Jackie Lange
Jackie Lange, 69, moved to Panama from Texas in 2010, thinking she would retire to the mountains. Instead, over a decade later, she's led 250 tours helping hundreds of expats move to Panama.
Shortly after making the move, she started Panama Relocation Tours, which takes interested expats across the country, from the beach towns to Panama City. Now, she has expats and local drivers assisting her tours, and her two kids have joined the business.
She's found joy in helping others find their new home in a culturally respectful way. She said she's seen people go from worried about not having enough for retirement in the US to living stress-free in Panama.
"I get an email, phone call, or Facebook message almost every single day from people who say, 'Thank you so much for helping me move here. There's no way I could have done this if it hadn't been for all your advice and help,'" Lange said, adding her tours are booked until October.
Lange, a real estate investor, lived in Dallas with a lake home in East Texas. After 12 years as a stay-at-home mom, she bought old homes and kept some as rental properties, meaning she could retire early and live off her rental income.
She increasingly couldn't stand the "concrete jungle" and the "brutal" summers. She recalled one summer in which the temperature rarely fell below 100 degrees. She racked up $400 monthly electric bills from the air conditioner.
"When I was thinking about making this move, I was looking 10, 15 years down the road and thinking, my health insurance is $4,000 now, so what's it going to be like in 10 years?" Lange said. "It was going to be $10,000 a year from my health insurance, and if my electric bills were $400 a month, what would it be like in 10 years? Was I going to just want to keep on working to keep paying bigger and bigger bills for everything?"
For a year, Lange traveled to 10 countries, spending two to three weeks in each, in search of a cooler climate, a lower cost of living, and a stable government and economy.
She considered Panama, spending two weeks visiting Panama City and smaller towns across the country, settling on the small mountain town of Boquete near the border with Costa Rica.
Before moving, she did another tour with real estate investor friends, during which she checked out local groceries and shops to see if they would have everything she needed. She also looked at homes and made a split-second decision to rent a two-bedroom home on a coffee farm for $600 a month, which she bought a year later. She couldn't move immediately, as she had to sell some of her houses and wind down her Texas business.
The town is in a valley surrounded by mountains and, when she moved, was a hot spot for expats from different countries due to its year-round mild weather. She said it's also an hour's drive to the Pacific Ocean and three hours to the Caribbean Sea.
She lived on the farm with her husband for 12 years, building a greenhouse where she grew organic food. When her husband died, she moved to a nearby home that required less upkeep.
She said the temperature stays around 75 degrees Fahrenheit daily, though it feels cooler during the summer rainy season — she estimates her area gets almost 200 inches of rain a year. She's adjusted her schedule to get her errands done in the morning so she's inside when the rain starts in the afternoon.
Lange had the budget to retire early in Panama, but after giving her first tour to eight of her real estate investor friends similar to her solo tour, some of their friends began calling her about getting on her tours.
"I didn't plan to start the business at all, so every time I did a tour, I learned something new that I wish I would have included in it," Lange said. "I don't know how it happened exactly, but a bunch of people looking to move someplace else, because of the videos I had and the articles I wrote, would call me and ask me questions. The business just grew pretty quickly."
She crafted a website herself and started advertising on expat groups. At first, she organized the tours based on her itinerary when she first came to Panama, including the beach communities, urban centers, and mountain towns. Her tours included meetings with immigration attorneys and tourism leaders who could share information about getting a residency visa, as well as meetups with other expats.
Over time, she researched more ways to avoid costly mistakes, from how to buy a car to taking care of pets. She added more information about rentals, as she said sometimes homes under $1,000 a month may lack amenities like hot water. She gives participants a list of 17 questions to ask before renting a house, such as whether it has a reserve water tank in case of a drought. Lange advises expats not to buy a home until they've rented for at least six months.
Her kids joined the business and now handle the logistics and marketing. After 10 years of leading the tours herself, she recruited expat tour guides and Panamanian bus drivers to help run group and private tours. She also crafted an online relocation guide with information on health insurance companies, private hospitals, CPAs, shipping and moving companies, and real estate agents.
She said she's increasingly received emails from people saying they're supposed to retire in a few years in the US but can't afford it and don't know what to do. She's guided people nervous about finances to move to Panama, and many of her clients told her they're less stressed about making ends meet. She also said she's noticed people's health improve after moving to Panama, as they're often less stressed and eat healthier.
"I could retire tomorrow if I wanted to, and we wouldn't skip a beat," Lange said, noting she intends to keep the business running since most days don't feel like work. "I love helping people who are feeling like it's a hopeless, helpless situation and showing them there is a solution, there is a way to take all that stress away."
After she sold her farmhouse, she moved into a three-bedroom, two-bath rental property for $1,000 a month. The home is fully furnished with all utilities included — even a gardener — and she has modern appliances with high-speed internet. She said she's seen towns nearby with furnished one-bedroom rentals for $250 a month.
She spends about $80 a week on groceries and cat food and mostly shops at local farmer's markets. She paid $20,000 for her 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe.
She pays $2,788 a year for health insurance, which covers 100% of hospital and emergency room visits worldwide. Without insurance, many routine doctor visits are $15. A few weeks ago, she got her teeth cleaned and received X-rays for $42.50.
She said prices vary significantly across the country. Homes in the coastal city of Coronado, which has many expats, can sell for three times the price of similar homes in beachfront communities with fewer foreigners.
"You have choices to live by the expat community, where it might be a little bit more expensive, but if you're on a tight budget, you can move to a town an hour away, 30 minutes away, where the prices could be 50% less," Lange said.
Have you recently left the United States for a new country? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.
