On the Land Quest

We've devoted time to looking at land lately. A lot of the existing houses here are too large for us and out of our price range. The Boquete property boom is underway and has been for a few years so prices are climbing consistently. Forbes Magazine's article listing Boquete as one of the top 5 places in the world to retire heightened the already escalating attention and prices.

So far, it seems our best bet will be to buy land and build a home. This is an exciting but intimidating possibility as neither Rand nor I have experience in this area. If we do build, we'll rely heavily on our chosen architect and builder for guidance.

Our list of "must haves" grows more and more vivid with each new piece of land we see. We know that we want to be quite high in the mountains so as to have that "I'm on top of the world, lookin' down on creation" feeling. Secondly, existing water and electricity lines are paramount. Too many nights of barking dogs and improperly timed wee-hour-of-the-morning, repetitive rooster calls have caused us to add the NO CHICKEN/BARKING FACTOR to our list as well. Continued refining will undoubtedly occur.

Above is me in a tree on one of our property faves and one of the views from another top contender with Volcan Baru hiding in the clouds in the background. We meet with a potential lawyer today to discuss securing permanent resident visas.