Episode 43 - Living the Dream in Panama with Dave and Debora

Retiring to Panamanian paradise might sound like a dream, but for Dave and Debora Haughton, it has become their fulfilling reality. They share their journey from Virginia to Pedasí, shedding light on the joys and challenges of expat life and embodying the warmth of community found in a new land.

• Transitioning from a busy life in Virginia to the peaceful beaches of Panama 
• Discovering the beauty and culture of Pedasí
• Embracing retirement through community involvement and personal connections 
• Overcoming bureaucratic challenges in a new country 
• Finding joy in the simplicity and warmth of local life 
• Building a diverse expatriate community and fostering friendships 

If you'd like to learn more about Hombres d'Acción or offer any help or support, you'll find a link to their Facebook page, Instagram account, and WhatsApp number in the show notes.

Hombres d'Accion:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HombresDeAccionPedasi

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hombresdeaccionpedasi

WhatsApp:  +507 6657 7551

Chapters

• 0:18 Retirement Abroad
• 10:19 Expat Life in Panama
• 21:13 Embracing Retirement in Panama
• 30:14 Travel With Jim and Rita

Transcript

JIm Santos: 0:18

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. Jim and Rita, I'm your host, jim Santos, and in this podcast series you can follow along as my wife Rita and I work out our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Are we bold, forward-thinking pioneers or just plain nuts? Let's find out together, shall we? Hello once again and welcome back to Travels with Jim and Rita. Before we get started, just a quick update on our plans to begin roaming again. I'm happy to say we now have tickets to leave Knoxville on March the 25th for Lisbon, portugal. We'll arrive in the morning of the 26th and after lunch we'll once again be hopping on a Flixbus, this time to head south to the Algarve coast for a stay in the seaside town of Lagos. We'll probably spend a week or two exploring the Algarve, then Flixbus back to Lisbon for a few days before catching a flight to London to begin our tour of the UK and Ireland. The two things affected our initial flight choice. First of all, we wanted to get started in late March and it's still a little cold in the British Isles that time of year. We haven't been to Portugal yet and although it will still probably only be in the 60s during the day, that's still pretty pleasant. Plus, it has the advantage of not being tourist season. The other factor was because of the work we had done on our new home appliance purchases and so on, we had accumulated enough points for a free one-way ticket to Lisbon. This means we can make it all the way from our home in East Tennessee to Lagos in the coast of Portugal for a total of about $56. That's the cost of an Uber from our home to the airport and the Flixbus to Lagos. And now that I think about it, we'll actually get a $15 rebate from American Express for the Uber ride. Now flights from Lisbon to London are plentiful and inexpensive, so we haven't booked one yet. But even if we choose to save the rest of our points for the trip home, we're seeing prices around $100 for the trip. All right, well, let's leave Europe for the future and come back across the Atlantic.

JIm Santos: 2:29

Now for a return to Panama. As you may recall, a few weeks ago we spoke with Julie Tallman and Roy McGinnis about their planned return to Panama to take a longer look at some of the towns on the Pacific coast and to attend the International Living Panama Conference. We'll get an update on their trip in a later episode, but one thing they found was a lot of friendly expats. They put us in touch with two of them, dave and Deborah Halton, residents of Pedasí for three and a half years now. Petasi is a small fishing village of about 5,000 people located on the southeastern tip of the Azuero Peninsula. It's known for its beautiful, pristine beaches, diving, surfing and, of course, fishing. To get a better idea of what life can be like in this part of Panama, let's hear all about it from our guests. Dave Debora, welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita.

David Haughton: 3:18

Thank you, thanks, good to be with you, jim and Rita.

JIm Santos: 3:21

Let's start with a little bit of background. Note that you were living in Winchester, Virginia, which really is only a short drive from where Rita and I once lived in West Virginia, in the Eastern Panhandle.

Rita Santos: 3:32

We lived in Shepherdstown.

JIm Santos: 3:33

Yeah, so what were your lives like there?

David Haughton: 3:34

Well, we had four kids and four of our grandkids there and I was a pilot for a major airline and Debora was interior decorator and wedding planner and event coordinator and, um, it was, it was a nice life. Shenandoah Valley is beautiful. Yeah, we had family over all the time, all the birthdays, all the holidays, all the anniversaries, had a great group of friends. It was, uh, it was a nice of friends. It was a nice life.

Debora Haughton: 4:06

It was. It was a very nice life.

David Haughton: 4:08

And we thought that was going to be. We built the retirement home with four bedrooms and a fully finished basement apartment and it was the family homestead, on eight and a half acres of beautiful wooded land and we were going to be there forever. But, you know, times changed and the Lord had different plans and we took a very unexpected turn in life.

Debora Haughton: 4:36

Quite a leap of faith, I must say.

David Haughton: 4:38

Yeah.

Debora Haughton: 4:39

We both at one particular time said I wonder what would happen if we put the house on the market. And I'm like I don't know. We had never thought about it and we thought, well, let's just put the house on the market and see what happens. Well, we weren't really prepared for what happened. It sold in like one day and Dave had been talking about retiring early. He had a set amount of savings he wanted to see in his portfolio and when he hit that, we realized that we really didn't have to stay in the United States and our money would go further if we moved out of the United States. And I am not a beach lover. I don't care for the beaches in America. They're covered up with too many people and too much noise, and so I didn't want to move to a beach country. So when we first considered Panama, it was because of the mountains in Bogota that was very similar to where we lived in the Shenandoah Valley.

Debora Haughton: 5:47

And that was our first venture into Panama was Boquete.

David Haughton: 5:50

Yeah.

JIm Santos: 5:51

Now was Panama your first choice all along, or did you look at any other countries?

David Haughton: 5:55

No, no, other countries. We looked at a couple other states, we considered them, but I have a brother-in-law that kind of has a wanderlust and kind of a dreamer. He had mentioned Nicaragua a few years ago and was showing me places on rivers that we could have these palatial places for nothing. I thought, yeah, but I remember bad news about Nicaragua. You know kind of like Panama in the past, and then a couple of years ago he started mentioning well, probably five or six years ago, and I started mentioning Panama. We looked into it and then we actually started seriously researching it and realized the cost of living paid to the dollar. Portugal always ranks high, like Panama, but then you've got the euro versus dollar conversion and when I was flying with the airlines I saw wild swings with the euro, with the pound, with the Japanese yen. So knowing that we were pegged to the dollar and knowing what a retirement portfolio, how long it would last, was another reason to make Panama very intriguing to us.

Rita Santos: 7:08

Plus, it's close to the US.

Debora Haughton: 7:10

The older we got and the colder Virginia seemed to be, we realized that nine acres of land was lovely but it was hard to upkeep and the snow and the fall with the leaves on our property. It was just a lot of work and we realized that we enjoyed it when we had it, but we were ready to be over with that. So we decided that we wanted to be in a warmer place and Panama hit all of those markers and of course Boquete is cooler than it is down here in Pettus Sea, but it was still warmer than winters are in Virginia.

David Haughton: 7:53

Yeah, you know, and when you first start researching expats in Panama, Boquete always comes up because a very big expat community there Right, and also the quote-unquote year round spring sounded good to us and the topography was similar to the Shenandoah valley. But we happened to go there in November of 20 and it was when hurricane Etta was up in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course they don't get hurricanes down here, but a big hurricane will spin the outer bands of rain in. We had six days of rain in Boquete. When we got back home we just looked at each other, didn't say anything for about a week. We said what do you think? We both said, not feeling it Like Debora said she's never been a beach person.

David Haughton: 8:45

But we finally decided let's go check out a beach. We stumbled upon Boquete by asking questions and researching and when we came down here, almost every beach we walked on, they were all beautiful, they're all different, almost all deserted during the week. On the weekend there might be a couple families there having a little barbecue, but the beaches are just wide open. It's like having a country of private beaches down here on this corner of the Azuero.

JIm Santos: 9:18

So you were thinking of moving there on your first visit in November of 2020?

David Haughton: 9:24

Yes, that was our plan. We kind of knew just by reading through another company that does these type of things, reading their literature and looking, could live right there on the main drag that goes through Poquete and live your whole life and never have to learn Spanish. And to us it felt kind of like, in a lot of ways, an American tourist vacation town A lot of souvenir shops and restaurants and English-speaking people everywhere, and it's like to us it didn't feel like Panama.

JIm Santos: 10:10

I think Rita and I feel the same. No matter where we travel, we're more interested in seeing what the local culture is like and how the local people are living and eating.

Debora Haughton: 10:19

Yeah yeah, one of the reasons that we were interested in Panama right up front was because of how close it is and how easy it is to get back to the United States. Dave has a mother in her 90s and we have five children and now seven grandchildren in the United States, so we didn't need to be in Portugal or in Spain. We needed to be somewhere that we could get back to the United States on quick notice, and of course, panama was oh, yeah was the one.

JIm Santos: 10:49

Yeah, Panama City to Dulles. There's flights all the time exactly.

David Haughton: 10:53

And that's you know. That's where we fly. That's where I spent my career, flying in and out of and um. And then the other thing you know the discounts we came down on a pension auto visa. Then the jubilado discounts are wonderful. The medical is extremely affordable. It just has so much going for it that the research told us that's probably where we want to be. And then, once we came down and experienced it and the people they're warm, inviting, lovely, friendly people and we just fell in love with it. And this is, this is our new. We're full timers here. This is our new home. A lot of people, especially in the neighborhood we're in, might be here for a few months out of the year. There's maybe a handful of us that are full time. But this is our new home. All of our kids and grandkids have been and they all love it. Several friends have been, so it's just been kind of a win-win all the way down the line so far.

Debora Haughton: 11:51

There are a lot of 50-50 people here, yeah, people that spend half their time in their home country and half the time here. We're one of the few that we know that are here 12 months a year.

David Haughton: 12:04

Yeah, except for traveling, of course.

JIm Santos: 12:07

Yeah, we used to see a lot of snowbirds when we were in Ecuador Mainly.

Rita Santos: 12:10

Canadians.

JIm Santos: 12:11

Yeah, Canadian snow geese. Yeah, mainly Canadians.

David Haughton: 12:13

Yeah, a lot of Canadians here, a lot of Americans but, amazing, a lot of people from really all over. We've met our first Luxem. I don't know if you call them Luxemburgians, but from Luxembourg, from France, from England, from Malawi, from Germany, south Africa, italy.

Debora Haughton: 12:42

We really like the international aspect of it. It's not just all American or all Canadian, it's very much an international expat community. It's very much an international expat community and as many expats that are here there's still in the Isuero, there's still much fewer here than in other places in Panama. And I can honestly say that in the three years that we have been here, not one single time have I seen, felt or heard any animosity or unfriendliness with the local people. They are lovely, the expressions on their faces when you're attempting to speak Spanish. If you just try, they are thrilled. They don't expect perfection and they are loving and giving. Dave met the very first time he went to a grocery store here in Pettus. He was trying to make his way through he's. He'd been learning Spanish but didn't have it quite conquered, and he ran into a Panamanian that knew a good bit of English who helped him around the store but then invited him to go home with him to his house and it was just such a welcoming feeling. People are very embracing here.

Rita Santos: 13:51

That's pretty much the Spanish culture in that area and in South America period. They're just very warm and friendly and loving.

JIm Santos: 14:02

And I think you find, the farther you get away from the capital cities, the less politics matters to the people around you.

Rita Santos: 14:09

Yeah, they're just surviving.

David Haughton: 14:12

Yeah, that's true and that's you know. Especially with the latest election in America and some of the things that are being said and some of the changes, international diplomacy, you know Panama was in the news a bit. Some of the statements that were originally made had some of the people kind of bristling a little bit, but more so in the city, Panama City, here in Pettus Sea. It's nothing I mean for the expats and for the locals, just it's kind of like water rolls off the back here. It's really a pretty laid back and wonderful and fairly quiet community it's basically a fishing village and it truly is not for everybody.

Debora Haughton: 14:57

We have to. We have little small grocery stores that are not like american grocery stores. To get to an american style grocery store, it it's an hour drive. Yeah, we have good medical here for emergencies If you need stitches or if you're just sick, but if there's anything major you still have to drive an hour, hour and a half for that.

David Haughton: 15:19

And then, if it's really major, you're going to go to the city Panama City, five hours or a short flight away.

Debora Haughton: 15:24

So it's very quiet, there's no shopping and me, being a retired interior designer, you know I was used to shopping a lot, but we're a retirement age. We don't want to do that anymore. We don't want the fast paced life. We chose Pettisee because we intended to get off the treadmill and this is not for everybody. It's a fishing village and we've had friends come here that had already planned to move to Panama and they had seen my home their former clients. They'd seen my home on social media and they wanted to come. And I'm like you're not gonna like it here. These people are the kind of people that go to the symphony and rub elbows with actors and actresses and they wanted to come and they loved visiting our home.

Debora Haughton: 16:13

But and walking on the beautiful secluded beach but the fishing village was not at all what they were looking for, and they ended up buying a piece of property closer into the city. Yeah, lovely too, but uh, with much easier access to what Panama City has to offer.

JIm Santos: 16:29

Yeah, so do you own a car there now?

David Haughton: 16:31

we do. We uh, we didn't take a dude, we didn't bring here with his ship, that we bought down here. We first bought the uh official truck of panama, which is the toyota hylux. Yeah, had that when we we lived white, the white Toyota. Oh, yes, the smart buy is white for the heat and the sun. And we had that for a couple of years in our year and a half at our rental house. That was a little more remote, on a very hilly and potholed and rain ditched road. Everybody had four wheel drive. But now we're in a closer to town, just about a mile and a half outside of town on paved roads. So we traded that in and we drive a Toyota RAV4 now and love it, walk or bike anywhere you want.

David Haughton: 17:25

The small buses, the van-sized buses that run nonstop all day between here and Las Tablas here in Chitre, which are the two towns where you shop and go to doctors. They run all the time or if a friend is going they can always give you a ride. So there are a lot of people that don't have a vehicle. But that's one of our little gringo things we couldn't give up. You mentioned you had the pension auto visa. Were there many hoops to jump through, for that? Not really. Well, it's one of those things. It's kind of like your body puts you in shock and you forget how bad it was At the time. There are hoops. You've got to get your FBI report. You've got to get it apostilled, which is also another thing that's semi-archaic, yeah. And then your marriage certificate you have to have also apostilled, I think.

Debora Haughton: 18:21

You have to get it.

David Haughton: 18:22

It has to be signed in the county that you were married to be signed in the county that you were married in this in the state. So we had to. We got married in texas, so we had to fly back to houston to go to the consulate there and get them to certify, stamp our marriage certificate. Uh, so that was a bit of a problem. And then here you know, you fill out a bunch of stuff and then slow, everything is slow.

Debora Haughton: 18:49

The wheels of business turn very slowly in Panama. We like to say that there is not a lot of industry in Panama, which you know is great because there's no air pollution and there's it's quiet. But paperwork is definitely an industry.

David Haughton: 19:05

It's a leading industry.

Debora Haughton: 19:06

So so, get yourself you know, tighten your belt, and get yourself ready to experience the time involved with your paperwork. It's not, it's not expensive.

David Haughton: 19:18

It's not very expensive.

Debora Haughton: 19:19

It's just time.

David Haughton: 19:21

Some people have done it on their own by researching it. We hired a lawyer and he was very good. He just said here's the next thing you do, and we would do that. You know, being a pilot, I wanted my entire flight plan. Okay, I do this, I do this, then do we that, and after that what he said no, no, no, no. I can tell you one thing at a time and you do it, okay.

Debora Haughton: 19:43

That made it very easy.

David Haughton: 19:44

Yeah, what was quite refreshing. We met with him two or three times before we actually started doing the things and I kept asking him. I said, well, so you're going to bill me? He says, no, this isn't America, I'm not going to. I don't bill you by the hour. So we'd go and sit with him for an hour, hour and a half and talk and there was no charge. It was each step of the way or each job he would do cost a certain amount, and so that was nice, because in the States, you know, racking up billing hours is another industry for law firms.

JIm Santos: 20:16

Yeah, I've often thought that for legal fees they should have a number that they start at and then they deduct something for each hour, instead of the other way around.

David Haughton: 20:24

Yeah, that's right.

JIm Santos: 20:26

Now what's a typical day like for you both in Pedasi?

David Haughton: 20:29

Well for us it's probably very atypical from other people, because one of my concerns was I hope I don't get bored in retirement.

JIm Santos: 20:40

People are always saying I don't know what I would do if I lived overseas.

David Haughton: 20:44

Yeah, exactly. And now one thing I did early on I got I joined a group here called Hombres de Accion. It's a philanthropic group of men that do things for the community. Water is always a big necessity and often a shortage here, so we started by doing water tanks for people who needed reserve tanks and got into home repairs and roof reconstructions, and so it's a great group. So that gave me something to do.

David Haughton: 21:13

Deborah was she designed this home. Then we moved in. She continued decorating, so she was back in her element. But then what really surprised us was and again, we're very committed Christians and we would watch. There's no English speaking churches here, so we were watching one from back home every Sunday and a group of ladies that she met with for a Bible study asked oh well, can we watch it with you some Sunday? And they did so. We had five that one day. Well, this past Sunday we had 42 people. It's gone from our house to another house and we now meet at a restaurant and we have Bible studies on Tuesday. So between that and preparing for Sunday and then being involved in the lives of these people, being the ex facto pastor.

Debora Haughton: 22:02

Yeah, that's right.

David Haughton: 22:03

Yeah, sometimes people would say Pastor Dave, and I said no, no, no, no, no. Ex pilot Dave, I don't have a degree. I love this group of people that the Lord has gathered, and so it is really neat. It's very fulfilling, but that does take a lot of our time and then every day, something will unexpected will pop up.

David Haughton: 22:28

We make our plans each day and um, and god laughs that's right, whether it's a maintenance issue or somebody with the need or a friend got hurt or so. You know our thought of walking the beach and sitting in the pool and relaxing every day, you know, with auity, drink and umbrella in it. That's not what ended up happening. No, there are days for that and we have a wonderful pool right here outside our back door that we do occasionally get to sit and float in and have a nice cold beer on a hot day and look at the ocean. That's about 110 meters from our house, so it's nice, but it's similar to America. You've got home maintenance, you've got responsibilities, but there's no going to work anymore. So work is what presents itself from other people and their issues, and we cook a lot we do, we are cookers.

JIm Santos: 23:28

Yeah, you're learning any Panamanian dishes?

David Haughton: 23:31

A few, but generally it's dishes that have been our favorites. The funny thing is this Ombre de Accion group. We have an auction, a dinner and auction. Last year was the first one, the next one is coming up this saturday night and it raised a lot of in a small town like pedesy. It raised a lot of money last year and will probably raise a lot this year and there's many items donated for both silent and live auction. And, uh, last year we donated a wine paired meal with appetizer, main course, dessert and wine pairings. With all of them and some of the guys in Hombre is actually a lot. The whole community is there, but some of them knew Debra is quite a good cook and they bid it up pretty high and want it. Well, we have a friend who just said the other day he's a, he's a good old boy from Tennessee. He said, yeah, I'm going to that often and I'm getting that dinner at y'all's house and I said, well, okay, but last year it went for this amount he goes. That's okay. I got a group of people. We got that cover. So we love cooking and Debora is quite a good cook.

David Haughton: 24:39

So we entertain a lot. Yeah, we do that's. We entertain a lot. Yeah, we do. We entertain at least once, sometimes twice a week. We've made a lot of friends, especially one family. It's a French couple with two kids and they have a French restaurant Mainly French but some other international-type foods and we go to their restaurant at least once a week. We have them and their kids over every so often to eat here. So we've made some good, dear friends that we like to spend time with and entertain. So it is retirement, but it's not just kick back and relax, it's retirement, getting involved in other people's lives and enjoying just a totally new group of friends. After 25 years of Virginia, we left pretty much everyone and everything we knew behind and started from scratch. But Debora is quite the extrovert and it's not long before she makes herself at home in any new community we go to.

JIm Santos: 25:42

Well, was there difficulty, though, acclimating to such an abrupt change in your lives?

David Haughton: 25:45

You know there might have been the biggest difficulty, the biggest change, and we caution anyone who's thinking of building building in Panama, especially down here. It may be different in the city, but here in Pettus Sea we're pretty far from the big city and building here is much different. They don't do everything exactly to the technology level as in the states that. The biggest thing that shocked us was, instead of seeing laser levels and things like that we saw on our site and I've talked to other people who saw it too they love a very long clear rubber tube filled with water and they will use that with a guy on each end as a level to get a level for two points that might be 50 60 feet apart yeah, we've seen a brick tied to a rope for a straight line for a club line yeah yeah, they love jim's.

David Haughton: 26:45

Uh, they love jim's tools the reason is because their dad did it that way and his dad did it that way and it always worked. And so you know, you don't come down here and think I'm going to teach them the american way, because you're not going to. You didn't come here to make this america or canada. You came here because you embraced the culture, and one of the first words they teach you is tranquilo, right, you know what that?

David Haughton: 27:12

means many times yeah yes, and if you don't learn today, hello, you're going to drive yourself crazy it's a double-edged sword.

Debora Haughton: 27:21

We love the simplicity of the people. They're not pretentious, they don't put forward. I remember watching when the house was being built. These burly construction men would put down their backpack with their lunch in it and their backpack would be pink with my little pony on it and they it's, they don't it's because that's the one that was a good sale the day they got it.

David Haughton: 27:45

It's not like America.

Debora Haughton: 27:46

They're not pretentious, they don't put on, they're just simple and plain and kind and we love that and we embrace that. But when you are a personality like myself and you have designed your home and you have construction workers building your home not the way I am familiar with it that was very difficult. It was difficult to work through that. You know, we would tell ourselves we came to a new place. We don't want to change these people. We love these people the way they are. So it is what it is, yeah.

David Haughton: 28:20

And you do meet some expats that are trying to make things like back home. You know, the question is if back home was so great, why did you leave? So we weren't so much leaving something, we were coming to something different. And a good friend of mine, who was also an airline pilot for another airline, told me. He said you know, dave, I don't know how this will end up working out for you. He said, but, man, I admire you, Dave, I don't know how this will end up working out for you. He said, but, man, I admire you.

David Haughton: 28:51

I can't imagine my wife and me just leaving everything and going off. He said this could be a great adventure, he said, and even if it only lasts a few years and you come back, you did something that most people never even dream of. And I remember that. But I realize now, unless there is some life crisis that makes us, you know, people say what would have you? What do you miss about America? What would have you go back? Well, we go back to see friends and family, but I don't envision us ever moving back, because this has just become such a wonderful, comfortable, desirable home country for us now desirable home country for us.

Debora Haughton: 29:28

Now we sit on our back patio looking out at the ocean and reflecting that this is what most people save for to go on a vacation, and we are blessed enough to live here. It's pretty mind-blowing.

David Haughton: 29:37

It used to be our joke, as we'd be in the pool and looking out at the ocean and we'd look at each other and say we don't need to pack our bags and go home tomorrow, because we're home, this is home.

JIm Santos: 29:48

Well, we've been talking with Debora and David Houghton about living a slower, quieter life on the Pacific coast of Panama. Dave, Debora, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today and we wish you well in your philanthropic endeavors.

David Haughton: 29:59

Thank you very much, jim and Rita, great talking with you.

Debora Haughton: 30:02

Thank you.

JIm Santos: 30:14

You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to learn more about Hombres d'Acción or offer any help or support, you'll find a link to their Facebook page, instagram account and WhatsApp number in the show note. If you'd like to read more about where we've been and see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and as well, our YouTube channel and Instagram. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to all of those sites in the show notes. We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to bring up, or if you want to tell your own travel story, just email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Thank you.