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Eat, Pray, Love author on traveling vs. living abroad Eat, Pray, Love: travel porn for the thinking woman Can you live in Costa Rica on $20K/year ? Panama bound? Pare down Expat Life in Benin, West Africa Dear Miss Move Abroad: Are all expats losers? Shopping for a new life on a two-week vacation
 
Eat, Pray, Love author on traveling vs. living abroad

Eat, Pray, Love author on traveling vs. living abroad

Does your talent lie in travel or in living abroad? Though some people are good at both and others not cut out for either, the skill sets involved are surprisingly different. Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert writes about the distinction.

Eat, Pray, Love author on traveling vs. living abroad
Eat, Pray, Love: travel porn for the thinking woman

Eat, Pray, Love: travel porn for the thinking woman

Critic Grace Lichtenstein said the only thing wrong with the travel memoir Eat, Pray, Love was that it was too much like a Jennifer Aniston movie. Turns out it's actually a Julia Roberts movie, opening August 13. At least we'll get to hear how Spaniard Javier Bardem pulls off a Brazilian accent.

Eat, Pray, Love: travel porn for the thinking woman
Can you live in Costa Rica on $20K/year ?

Can you live in Costa Rica on $20K/year ?

Dear Miss Move Abroad, I want to thank you. I read your book [Living Abroad in Costa Rica]  in December of 09. At the time I was going through some rough times (death and divorce), and I decided to travel to Costa Rica to just get some relief. I was dazzled by it. I was there [...]

Can you live in Costa Rica on $20K/year ?
Panama bound? Pare down

Panama bound? Pare down

Why lug your old life with you to a new country, especially when you have to pay so dearly for the privilege?

Panama bound? Pare down
Expat Life in Benin, West Africa

Expat Life in Benin, West Africa

"In the three years I've lived here," writes expat Randall Wood, "I've drunk whiskey with kings, been the victim of a mob throwing coconuts, surfed a couple of decent waves, and rubbed elbows with a culture that three years later, I still barely know and perhaps never will.

Expat Life in Benin, West Africa
Dear Miss Move Abroad: Are all expats losers?

Dear Miss Move Abroad: Are all expats losers?

Dear Miss Move Abroad. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of meeting many so called “expats” and have come to this conclusion: Most expats are losers who can’t cut it at home.

Dear Miss Move Abroad: Are all expats losers?
Shopping for a new life on a two-week vacation

Shopping for a new life on a two-week vacation

It’s the last day of your vacation. Far from being ready to go, you find yourself wondering: What if the flight home leaves and I don’t? If you seriously consider what it would be like to stay behind every time you travel, you may be a closet expatriate for whom a week at the beach or [...]

Shopping for a new life on a two-week vacation
Costa Rica stem cell clinic shuts down

Costa Rica stem cell clinic shuts down

14 June 2010

The Institute of Cellular Medicine (ICM) in San Jose, Costa Rica, which opened in 2006 and has treated hundreds of people, recently shut down its clinic. Stem cell treatments, which introduce new cells into damaged tissue in order to treat a disease or injury, have both been hailed as the new wave in medicine and vilified [...]

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Posted in medical tourism0 Comments

Shipping stuff to Panama

Shipping stuff to Panama

12 May 2010

Our Man in Boquete advises clearing customs in the city of David, where "they probably won't charge you exotic fees like 'Quarantine exemption fee for wooden furniture' or 'Fee for unusually extensive customs inspection' that might (and did) occur at other customs offices."

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Posted in before you go4 Comments

More U.S. expats giving up their citizenship

More U.S. expats giving up their citizenship

27 April 2010

It’s not a decision made lightly, and it’s not, as some might imagine, usually motivated by politics. But more and more expats abroad are giving up their U.S. citizenship, fueled by frustrations over tax and banking questions.

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Posted in true expat tales, working abroad0 Comments

A B & B from the ground up in Costa Rica

A B & B from the ground up in Costa Rica

21 February 2010

The builder went over budget and there were construction delays, but when the Hideaway Hotel opened its doors in 2008, it all seemed worth it. "Local realtors couldn't believe it," says co-owner Doug Ancel. They said, 'You guys actually opened! So many projects end up unfinished ruins.'"

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Private vs. public hospitals in Costa Rica: Real-life experiences

Private vs. public hospitals in Costa Rica: Real-life experiences

15 February 2010

Costa Rica is known for high-quality medical care at affordable prices. But what's it like to be in the belly of the beast--to be a patient in the country's private and public hospitals? Here, four expats describe their experiences.

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Posted in life abroad, medical tourism, true expat tales0 Comments

Costa Rica elects woman President

Costa Rica elects woman President

09 February 2010

On Feb 7th Costa Ricans went to the polls and overwhelmingly elected Laura Chinchilla president for the next 4 years. Chinchilla, who is 50 an has one teenage son, takes office in May.

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Posted in world culture1 Comment

California to outsource incarceration?

California to outsource incarceration?

27 January 2010

This week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested that the state might outsource incarceration by opening prisons in Mexico. Photo of prison in Durango by flickr user Dexter Perrin.

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Travel Bookshelf: The Geography of Bliss

Travel Bookshelf: The Geography of Bliss

27 January 2010

In The Geography of Bliss, NPR foreign correspondent Eric Weiner travels the world to find happiness. Is that so different from what the rest of us are doing? Well, yes and no. Wiener makes a science of it. He goes about it with more deliberation than most of us wanderers. Before he takes on the geography angle, [...]

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Posted in travel bookshelf4 Comments

Leaving your job and country: Don’t burn bridges

Leaving your job and country: Don’t burn bridges

26 January 2010

A taste for bridge-burning seems to go hand-in-hand with being a serial relocator. Most of us tend towards one of two poles: the smoother-over, who never wants to make any kind of break or change, or the bridge burner, who’s always itching to strike that match.

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Posted in before you go2 Comments

In Costa Rica, airplane-bar tells tales of covert ops past

In Costa Rica, airplane-bar tells tales of covert ops past

25 January 2010

One of the pleasures of living abroad is starting to see world history and events from another–often radically different–angle. You can start to make that shift pretty much anywhere–reading the local newspaper at your favorite expat cafe, exploring a crumbling castle, or talking politics with the guy who repairs your car with tin foil and fishing [...]

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Posted in life abroad0 Comments