The PanaFamilia Podcast

Today Eduardo and Nicole share what a typical day on our tropical farm here in Panama looks like. We wake up and have coffee watching the sunrise, get to work on outdoor projects/garden stuff; hang laundry out to dry; milk cows; cook and clean; relaxed homeschool activities with the boys and more. We discuss what we eat in a day; what shows we let our kids watch; how we divide tasks; what fills up...

This week, Eduardo & Nicole discuss their recent trip to visit Panama City. Panama City is about a 6 hour drive from Las Lajas, Chiriqui where they live. They talk about an amazing steakhouse they ate at for the first time and fell in love with. They also share about the process of renewing their children's passports at the USA embassy in Panama City. If you're staying in Panama City for a tri...

This week I interview Eduardo about our “cattle kingdom” as we playfully call it. We talk all about our cattle here in Las Lajas, Panama! Find out what kind of cattle we have and what Eduardo is breeding for; how our goals have changed for our cattle; dairy versus beef on our farm; how Eduardo cares for and manages our herd; how we stay efficient and make money raising cattle here in Panama; and E...

In today's episode, Eduardo and Nicole discuss something that they have talked about before, but with a bit more information for those of you who may be considering purchasing property in Panama. We start by giving a general guideline of how purchasing property in Panama works, who can buy land/property in Panama (spoiler: anyone!), how the process works and how long it takes. We then share our pe...

In today's episode Eduardo & Nicole talk all about where they source their food in Panama. Because we live in the Chiriquí Province, we shop mostly in David and a bit up towards Boquete. We list all the different store (big and small) that we shop at, as well as the regenerative farm we make weekly orders at for veggies & meat. We share how it took us a while to find all these great source...

Today we share all about our recent trip to Santa Catalina, Panama. Santa Catalina is a surf destination in Panama that we have been wanting to visit ever since we moved here. It is about 2 hours off the PanAmerican highway, but there is a lot to do in this little town in Panama. Surfing and other water activities are very popular here. The town of Santa Catalina, Panama is walkable with lots of g...

We are back after a year of not recording! We have been busy settling into life here in our aircrete dome home, on our tropical regenerative farm that we started from scratch. We are ready to start sharing about our life and farm again and also sharing more valuable information with those of you looking to relocate to this area of Panama, or Panama in general. >> What do you want to learn ab...

We are back after a bit of a hiatus. We finally got internet at our dome and now it is much easier to upload podcast episodes, so we are hoping to stay consistent again. Today we discuss the tropical storm that hit Panama during November 2024. There was significantly more rain than usual for that time of year (end of rainy season). We talk about how our farm and dome handled all the water; all the...

In this Friday’s episode we dive into our solar power system! Our original plan was to connect to the grid and have a backup solar system, but that all changed when we got a quote for the thick cables that we needed to get power from the road to our house about 200 yards from the road. Listen to learn more about why we decided to go fully off-grid; what it was like finding a solar company down her...

We are back with Season 3 and as promised, we waited until we could record this episode in our aircrete dome home! We officially moved in about 2 weeks ago and have been so happy and busy here! There's was a lot of last minute work over the past few weeks before we moved in, to make the dome livable for us (including setting up our solar power system, getting our well water to the house, installin...

Today is the last episode of Season 2! We are going to take a break while we complete our dome, receive our goods from our shipping container coming from USA, move into our dome, and work on some farm projects. We are excited to start Season 3 from our DOME HOME! In our last episode for this season we share FIVE REASONS why we think you should move to Chiriqui, Panama. Whether you're looking for a...

We've been living in Panama for ONE YEAR now! This Friday's episode is a little different. Eduardo and I (Nicole) came up with some questions for each other in regards to moving to and living in Panama for one year now. We didn't talk about these questions before, so these are spur of the moment answers. ** We apologize that a big thunder and rain storm came through while we were recording this ep...

On this, our one year anniversary of moving to Panama, we have a short and sweet episode with some more dome home progress. We discuss where we're at in the building process and how we hope to be moving into our custom designed aircrete dome home by August (in about 6 weeks)! We are preparing for final projects like wall finishes, paint, plumbing, electric, dome caps, custom doors and windows, and...

Well today's episode was recorded at the perfect time....you can hear a big rainstorm pretty much the whole time we're talking! But, you should be able to hear us just fine. In this week's episode we discuss the transition from the dry to rainy season; what it's like; what we love about the rainy season; a few things that we don't love about the rainy season and more. Some of the things we love an...

We're back from our little break here in the podcast world and sharing about our trip to California. We visited California to pack up all our remaining belongings in preparation for our shipping container to take it all to Panama. We discuss getting in & out of Panama City; plane rides; lots of great family time; how much we enjoyed doing all the great things we used to love about Turlock. Foo...

We will be taking a break from recording and sharing episodes for the next few weeks. Thanks for your understanding. In this Friday's episode we just chit chat about life and the progress we've made lately on all our different projects. We share all about what's been going on with our aircrete dome home and what we'll be working on in the near future. We discuss our two year provisional residency...

Today Eduardo & I are talking all about bugs in Panama. We have experienced a lot of different wildlife after living in Panama, some amazing and beautiful, some not our favorite. In this episode we talk about the bugs that can be a nuisance here, how we deal with them, and how we avoid them if we can. We talk about finding a balance between good and "bad" bugs on our farm. And we discuss all t...

Today we are talking all about our daily life here in Panama. We thought it might be interesting for you to get a peak into what our daily life looks like with kids, cooking, farm stuff, building a house, relaxing, having a social life, and enjoying our slower lifestyle here in Panama. So much of our life is spent outside, whether that is hanging laundry, reading books, swimming, cooking, relaxing...

To finish up our little three-part "reflection series," today we discuss what we have learned since moving to Panama 9 months ago. Things like how even though we live close to the beach - we still get excited every time we're there and it never gets boring; people take the time to really talk to you here; we miss cold weather; how tiny of a living space is do-able for us; enjoying life in a small,...

Happy Friday! For a comical, inside look into our marriage, be sure to listen to the first 7 minutes of this episode! Ha....but for real, we are excited to talk about all that we've come to love about Panama and our little pueblo called Las Lajas, since living here for 9 months now! We talk about the perks of living in a country that is not over-populated, a country that is lush and beautiful almo...

In today's episode, we reflect on what we miss from our home country and hometown, after relocating to Panama. This podcast episode isn't about complaining or wishing that we still had all these things we discuss. We just thought it would be fun to share some (mostly materialistic) things that we wistfully wish for sometimes. We talk about services we miss from USA as a whole, then share some Cali...

Today's episodes is all about beaches! We are going to be talking about beaches (las playas) in Panama. Living near the beach was one of the top reasons we decided to move to Panama. We wanted to have our farm but also be within a short drive from the beach - for surfing, playing, and all the beach fun. We are so blessed to have found our dream farm, that we're now building on, near one of the bes...

We are so excited to be back with Season 2 of The PanaFamilia Podcast! Eduardo and I (Nicole) start this second season off with an episode all about our dome home progress. We discuss how we've been working for about 4 weeks now on our aircrete dome home with the help of local builders, and an experienced dome builder from California. We share about the permitting process and what that has been li...

Today is our final episode for Season One! We will be back in March 2024 with more episodes. Today we're talking all about las vacas! We purchased ten pregnant Gyrlando heifers back in October and they have been living at our farm and enjoying all the lush grass. We talk about why we picked these cows and this breed. We share a bit about how we found them and what it felt like when they arrived at...

Today we have another longer episode (hopefully the last long one for a while)! the FINAL part 3 of the Panama protest series. The Panama protests and roadblocks are over! The Panamanian people got what they asked for and we can all travel freely and get everything we need now. We start out with a slight recap of why and when the protests started and how it lasted for 41 days (October 22, 2023-Dec...