I’m currently in Santa Catalina, Panama, a surfer magnet on the Pacific Coast. I’ve got Panama listed as an “honorable mention” in my book because some things are a bargain, especially outside the capital, but this is a country with a booming economy—as in 10.5 percent growth last year. Most people aren’t rich here, especially outside the capital business district, but the middle class is large and getting bigger each year. Plus half the wealth of pre-Chavez Venezuela has seemingly landed in Panama City.

You could come to Panama and do nothing but kick back and party on the cheap. This is, after all, one of the cheapest places in the world to knock down some drinks. Almost nothing is taxed heavily here, including booze. But if you want to do the things most leisure travelers come here to do, you have to splurge a little now and then.

Back to Santa Catalina, where you can get a hostel bunk for $10 or less a block from the beach or get a private room for $15-$25. The thing is, if you want to get out to Coiba Island, where all these photos were taken, you’ll pay $50 a person for a boat of six people. It’s not that they’re ripping you off: it’s 37 miles to the island and gasoline is a tad more here than it is in the U.S. You need a few guys along as well, including at least one who can speak English. Plus park permits.

So if you want to get the full experience, you need to pay more than the proverbial $50 a day that Nomadic Matt lays out in his book I reviewed a while back. As he admits, sometimes you’ll go over for a good reason, so you need to make up for it later (or, I would add, have a splurge budget in addition to start with).

Being here brought me back to an experience I had as a round-the-world backpacker in the late 1990s. My wife and I had spent nearly six disappointing, sometimes grueling weeks in the Philippines, with only flashes of good memories to show for it. Overall, we were dejected and ready to high-tail it out of there to somewhere more attractive. When we finally got to El Nido in Palawan though, our moods brightened considerably. Beauty, better food, a decent cheap hotel. But the price for a boat tour of the islands and lagoons—$40 each in late 90′s dollars—was really going to thrash our budget for the week.

We debated, we hesitated, but in the end we threw down the cash and went out on our boat tour. It was by far the highlight of our last month in the country. A day of unsurpassed beauty and one postcard-perfect stop after another. Thankfully we had the sense to step up and go.

You won’t remember what you did with the $40 or $50 you saved once by skipping something when you’re 80 and looking back on your life. Or probably even what you spent for the splurge. You will remember the great times you had.

Take a hit of the April issue of Perceptive Travel and you might reach enlightenment. Or at least be entertained.

We’ve got weirdness all around this time, starting with a story about an archaeological site in Panama where the caretakers believes it’s really a place the aliens visited way back when. See What to Do About Barriles?

James Dorsey is back with another tale of stumbling into a village in Africa and finding himself the instant elder. He wants to buy a souvenir pipe. They just want him to smoke khat with them. So it’s time for Passing the Pipe in Ethiopia.

Anja Mutic makes her debut with a tale about her first trip to India—and therefore her first impressions—being part of a luxury travel press trip designed to only show the edited version of the country. See India of Light and Darkness.

Naturally we’ve got the scoop on new books and music worth checking out, so see the April travel book reviews from Susan Griffith and the April world music reviews from Laurence Mitchell.

Win some travel gear!

Each month we give away something cool to someone who follows the webzine via the monthly e-mail newsletter or the Facebook page. See links for both on the home page and enter. Last month two readers won a nice new Armitron watch and this month we’re giving away some $100+ hiking shoes from Wolverine. What are you waiting for?

The December 2012 issue of Perceptive Travel is an Americas issue on the features, with a few trips to Europe and elsewhere in the books and music.

Niall McCrae makes his debut doing what not many British visitors have probably done: visiting the faded rust belt town of Gary, Indiana. He ponders the future of manufacturing centers built for automobiles in What’s Wrong Gary?

Chris Epting knows a thing or two about obscure landmarks and claims to fame. This time he takes us on a road trip across America, visiting the world capitals of items like fire hydrants, bedding plants, and cow chips. See We’re the Greatest! World Capitals of…

We’re happy to see the return of former contributor Darrin DuFord, with a piece about the opening of Panama’s top observatory to tourists. See The Astrotourists of Panama.

Susan Griffith returns to highlight new and noteworthy travel books on obscure islands, voluntourism, and Naples. Laurence Mitchell is back to spin some new world music albums from South America, Europe, and yoga studios of the world.

One lucky reader who enters our monthly contest will score a new $200 GPS unit for their car from Magellan. This RoadMate 5265T-LMB GPS will ship out to someone before Christmas, maybe to you if you sign up for the monthly newsletter or join Perceptive Travel on Facebook.

I used to get this question every month or so. Now that I’ve broadcast on a regular basis that I am living in Mexico, I get it every week or so. We’re living it up and spending 40% less than we did at home, so I can’t blame anyone for asking how they can move to a foreign country and do the same.

Many people seem to want to move abroad to lower their expenses or escape the hectic life of always-on connections and 24-hour bickering on TV. But the idea is so daunting they don’t even know how to take the first steps.

So here goes.

First of all, change any prevailing mindset that everything you need to know can be gathered up for free online. Good information, solid information that’s reliable, costs money. Not a fortune, but not free either. If you’re going to ask where and how you can live on a few thousand dollars less a month than you’re spending now, be willing to invest a hundred or two to get you there. Spend a little, save a lot.

1) Get International Living magazine.

The following is not an affiliate link and it’s been years since I wrote anything for them. They’re just the best resource, period: International Living. That takes you to the order form, where it’s $49 a year or $89 for two. The best investment you’ll make in living abroad for less. If you need a stronger hard sell though, browse around their site and they’ll pour it on thick: they’ve obviously got a few direct-mail copywriters on staff. Hype aside though, what’s in the magazine is well-researched info with real prices on the ground, usually from writers who are living in the places they’re writing about.

2) Buy the right books.

Sure, The World’s Cheapest Destinations is a nice start, but that’s mainly a travel book, not a living book. Before I moved to Mexico with a daughter, both my wife and I read The Family Sabbatical Handbook and found it helpful. I’ve since met a dozen other parents who have used it as well. Follow the Amazon recommendations that pop up along with that and you’ll get to books like Getting Out, How to Retire Overseas, and Escape 101.

If you already know where you want to go, dive into a book for that country, if it’s available. Moon Handbooks puts out a lot of good Living Abroad guides, like Living Abroad in Panama or Thailand. Do an Amazon search for the country you’re interested in and you’ll probably find more. Naturally you’re going to find more info on living in Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic than you will on some obscure country where you’re the only expat, but if there’s a sizable number there’s probably a book on moving there.

If you come up empty on physical books, start trolling for e-books. Often you’ll find something on International Living or EscapeArtist.com, but if not keep looking. Often a locally run website or expat message board can point you in the right direction. Sometimes these e-books are pricey: the author is giving away insider information to the few who really want it and can charge a higher price. Again though, if investing 40 bucks saves you $400 a month on rent or $4,000 on closing costs, isn’t that worth it?

3) Read Reliable Web Resources

Anybody can post anything on the web without getting called out on it, so there’s a lot of misinformation and just plain misleading advice that will take you down the wrong path. I’ve found EscapeArtist.com to be more reliable than most overall, though you can stumble across things that are way out of date. Also look to living abroad articles from Transitions Abroad.

If you can find a local expert who really knows his/her stuff, like Lan Sluder for Belize, then embrace their site and use it as your main guide.  Most countries have at least one really good authoritative site you can trust, like Mexperience for Mexico or Travelfish.org for Thailand and its neighbors.

Sometimes you might have to pay a little for “special reports” with all the dirty details, but usually they’re worth it.

4) Travel

You can ask a hundred questions and read a hundred books, but there’s no substitute for getting out there and giving a place a trial run. Think you might want to live in Central America but you’re not sure where? Get a one-way flight to Guatemala and start moving. You’ll get a real sense of prices and you’ll find out where you would truly be comfortable.

I spent a month in Guanajuato with my family a year before we moved here for our sabbatical. I knew from my travels which places I definitely did not want to live in, even when they were cheap and looked great on paper. They just didn’t have the right feel. The only way you’ll know that is if you pack a bag and go.

 

 

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What do those three things have to do with each other? They’re subjects of three intriguing new stories from book authors on the move in the March issue of Perceptive Travel.

Tom Koppel travels around Fiji feeling disconnected as he eats curry and wanders through sari shops. Stephen Markley lives on a ship for a while exploring the Gulf of Mexico, seeing how the whales are faring post-BP-oil spill. Richard Arghiris wrote what is possibly the darkest story we’ve ever published—but one you definitely won’t want to stop reading—about an opportunistic serial killer in the Caribbean islands of Panama.

Laurence Mitchell is back with some world music reviews and Gillian Kendall is back with some travel book reviews.

And if you check out the home page, you’ll see links to two Perceptive Travel stories that won a Gold and a Silver in the recent “best travel writing” awards from the North American Travel Journalists Association. Nice!

As always, we’re giving away an item that people can snag if they’re a newsletter subscriber or Facebook follower. See the Perceptive Travel webzine home page for details.