Chuck Bolotin

Here’s one perspective how moving abroad (of course, Chiriqui included) can make you a better person: https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/stories/story/how-living-abroad-made-me-a-better-person

Good for you, Panawanna, for a very reasonable and solid approach. You'll do great! I was from LA, too (sad). All the best in your new adventure!

Written this last American Independence Day, REGARDLESS OF POLITICS, this article discusses what can be a very divisive and painful subject for expats and those considering becoming an expat: Can you live in Chiriqui and still be a “True American”? See if you agree with this answer. Is an Expat Living Abroad a True American

I don't know if JimAndNina's first post with the child's video was meant as a joke or to be serious. However, I took it seriously. I love that song, and used to sing it to my kids all the time. The reason I did that is that I believe that, all other things being equal and absent some horrifically bad situation, if one acts happy, one will be happier. I'll paraphrase the bible and what I wrote in the article: As a man thinketh, so he becomes. I don't think there is any doubt about it: think miserable thoughts and you'll be more miserable. Think more happy thoughts, and you will be happier. And who doesn't want to be happier? The takeaway is to make it a habit and practice to see the best in everything and everybody.

Here’s some straight talk about how the “Move to Panama” industry is not honest. Do you agree? Exposed: 'Move and Live Abroad' Industry Is a Sham, a Scam, and a Fraud

Hi, everyone. You all deserve a response, as well as anyone else reading this. Afterwards, I hope to let this rest. Dottie: It’s probably true that the most glowing posts are from people who have something to sell. Although people who have something to sell can and many times are honest, it would not be unusual for them to have a bias. One of the ways we deal with this is to force everyone to fully disclose their real name, their real picture, and their real business, if they have one. We also have more than one person answer each question, so if someone is not telling the truth, they are subject to being contradicted and embarrassed in public, which most people in business would find very damaging. With full disclosure and multiple people answering, the reader can more easily determine for themselves how credible each contributor is. The reader can also visit the contributor’s profile to see other answers and judge the contributor’s credibility. Most adults are capable of this discernment. Also, I can’t think of a better way to do it, other than banning those who are selling something, which is not a good idea, for several reasons, or me deciding, in my judgment, when there is “too much” influence. I would much rather let anyone who wants to participate, structuring the site to make it less likely to provide misleading information, and make everyone provide as full a disclosure as we can. If you would think a bit about how you would do it, you can see the challenges and how we reasonably came to our conclusions. I appreciate your other comments about your stress being lower, which I suspect is the case for most people who want it to be, which was the point of the article. Jim: I can’t understand why you are puzzled. The name of the site is “Best Places in the World to Retire”, not “Best Place in the World to Retire.” See the difference? The site uses the plural of the word “Place,” which is why it has an “s” at the end of it. “Plural”, Jim, means “more than one”. I hope that clears up the puzzle for you, Jim. If you need more of an explanation, you may also notice that we have more than one “place” on our site, which would indicate to most people that different people may prefer different places (there’s that plural again). Also, we have on our site the Location Advisor (https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/location-advisor), which on the homepage is advertised as “Get matched to your ideal location to live abroad.” This would also indicate to most people that there is more than one place possible. If you’re still puzzled, Jim, perhaps someone else can help you figure it out. Bonnie: I agree that it would not be a good idea to get into a length point / counterpoint, but you did go into pretty good detail about an issue that I thought was resolved. About two years ago, when you and others took exception to our methodology in that we only interviewed people who were expats at the time as opposed to those who were no longer expats at the time, it seemed like a fair point, which we considered. As a result of this consideration, we inserted an additional “bias” into the seven we already stated starting on page 74, where we discussed what we called “Expat Success Bias”. Here is what it says, word for word: “The people who took our survey are expats, meaning that they currently live overseas. It could be argued that people who live overseas are more likely to give positive reviews of living overseas, as opposed to, for example, those who used to live overseas and who no longer are. There could be some merit to this argument. Unfortunately, we did not see any reasonable to test it, so we don’t have an opinion. Even if we were able to locate people who were no longer expats and have a sample of them take our survey, we saw no logical way to normalize the results. (Which ones would we seek out, how many would we ask in proportion to existing expats, etc.?) Therefore, in light of this, we leave it to the reader to make any adjustments to the data he or she feels would make sense for his or her particular need.” In essence, there is no other way to do it other than not publishing the survey at all, or publishing it and stating the biases, which we believed and still believe provides much more value. I don’t know what is meant by your last paragraph, other than to insult me again. Most people would not be happy to be called a “huckster”. I just wish that you and everyone else would be more careful impugning the motives and reputations of others and calling people nasty names. To put it plainly, you wouldn’t want it done to you, and it’s just not nice. Also, in my case, it's not deserved. In general, it is very easy to criticize, but much more difficult to try to make something. If you have a better way of doing the survey and our site, let me know exactly how as a complete product, and then I can criticize how you would do it. I’ll bet it won’t be too difficult to find flaws, because we all live in an imperfect world, and we have to balance choices to come up with the best that is possible. That’s exactly what we’ve done, we're very proud of it and I stand by its credibility, even with it's flaws, which we try to make apparent.

I forgot to respond to JimandNina regarding how I never post the data or methodology. I post the data all the time, and its in the actual studies that I refer to, usually with a link. Before making your accusations, did you go to the studies, Jim? If you did not, and regarding the methodology, here is the link to the actual study: https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/download-free-ebooks In the Expects: Expectation and Reality Study, you will notice that the survey methodology is discussed throughout the introductory pages and in great detail starting on page 74 and the entire set of results for the study in general, without any comments whatsoever, are in the appendix, starting on page 78. You'll also notice that we offer to make the raw data available to anyone who asks. Just because you don't remember something doesn't mean it didn't happen. The world exists outside of your understanding of it or your memory. All you had to do was take a look, and you would see that what you said was wrong. Also, Jim, we're not RVing, as you stated incorrectly. Do you just make this stuff up? The bigger question is: Why do you make it up? And just so my comment is complete, we do have to worry about trash, electrical, etc., and we've had to several times, because we're not in an RV and we have to stay in rentals along the way. Two of them were so bad, we had to leave, which I wrote about: https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/stories/story/two-house-rentals-gone-wrong-and-a-guardian-angel Maybe you didn't see it, so it didn't happen for anyone else, either. As far as promoting the manana culture, to some extent, I am, which is the only thing I can see that you got factually right. Some of us can learn that our own immediate problems aren't so great, after all, especially when we compare our First World problems to the locals who have so much less, and seem to be so much happier. Maybe there's a lesson there for us. Some people understand this. Perhaps you can read it again.

Hi, This is the much maligned and evidently reviled huckster Chuck Bolotin. I don’t remember ever hearing of Chiriqui.Life before, but I happened to see that we had some traffic from the site, so I figured I would take a look. What I saw was not exactly admirable. The reason I’m replying is that I’ve come to the conclusion after 60 years on this earth that destructive and untrue comments must be confronted, if only to give encouragement to those who are not destructive and try to be positive. I’ll start with Bonnie, the only person I’m aware of that I know on this thread. Bonnie, I can’t for the life of me see why you want to lash out at me and our site. I have been nothing but kind, respectful and helpful to you. I just went to look at my notes to see if there were any issues, and there weren’t that I know of, other than me helping you with your password several times and trying to help to promote Bid4Boquete. You have 12 answers on our site, and I never once ever stopped you from writing whatever you wanted. In case you’ve forgotten, your account is here: https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/profile/715-bonnie5004 You said that I promote hype. Does that include your answers? You also indirectly called me a huckster. Please explain to everyone exactly why you feel entitled to use that insult to describe me. Everyone should know that I have no idea who NewsLady is, other than she seems like a nice person who tried to post something of interest for the community. Thank you, NewsLady. Evidently, you can stand up for yourself, but you should know that at least I appreciate you posting the article. Keith Woolford: What we’re offering is not “hype”. Did you read the article or anything on the site? We try to be balanced and credible. Anyone can answer questions on our site, irrespective of if the answer is positive or negative. As you can read above, Bonnie has answered 12. You, too, Keith, can answer, and set everyone straight so there’s no hype. We have over 9,000 answers on the site, and we’ve removed somewhere in the area of 6; 4 because the contributor was obviously drunk (he thanked me later), and 2 because they were just abusive. If you cared to look at the site, Keith, you would see that we have multiple people answering the same question. The reason we do that is because there can be more than one “truth” (in your words, non-hype) answer. Some people are more positive in their outlook on life (maybe you know some), some are in the middle, and some are just negative and nasty. We leave it up to the reader to decide where their “truth” lies. Gordon Bakke: I’m not sure what “C’mon Chuckie” means, but you should know that my name is Chuck. Other than your crude joke that may belie something you may want to keep to yourself, your comment is nonsensical; I don’t know exactly what you’re asserting, other than I assume you’re trying to belittle me. Bud: if I’m the huckster you’re describing, please have the decency to tell me exactly how I am a huckster, and I’ll respond to you. Pederhaney: I don’t know what you mean that you’ve “blocked me”. Blocked me from what? If you mean you unsubscribed to our newsletters, OK. Relative to our newsletters being “rose-colored shinola”, that’s an interesting comment. Bonnie’s answers were featured several times on our newsletters. Was her content “shinola”, too? Are the comments and stories by Penny Barrett and Phil McGuigan shinoa as well? Here’s a beautiful story we did on Penny: https://bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com/stories/story/penny-barrett-boquete-s-liaison-extraordinaire If you think this story came through rose-colored shinona, you’re a very unhappy person. Most people found it uplifting and inspirational. I certainly did. JimAndNena: What would cause you to make an accusation that is so easily proven as false? You’re either too lazy to know what you’re talking about or just like to make things up. We are not “experiencing paradise for a 2 or 3 week trip.” We’ve been on the road for more than a year, moving from place to place with as many of our worldly possessions as will fit into our van, along with our dogs. Along the way, we’ve encountered LOTS of challenges those who stay in one place do not, such as always needing to learn about the place we’re in and having to get our visas by ourselves, while speaking very little Spanish. All this is documented in our series of road trips clearly as possible on our site. Even if you believe that our lives would naturally be less stressful than staying in one place for a year (and you’ll have to convince me on that one), you should know that we’ve been in the same place now for 5 ½ months, and we find it MUCH less stressful than traveling around. Brundageba: The background you thanked Jim and Nena for is not correct, so you may want to revise your opinion of me and more importantly, how you form opinions of others. How can you say that it’s “spot on”? Do you judge others based on hearsay? Not a good policy. And in this case, it turns out to be wrong. You may want to consider judging people based on what you know to be true personally, just like you would like to be judged. Here are my general, closing comments: About those rose-colored glasses (or if you believe in a more sinister intent, hype): You may find it useful to know that some people see the world in a more positive way than evidently most of you do. For example, I have made an intentional effort to try to focus on the positive, in events and in people. Am I always successful? Of course not, but I try. Are you trying? If not, why not? I find that when I do this is when I am most proud of my actions, and when I can say that I have been a positive influence on others. Consistent with that, I’ll choose to believe that this thread was just the result of some people having a bad day and spewing unpleasantness as a result. We’ve all done it, but very few of us are proud of it, and it needs to be confronted. Also, being nasty in public does not make you happier; at least that’s what I've seen. Saying nasty things about people you are uninformed about is not something to be proud of. Wouldn’t it be a better world if we first got the facts before attacking people and ascribing evil intent; tried to see the good side as much as possible; and at least tried to act happy? I can virtually guarantee you that if you do this, you and everyone around you will be happier as well.