring-like weather up in that area year round and it's you know it has a lot to offer as well.

Jim Santos: 10:33

Yeah, I've heard that Tarique area in general is really beautiful.

Roy McGinnis: 10:37

Yeah, it is yeah.

Julie Tallman: 10:39

In the spring, I guess they get rainbows every day and so they decorate the streets when you drive in. There's so many flowers. They try to recreate the colors of the rainbow throughout the town and it is definitely expat rich there, like if somebody were looking to go where they had a very large community of expats and could immediately plug in and probably get by on less. You know Spanish, or potentially none, if you're in town there. If you wanted to do that, I think Bocase would be a good place to check out. Just about an hour from there, we went to a town called Volcan and it's sort of up and coming and we liked Volcan. It's smaller, it's I don't know.

Roy McGinnis: 11:32

It's Buketi. They say like 15 years ago or something. Oh okay, Buketi has about 4,000 expats, so they have as many expats as Pettisie has citizens, and because of that the prices have gone up. You can still get some reasonable rents and that sort of thing, but you know there's a lot of restaurants in Bocchetti and a lot of them are American prices, yeah.

Julie Tallman: 11:58

Oh, interesting, yeah, there is, in Vulcan it was. You know, we, it's funny. We asked for a list of restaurants and we went to a couple that our hosts had sent us to and we didn't like either one of them and they were kind of expensive and we were like, oh, they're sending us to the American places. Right, so we phoned up and just had an amazing lunch. And we had this huge lunch. I had fish or I had chicken more than we could eat and drinks and we spent what was it?

Roy McGinnis: 12:30

$11 total $11 total.

Rita Santos: 12:33

Yeah.

Julie Tallman: 12:33

And we were like okay, yeah, we love that. And there were more options like that in Volcan.

Roy McGinnis: 12:42

We really like the food that's. You know. It's kind of their version of country food, you know. Right, that's what we grew up with, so we really like it.

Julie Tallman: 12:51

And that's like the bread basket area Just up above that. We went to Cerro Punta as well, which is just 30 minutes up the hill, and that's where pretty much all the food comes from, all the vegetables, and you'll see a bag of vegetables on the side of the. They sell them in bags on the side of the road.

Roy McGinnis: 13:12

Bushel size bag.

Julie Tallman: 13:13

Like, yeah, it feels like my, the bottom half of my body that size, and it was like for a whole bushel, about $5 a bag all sorts of vegetables in there yeah, amazing.

Rita Santos: 13:26

Isn't it wonderful. I mean, it is Like you know, they picked it that morning, you're eating it that night. That's great.

Jim Santos: 13:33

Remember when we were in Ecuador, things like limes. They sold them in groups of like 30 because they were 30 for 50 cents or something I remember we took another expat who had just arrived to the market once to show it to her, and she went up and asked if she could purchase one lime.

Julie Tallman: 13:49

Right and they looked at her kind of oddly so that's cool and we, yeah, yeah, we sort of experienced that too at a market in santa fe. Um, they were selling the what is the like?

Julie Tallman: 14:04

the lychee fruit, and they were selling them like we bought a bag of lychee fruit and carried it around more than that I thought I will never be able to eat all of these leeches, but we carried them around with us like a bouquet of flowers all week eating leachies. So it is fun to see that part of the culture and to visit. And we loved Santa Fe, but the road to Santa Fe was yeah, that's like a country song.

Roy McGinnis: 14:35

the road to Santa Fe, I mean it was rough.

Julie Tallman: 14:39

And they still don't even have. It was probably about at least probably an hour and a half to get there from the next biggest city and they tell you gas up before you come. They have a gas station being built, but they don't even have a gas station there.

Jim Santos: 15:00

So it's definitely more remote.

Roy McGinnis: 15:01

Yeah, so did you have a rental car for this visit.

Julie Tallman: 15:03

We did, yeah, we got it in coronado yeah, we picked it up in coronado, they say. We'd heard from several people on different expat pages not to rent a car in the airport in Panama City. So we found this place called Action Auto, I believe in Coronado. The guy's name is Jeff he's a Canadian expat.

Julie Tallman: 15:27

And he's super nice and he had someone pick us up at the airport. We picked up the car in Coronado, we dropped off the car in Coronado and they shuttled us back to the airport, so it made coming and going from the country so easy.

Jim Santos: 15:42

Did you have any trouble driving around in the countryside?

Roy McGinnis: 15:46

No, no, like a lot.

Julie Tallman: 15:48

Other than when Roy was speeding.

Roy McGinnis: 15:52

Well, yeah, the speed limit on the Pan American Highway is fantastic and I think it's 80 kilometers, which is like 62 miles an hour, or it goes down to 60 kilometers. It'll happen in a heartbeat and neither one is really fast. So when we're coming through some area and if you guys have been there, you've experienced the motorcycle cops. They're everywhere and, yeah, I got pulled over and he apparently knew no, and I wasn't really speeding, I was probably going 45 miles an hour, but he knew no English. And I'm thinking, oh, we're going to end up in a Panamanian jail or something. And so I just, you know a casey, not those or whatever. I was trying to say we're here on vacation. And he walked around back, he walked around front, he kind of paused for a bit and then he just sort of handed me back my info and sort of said you know?

Roy McGinnis: 16:52

60, 60 slow down and we drove off and later, when we told our car rental guy about it, he goes. Yeah, he probably wanted to see your passport with a $20 bill in it right, but we were.

Jim Santos: 17:06

We were too dumb to know that, so we got away with just a warning, I guess yeah, we'd been told that about the ecuadorian police too, that they're going to stop you and they're going to want bribes and things like that.

Rita Santos: 17:16

We've never had it.

Jim Santos: 17:18

Yeah, We'd been stopped, but they they do often, especially in the mountains. I don't know if they do this in Panama as well, but they stop you for safety checks Right. And they want to check to see if you have a spare tire and if you've got the triangles and that kind of stuff.

Rita Santos: 17:32

Yeah, yeah.

Julie Tallman: 17:33

They do require all of that. We weren't stopped for.

Jim Santos: 17:38

Yeah, it's a good thing to have too when you're out in the countryside or places where, like you said, there's not a gas station.

Roy McGinnis: 17:43

I think the biggest thing you have to learn in Panama is that you drive by the laws of physics, not by the laws of the road or anything. If there's a space for someone to come in, they may likely come in. If there's a way to cross the road and if you have to block four lane highway to get across, nobody cares. Yeah, just however they feel like, and as long as you are aware of that and adjust yourself to them, I mean you'll get a toot on a horn and that's just to say hey, hello, I'm here, don't come over and hit me, but people don't get angry. I never saw any road rage. Yeah.

Julie Tallman: 18:21

You have a lot more tooting and a lot less anger.

Rita Santos: 18:23

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's their communication.

Jim Santos: 18:26

Yeah, I think we found in a lot of countries really that the, the signs and the lines on the road and everything are merely suggestions.

Roy McGinnis: 18:34

Yeah.

Julie Tallman: 18:37

So when you guys were there, you stayed in Coronado and in Panama City, right?

Rita Santos: 18:44

Right.

Julie Tallman: 18:44

Yeah, okay, yeah, we didn't. Other than our last night in Coronado, we didn't stay there. Did you go to Anton's Valley at all, or Valle Anton?

Jim Santos: 18:55

No, I wanted to ask you about that. What was that area like?

Julie Tallman: 18:58

That's a really nice place for people to know about because it is a lot closer to. If they wanted to stay more central to Panama City. It's not as high in the mountains as Boquete, so the temperature would be somewhere between what you might have on the coast and what you would have in Boquete, but it is certainly cooler and it's a blown volcano crater that the town is inside of, and so it's absolutely beautiful. And if somebody enjoys hiking and butterflies and bird life and all of that of the mountains, monkeys, everything that's all there and it's a really nice town, a beautiful market in the middle of town. I bought some handmade earrings there that I pretty much wear every day and we just really enjoyed.

Julie Tallman: 19:49

we ended up having plane issues getting there, so we lost one of our nights of staying there, so we were only there one night and one afternoon, but I really enjoyed it and would absolutely go back and look into spending more time there.

Jim Santos: 20:04

Have you considered any of the Caribbean beaches?

Roy McGinnis: 20:07

You know, my impression is that going to the Caribbean side is like going to a whole different country.

Roy McGinnis: 20:14

I mean, we've heard that from the bats and we heard it from locals. So we really haven't been over there, although we would like to go to Bocas del Touro, which looks like a fun place to visit. I don't know that, we live there, so, but again it's. It's sort of the last trip and this coming trip are more scouting trips for where we'd actually want to live. If we do move to Panama, we'll probably visit the Caribbean side more often.

Julie Tallman: 20:42

I understand the infrastructure on the Pacific side is a little more developed and, except the fact that they speak such a very fast Spanish there, we felt like being in Panama. We actually felt this way in Costa Rica as well, where they speak slower Spanish, but it's very easy to be there. It doesn't feel like you're having to worry about the safety of the drinking water and the roads are generally with the exception of that one road into Santa Fe the roads are very good and I don't know it would be an easy transition transition and I may be wrong about this, but I think it is a little bit less that way along the caribbean yeah, I've heard that there's a larger indigenous population on the caribbean side and it's got that kind of Caribbean feel to it.

Rita Santos: 21:42

Yeah, were you able to drink the water up in your beach area In?

Julie Tallman: 21:47

the beach area she had. She had like a water tank. And so we didn't there.

Rita Santos: 21:52

Right, right.

Roy McGinnis: 21:54

I think we could. I think it's more of a flavor issue, you know, maybe it's a little Cause we didn't drink the water and play a Del Carmen.

Julie Tallman: 22:02

They did have. I think they have a community well in the community where we were staying.

Roy McGinnis: 22:12

Yeah, that's a thing that's very different. I mean, some of the expat communities have a well, Some of them have a community well, and there are some that are on like the city well, city water, which is city water, but it comes from a well, yeah, and so that those are all considerations you know in in choosing a spot to stay or to move to.

Rita Santos: 22:35

Well, you can always put in a filter.

Roy McGinnis: 22:37

Yes, yeah, but I mean, but some of them don't have. I mean they have water issues, you know, during the dry season because sometimes it's storage tanks.

Julie Tallman: 22:45

It is considered the dry arc where we are our post cycle, so it's the driest part of Panama.

Rita Santos: 22:52

Oh, okay.

Jim Santos: 22:53

Now, with the International Living Conference coming up February 7th through the 9th, are there any particular questions that you're looking to answer while you're there?

Julie Tallman: 23:02

This is Roy's area.

Jim Santos: 23:04

Okay, the logistics guy.

Roy McGinnis: 23:07

That's right, quite a few. I guess you know the big thing. We live in a beautiful spot, like you guys do too, in the mountains, but cost of living is just going up and up and up here, and so that's a big motivator for us is looking at health care.

Rita Santos: 23:26

And so.

Roy McGinnis: 23:28

I'm still, even though I've looked a lot, investigated a lot about it. There's still some questions about health care, you know, and so that's something we're going to try to get to the bottom of and whether we will actually just self-insure or whether we'll buy insurance. And you know, some people say it's not worth buying private insurance because the public hospitals are so good there. That's probably one of the bigger things. And also, I guess, which type of visa we would get. You know, at first you think there's only a couple. Then you find out there's probably eight or 10 different kinds of visas that you can get and they all restrict you in some manner, you know. So those are questions we'll probably try to get answered.

Julie Tallman: 24:10

How you look into shipping companies to decide whether we want to ship anything over or whether we just want to purchase things from Panama once we get there.

Roy McGinnis: 24:20

How to get our pets there, because again I hear stories on that, you know, anywhere from it's three or four hundred dollars a pet to it's a thousand dollars a pet.

Rita Santos: 24:29

Um so, well, your dogs and your cat can go in the belly of the plane yeah, yeah, the horses though, that's now that's yeah, I have no idea.

Julie Tallman: 24:40

Horses will be a lot more than $1,000 a pet. I have to sell real estate to get them there.

Jim Santos: 24:47

Yeah.

Rita Santos: 24:49

And the health insurance, have you thought? Will you keep Roy? Are you old enough to have? You're probably not old enough to have Medicare, are you?

Roy McGinnis: 24:57

I am very close and I've already talked to a Medicare Someone was detected at your front door.

Rita Santos: 25:02

I am very close and I've already talked to a Medicare insurance guy.

Roy McGinnis: 25:05

He came here a couple of weeks ago to the house because it's coming up in the next less than a year and you know, my understanding is that Part A and Part B basically don't work. Medicare Advantage can work depending on the program you get, but it's only for emergencies. Can work depending on the program you get, but it's only for emergencies. So again, I'm not sure it's worth it, because when you can go to a doctor for $5, I heard one family talking about their son broke his arm and the cast itself cost them 50 cents.

Rita Santos: 25:38

So it's a little hard to imagine so, yeah, it's a little hard to imagine. I kept mine. Um, yeah, I did because I knew that we would be several months visiting our children and grandchildren right from one of the uh speakers at the denver conference.

Roy McGinnis: 25:55

He advised that you just go ahead and keep part a and part b on the channel if you come back, because you don't know.

Rita Santos: 26:02

Yeah, because if you don't take it and you come back, you are so penalized when you try to get on it.

Roy McGinnis: 26:09

Right, yeah, so what? I'm sure I'll do that part, part A and B. I just don't know about the Medicare Advantage.

Jim Santos: 26:15

Yeah, it's all needlessly complicated, in my opinion.

Roy McGinnis: 26:18

Yes.

Julie Tallman: 26:19

That's another topic.

Jim Santos: 26:21

Are you looking to rent while you're there or are you looking at?

Julie Tallman: 26:27

buying properties. Possibly Everybody says rent first to be sure you love it, and so we recognize that wisdom comes from experience, and so we are considering that. But at the same time, we are also, if we find that we really love it this time, we might disregard it and go ahead and purchase something, Simply because Pettisie is on the most the coming up. It's getting more popular and we feel like there will probably be a shift.

Roy McGinnis: 27:02

We'd like to be on the front end of there's a development there, interestingly called Roy's Development, roy's Place.

Rita Santos: 27:10

That's good.

Roy McGinnis: 27:11

Yeah, and we went there and saw a house and liked it. Two surprises for me One is that I liked being at the beach and the other was I liked this little development because we live on a 10 acre farm and I didn't want the beach. And the other was I liked this little development because we live on a 10 acre farm and I didn't want to be in a development. I grew up in a sub-ditch but it's very different there. You know, it feels very private and they have a third section that they're developing now and so there's the possibility of, you know, getting in and sort of picking your plan a little bit.

Julie Tallman: 27:42

Picking your luck.

Roy McGinnis: 27:43

That would be a great transition period for us if they were building Right, I can get things sold.

Jim Santos: 27:49

Now do you think you'll be having a vehicle while you're there?

Julie Tallman: 27:52

Yeah, we'll absolutely have a vehicle, but we're also talking about getting electric bikes or something for some exploring. But the town where we will go like once a month to go to like a price club to load up on dog food and that sort of thing, is like an hour away okay. I mean we could do that by bus, but I think we'll probably share one car instead of having two.

Roy McGinnis: 28:19

I suspect a pickup or something, and as it turns out, we'll probably have one of everything. I imagine Julie's going to get a horse, I'd like a boat and an e-bike and a car, so maybe we're just true Americans.

Julie Tallman: 28:32

We'll have two e-bikes. We live in the middle of Panama City and you have to worry about parking a car in a city. That's it but it makes so much sense not to have a car. But if you're on, you know, a peninsula that's an hour away from big shopping you know really big shopping then it makes it a little harder.

Roy McGinnis: 28:54

Well, another issue is in these in-between-sized towns or villages, or whatever you want to call them, they may have a health clinic, but they don't have ambulance service.

Rita Santos: 29:05

For the most part.

Roy McGinnis: 29:06

And we all hope we never have to be in an ambulance. But if you have an emergency and you don't have a car, it's hard for me to imagine calling to get you to the V very fast, right? One topic I get you to the V very fast, you know, right.

Jim Santos: 29:18

One topic I really need to bring up. We're trying not to be political on this show, but since you're looking at Panama, has all this talk about grabbing the Panama Canal or using economic pressure or even military pressure to seize the Panama Canal? Has that given you any pause to consider this as an option?

Roy McGinnis: 29:38

No, it's irritating. But you know, from what I've heard in a lot of the expat videos and there are people who have YouTube channels and they do this all the time and they keep a finger on the pulse of what's going on Most of them seem pretty assured that it's kind of just bluster. And you know, the energy that's coming up in the White House seems to divert to different directions weekly. I imagine if we're busy making Canada the 51st state, we won't have to worry about Panama too much. So my understanding is, you know, it's nothing to be concerned about.

Jim Santos: 30:18

Well, while we were in Panama City, we did visit the Panama Canal Museum and the lock that's there, close to Panama City. And you know, it seems to me there's a lot of people in the press and everywhere who really don't know anything about the Panama Canal.

Rita Santos: 30:34

Right.

Jim Santos: 30:35

And are happy to give you their opinion about it.

Rita Santos: 30:37

Right.

Jim Santos: 30:38

So, after this trip to Panama and the conference, what's the next step?

Roy McGinnis: 30:45

I think we're kind of waiting. I mean, I'm really like let's go. You know Julie is a little more reserved about it and we do have quite a few logistical things again, as you know, having moved overseas logistical things again, as you know, having moved overseas um, but we're kind of waiting to see how it shakes down, you know, and then start making a plan because there's a chronology in in moving. You know you have to oh yes we have to start selling things.

Roy McGinnis: 31:10

Um right, invest in ourselves of, and we kind of we live a little bit spare anyway, but still, you know, I've got all kinds of tools we live spare, but I own three pieces of real estate.

Julie Tallman: 31:23

So I think this trip I am viewing it as a confirmation trip, because the last time we were in this area for three days it was great, but it was three days, so two weeks is still a honeymoon period, but it's a little longer of a honeymoon period and so we can go back and just sort of try it on again. And I am, as you guys know, on Trusted House Sitters. I plan on making friends with every person there who has a dog that needs to be walked when they travel and hoping to get opportunities to go back and do some taking care of people's homes and doing some pet sitting, to visit a few more times.

Jim Santos: 32:06

Well, it sounds like you have a lot to look forward to and a lot of plans to make, and if you're out there listening to this, considering Panama yourself, be sure and check out internationallivingcom soon for more information about the Fast Track Panama Conference coming up February 7th to 9th in Panama City. There'll be expats and experts there to answer all of your questions about living in Panama, and maybe, roy and Julie, I'll put a link in the show notes for you as well. So, roy, julie, thanks again for joining us, and I hope we can catch up with you later in the year to see how your plans are going.

Roy McGinnis: 32:36

Really good to talk with you guys Would love that.

Julie Tallman: 32:38

Thank you both. Good to talk to you.

Jim Santos: 32:48

You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and on our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes. We love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover, or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Until next time, remember, we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us.