What will you do?

My family wasn’t sure what I would be doing when I moved to Isla Bastimentos here in Panama. My aunts found it very hard to believe that anyone would want to move to a very secluded island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. What does it take to run an eco adventure lodge? How will you make sure your children are educated? Where do you go to do your grocery shopping?

All kinds of questions are thrown at you when you tell people you are moving with your family to an island. There are those who believe you must be crazy to throw away a perfectly good life in the city: a great job, a car, a nice house, etc. What do you gain by moving away from all of that?

I gain all kinds of special time with my family. Each morning my husband and I spend about an hour with the kids before our day gets started. We just hang out together and talk and play. I gain remarkable sunrises and sunsets. I gain children who are bilingual. My son translates for me. I lose out on so many things in life that do not matter: traffic, sensational journalism, violent crime. So really I think the most important thing it takes to run an eco adventure lodge is a dream – the dream for a different life.