Best Places In The World To Retire

There is quite a bit of kayaking in and around Chapala and Ajijic. There is a kayaking club that meets at least once a week for kayaking and they do it together. They go to different places on the lake. Lake Chapala is a massive body of water so there are lots of places to go kayaking. They get together on the side, where they meet up on an ongoing basis. Then they decide on who is going to help carry the kayaks, who has a car and who doesn’t, what restaurant they are going to after...

There is quite a bit of kayaking in and around Chapala and Ajijic. There is a kayaking club that meets at least once a week for kayaking and they do it together. They go to different places on the lake. Lake Chapala is a massive body of water so there are lots of places to go kayaking. They get together on the side, where they meet up on an ongoing basis. Then they decide on who is going to help carry the kayaks, who has a car and who doesn’t, what restaurant they are going to after they kayak so they could eat, etc. There is an active community that uses the water of Lake Chapala that way.
 
There are some people who go boating here but there’s not that many. For Mexicans, power boating is very expensive. It’s expensive to keep the boat, pay for the truck, gas, etc. When you bring your boat to Lake Chapala, you have to be very careful on the shore because of the shallowness of the water. In general, boating is not very popular but it is possible as there are places where you could store your boat and place where you could launch. There is deep enough water and it is a big lake with lots of places to go and things to see but there isn’t much infrastructure around, so for example, you can’t fuel your boat anywhere on the lake. You have to either take the fuel to the boats or trailer out to do the fueling on shore. There aren’t many docks to tie up on especially as the lake goes up and down through the seasons. There aren’t any lakeside attractions to boat to.  For water recreation, it is amazing for people like me, from the Pacific Northwest, where we have a strong boating culture, to see how little recreational use there is on Lake Chapala.
 
I have friends who have boats who have them stored at restaurants on the shore that have a launch pad. If any of them wants to use it, the restaurant launches it for them, they take the boat out, have a nice afternoon, and come back in.

 

(Boats on Lake Chapala, Mexico, pictured.)

Gays and lesbians are accepted in Panama. Two years ago, they had a parade along Via Argentina (the main street in Panama City). There will always be groups that do not accept them and are totally against their lifestyle but these groups are not violent against gays and lesbians.
 
There are gay establishments and gay bars in Panama. They also have carnivals and parades. 

 

(Proclamation that June is Gay Pride Month from President Obama to Panama through...

Gays and lesbians are accepted in Panama. Two years ago, they had a parade along Via Argentina (the main street in Panama City). There will always be groups that do not accept them and are totally against their lifestyle but these groups are not violent against gays and lesbians.
 
There are gay establishments and gay bars in Panama. They also have carnivals and parades. 

 

(Proclamation that June is Gay Pride Month from President Obama to Panama through the US embassy, pictured.)

In the actual bay of San Juan Del Sur there isn’t really any surfing, because it is a protected harbor.  There are, however, good surf breaks close by.  By car, the closest one is about a 30-minute drive. You can also rent a panga (a small boat) out of San Juan that you can use to take you to several surf breaks around there.
 
We’re located at Popoyo, further north of San Juan del Sur, about an hour and a half by car and probably 17 miles as the crow flies....

In the actual bay of San Juan Del Sur there isn’t really any surfing, because it is a protected harbor.  There are, however, good surf breaks close by.  By car, the closest one is about a 30-minute drive. You can also rent a panga (a small boat) out of San Juan that you can use to take you to several surf breaks around there.
 
We’re located at Popoyo, further north of San Juan del Sur, about an hour and a half by car and probably 17 miles as the crow flies. Popoyo has really good surf breaks.  The “offshore wind effect” here in southern Nicaragua is a huge draw for surfing and has put Nicaragua in general and Popoyo in specific “on the map” worldwide. Due to the offshore wind effect, Nicaragua is probably is one of the most consistent places to surf in the Americas.  
 
If you look at a map of Nicaragua, you will see Lake Nicaragua, which is a huge, beautiful, freshwater lake in the center of southern Nicaragua, and no mountains.  The trade winds blow from east to west (from the Caribbean to the Pacific).  When these winds hit Costa Rica and Panama they get bottled up due to the mountains in these countries and are not allowed to push off to the Pacific Ocean. But in southern Nicaragua, the trade winds whip straight across the landmass, which creates the offshore winds here in Popoyo. As a result of this and other factors, we have around 300 days a year that are really favorable for surfing.
 
The offshore winds clean up the wave faces, whereas onshore winds make the waves confused and not clean. As a result, a lot of our surf breaks here will have perfect surfer’s conditions for the entire day whereas if you go somewhere like Costa Rica, you’re going to get onshore breezes a lot of times in the middle day.  In southern Nicaragua, we basically do not have that onshore sea breeze for most of the year, which has made this area famous. I personally didn’t believe it when I was first told about it and then when I came down here it was hard to believe that something as variable as the wind could be taken out of the equation for surfing. So this phenomenon is a pretty special thing for this part of Nicaragua. 
 
Popoyo is the name of the main surf break here (the most famous surf break in the country of Nicaragua) that’s about a mile down the beach from our house.  Popoyo has the most consistent surf breaks in the Americas because it breaks on high tide and low tide, any direction, and we have almost always have the offshore wind.
 
And then there’s a really good wave at the main peak of Popoyo and there’s an outside reef that is the most world-class wave in the country.  It’s very heavy and when it breaks it’s very big but it’s got these huge barrels for people looking for the triple black diamond of surfing.

 

(Pictured: Lance Moss surfing in Nicaragua in late October, 2015)