Since joining Steemit, I have been asked many times why we chose to move our entire family to Panama. In part 1, I established a little background about our decision. In Part 2, I will go more in detail about the reasons.

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My husband is all about making lists. When he started looking into Panama, his lists started and quickly grew. Lists for why we should move. Lists for what we could do there. Lists for why this would be better than raising the kids in the USA. There were hundreds of reasons we chose to move to Panama, yet it was difficult to put into words when someone would ask. I also find this post difficult to write as some reasons will not make sense and different audiences will understand the reasons differently.

One big reason we decided to move was for business reasons. Flipping was becoming common place in Texas, so job opportunities were dwindling. There are also many laws and rules that must be followed that make building and construction work difficult. In Panama, there are many of the same laws, but more opportunities. The area we live in is a great example. Our neighborhood has plenty of space for building other homes. With @panamapilgrim being a former architect, builder and home flipper, this is a great project for him, and one that he has always wanted to have the freedom to do. Of course it will take years to complete, but it is something he wants to do.

Another main reason we decided to move to Panama was for our children. We wanted them to have different opportunities while growing up, like learning Spanish. This will help them later in life be able to have careers and travel in a larger number of countries. We also wanted them to be able to enjoy being outside and this is a great environment to do that basically every day. We wanted them to grow up without the threat of being taken from us because of the alternative choices we have made, such as homeschool, vaccinations, and religious decisions. (The threat is real. Check @familyprotection’s blog for plenty of stories.)

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In Panama, the culture is geared toward family instead of entertainment and this is something we like. Every weekend is not filled with running from one practice to another with no time to enjoy a meal with our family. The people here are not trying to be the newest reality TV star or act a certain way to get attention. The culture is slower paced, which enables us to meet and get to know our friends without feeling like we need to rush to the next event. Every day is not filled with activities that disrupt family life, like soccer practice, Girl Scouts, after school activities, homework and the like. That is why Mother’s Day is a national holiday and everything is closed. You go to Mama’s house and celebrate with all the rest of the family! In the US, we did not agree with the direction the culture was moving away from traditional values and laws were being put in place by the government that we did not agree with.

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These are a small list of reasons that we decided to move away from Texas. But you are thinking that we could have moved to any country, so why exactly did we decide on Panama and more specifically the area that we chose to move. That is when the lists upon lists started to grow. Many countries were compared and crossed out based on various requirements. The main one was homeschooling was legal. This actually made us cross out Costa Rica and various other countries. Visas had to be relatively easy to attain and cost of living had to be relatively low. This crossed out most of Europe. Spanish was also on the list since I speak it, if we had to move somewhere with another language. Through all the searching, Panama continued to look like a great destination for our relocation.

When we originally were looking, we thought Boquete would be the best place to move because of the number of expats there. Upon examining our current town in Tierras Altas, talking to other expats and visiting the two, Boquete did not have what we were looking for exactly. Tierras Altas has some extra items that made it a good fit for us. The neighborhood we were looking at was a great location, a gated community, had plenty of space and had paved roads (which is a big deal here)! There is also a quilting ministry and store here, which I love! Many homeschool families live here and we have been able to open up a homeschool lending library in our home (although it is not totally set up yet). This has been a tremendous blessing to all of us.

Other fun reasons that this town fits us well is that there is a great Mexican restaurant here. It is yummy! Also there are at least two great places to eat pizza and you know that makes our kids happy. Although we do not have everything we were used to in Texas, we still are finding ways to make life enjoyable here. This is, of course, not every single reason we moved to Panama, and you may not think any of them are really good reasons to move, but we are happy with our decision to be here.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I discuss ways Panama has met and not met some of our expectations.

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