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Recommended: A How-to Guide to Living and Working in Peru
I get emails from time to time from people abroad who want to know about resettling in Peru. Is the job market in Peru good, they want to know? (Tough for a foreigner, unless you’re okay with teaching English at $5/hour.) Can an American buy property in Lima? (Yes.) Is it true that if you put $20,000 in a Peruvian bank, you can get a resident visa? (Not!) Do I think it’s a good idea for a retiree to go in on a scheme with his guru to buy land in Tarapoto and build a vegetarian co-op/ashram on it? (Well, I met two U.S. citizens who lost $60,000 that way in 2007 because…
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Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru? Part II
By Barbara R. Drake On Sunday I posted Part I of “Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru?” (click here for link). I floated the idea, proposed to me by a Scandinavian expat who’s lived in the United States as well, that because Peru and the United States are so dissimilar, it’s difficult to evaluate which country’s lifestyle is better. In her words, Peru and the United States are “different realities.” A Peruvian in New Jersey comments that he agrees with the Scandinavian expat: “For forty years I have been trying to explain the Peruvian culture to Americans.” He points out that the metaphysician Carlos Castaneda, who wrote the bestseller…
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Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru? Part I
Today my opinion piece “Escaping the U.S. Credit Nightmare” appears in the Sunday Miami Herald, Money section (10/12/08). The teaser reads: “An American who now lives in Peru finds that she no longer must fend off unwanted offers for credit cards and loans,” which highlights one of the unanticipated benefits I gained from our move to Lima last year. That benefit might entice some overwhelmed Americans to consider moving to Peru to experience a reprieve from credit offers or to weather out the economic crisis. I’ve heard from several friends, and a few strangers, that the idea has crossed their minds in the last month. Closing the door on a…