Hello everyone I am new to this forum, however, I have spent the last couple of days reading posts and threads. Currently I am living in Colorado with my Panamanian fiancée and her daughter. This summer we are coming to Panama to be married. Our plan is after her daughter graduates from school we will be moving to Panama. Right now the focus is on the western side of Panama.
Last summer we stayed in vacation home in Gorgona and we explored PC, Colon, Anton and everyplace in between. What we learned from our trip was even though my fiancée was born and raised in PC, PC is not the place for us. We need less traffic, pollution, and we just did not care for the negative attention we got in both PC and Colon. I am not saying there was nothing positive about these cities but it just did not fit us.
We also found that many of the expat communities around the Gorgona area was too expensive for what we are looking for. Many of the condos and HOA fees cost more than the cost here in Colorado. We could have tropical weather with a view of the ocean or snow cap mountain view of where we are now. Part of the reason we want to move to Panama is so we can do more with what we have but what we found in the expat communities close to PC life would cost more.
We were pretty discouraged what we were discovering. At first my fiancée wanted to stay close to PC so she could be close to her family but after having to deal with all the negatives and seeing the actual cost we decided to head west and check out Bocas del Toro and all the small towns on the way. Basically stop whenever the desire hit us.
This was the best decision we made. As soon as we got an hour west of Gorgona everything changed. Life became lighter, people became friendlier. Even the police were even jovial towards me when I ran a police check point. It seemed to me where there was a lack of expats this Gingo was treated better. I am not very politically correct and will make fun of everything and everyone, including myself, this seemed to break the ice with everyone I encountered.
I can write an essay on our experiences from west to east, so I am going to stop here. From reading a lot of posts I see there is a lot of change happening with American expats opening a bank account to the new laws on becoming a resident. I am hoping that after the wedding I will find a good lawyer in PC that can help me get my residence in Panama.
I will have my VA pension coming in that is well over $1k so I am not worried about proving that I do not have to work to live in Panama. My fiancée is hoping to get a part time job as a teacher of some sort working with children. The job is not for income as so much to give to the community. My biggest plan is see how many fish I can remove from the water, explore the country, find hidden treasures of what nature and people can offer, and learn as much as I can.
Until then, does anyone know that laws of an American married to a Panamanian are? I would like to have all the information I can have before I talk to a lawyer. I have Googled looking for this information but I cannot find anything.
Cheers to all
Wolf