Mexico Named Best Place To Retire

by Martha Edwards on
Been to Mexico? I have a few times and I love it. It’s not just the hot weather and the gorgeous beaches — Mexico is a really friendly, vibrant place with a lot of energy and culture. At least what I’ve seen of it. Anyway, I digress. The point of this post is to write about how Mexico was named the best place to retire by an annual retirement index in International Living magazine. It used to be that Panama held this coveted title, but housing prices have since sky-rocketed — I hope this doesn’t happen to Mexico too!


Want to see what all the fuss is about? Check out our Travel Guide for Mexico. Not interested in Mexico? Learn more about Australia or South Africa.

What are some other great places to retire? Ecuador, Italy, Australia, Malta, Spain, South Africa, Malaysia, France and Thailand all made the list. The US came in at #19, while the UK ranked at the very bottom.

I couldn’t find a copy of the whole list — I wonder if my native Canada made the cut? There are definitely some retirement-worthy places here too. But given the choice between Mexico and the prairie winters, you know which one I’m going with.

(Of course, there are plenty of great places in the U.S. to retire. Check out Money & Finance’s great retirement spots in the U.S. and decide if any of them are for you.)

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What Is Panama Like?

by Iva Skoch on

I am planning a trip to Panama. Not sure why. I don’t know much about the country but I have a free Continental voucher to use up and they fly there directly from New York. That’s a good enough reason for me. Plus, it sounds like a pretty interesting place.

I am sure many of you have been there already. I hear that Panama is trying to brand itself as the new, wilder (and possibly more dangerous) Costa Rica. Any recommendations? Any must sees and must avoids? Are there good diving/rafting opportunities?

How Far Would You Go For a Beer?

by Brett Atkinson on

How about delivering a fully functioning pub all the way from New Zealand to London? By boat. That’s the sublime task currently being undertaken by a group of intrepid Kiwis.

In New Zealand Speights beer is immensely popular – so much so that it’s also a favourite of homesick New Zealanders living in London. Hence the decision to load a traditional ale house onto a boat and set sail for the Thames. The team has just left Samoa, and now face a three week journey across the Pacific to the Panama Canal. From there it’s a hop across the Atlantic, ideally getting in by early October. Why then you ask? The final stages of the Rugby World Cup are happening just across the Channel in France and New Zealand fans in London will need lots of liquid sustenance. You can follow the The Great Beer Delivery online with regular video updates. At the top of the page is where they’re headed in a few weeks. Negotiating the canal promises to be very thirsty work.

Tainted Toothpaste

by Jamie Rhein on

Perhaps you heard the brouhaha about tainted toothpaste coming from China. This was in the news a few weeks ago. Turns out, a nasty chemical called diethylene glycol was found in Chinese imported toothpaste in the Dominican Republic and Panama. What should be used is glycerin. The chemical, from what I read, is used in antifreeze. Great, I suppose, if you plan to smile a lot in below freezing weather. Then it might come in handy.

This toothpaste finding was not good news for China since they want people to feel like when they come to the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, they’ll be able to brush their teeth. Not to mention all the toothpaste from China is sold all over the world. Can you say rinse and spit. . . rinse and spit. . . and rinse and spit?

Most of the time when I’ve traveled, I haven’t worried too much about toothpaste brands when I haven’t had my own with me. China is in the process of rectifying their dental hygiene situation. Still, yesterday there was another toothpaste scare. Counterfeit Colgate was found with this chemical in Canada–or supposedly, it was found. There are investigations in the works. Bottom-line, read the label. For a caution about soap, click here.

Panama Canal Timelapse

by Erik Olsen on

One of the more interesting history books I’ve read in the last few years is A Path Between The Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal by David McCullough. The book, while at times a rather dense historical document, reveals the incredible hardships endured by workers (made many times more difficult by diseases like malaria) and the immense engineering challenge it took to build the canal. It was also one of the great events of the turn o the century that signaled the emergence of the United States as a global power. I got a chance to see the canal years ago when I was traveling through Latin America, and thought it was amazing. But I never actually got to ride through the canal.

Well, in a way, I can now say I did. This video over at YouTube is a very well done time lapse of a trip through the entire canal. You get to see not just how the locks work, but how the canal looks through some of its broader stretches. The video itself is kind of a historical document, especially since the Panamanians are making big changes to the canal. It’s a neat — and quick — little ride that you too can take right here.