In order for us to be able to do all of this we first need to get healthy. Hold up…retiring in America and living an active, healthy lifestyle is a privilege reserved to a small few.. With the cost of gym memberships, buying organic at Wholefoods and the ever rising cost of healthcare premiums our country makes it impossible for someone to retire early and enjoy living life.

     For us this revelation opened our eyes after a recent visit to an insurance broker. We realized that we would have to pay out $2K a month to maintain our current level of insurance coverage. Okay that wasn’t a problem since we planned for that… The shocker was to learn that there is not a sliding scale on the insurance premium rates, meaning the increase does not have a cap on it.  So three years from now we could be paying as much as $3K per month for the privilege of having insurance.

     There’s got to be another way… we should not be penalized for doing the right thing all these years.  This got us thinking… We sat down and made a list of all the things we enjoy doing – mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, swimming, travelling, motorcycling, camping, rock climbing, etc. We then cross referenced this with places close to the USA that offered universal healthcare. We narrowed the list down to (3) countries – Costa Rica, Panama & Mexico. After tons of research we decided on Costa Rica because of it’s biodiversity, ecotourism and close proximity to Houston, Texas.

     On March 29th we took our first trip down to Costa Rica – rich coast. And so we begin our countdown to retirement.