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Rebecca Coutant is a former New Yorker, actuary, bond trader and bar & nightclub manager. She has finally found what she loves doing: living in and travelling around Belize, and telling people about it on her website/blog. Her advice: “Don’t wait until you are 65 to start getting happy.”
I am not one of the adventurers that you read about on many travel sites - scuba diving into deep, dark underwater caves or hitchhiking across Mongolia. In fact, the idea of camping in the wilderness does absolutely nothing for me (other than make my skin itch).
The picture in this blog is of me tasting a termite in the Belize jungle. That is a survival technique I will NOT be employing.
But travel? I’ve always loved it. And from a very young age, I planned (deep down in the back of my mind) to some day live on the beach. Goodbye Northeast U.S. winters of eternal darkness, hello Caribbean sun and tropical breezes. I had no clue how it was going to happen. I was wrapped up just like everyone else in the career-driven “Vacation? I don’t have time for vacation” craziness. And in maybe the most crazy corporate arena in the world, Wall Street bond trading.
But the idea was back there. A tiny little seed. Way down deep.
And then, at the age of 33, I was fed up. So tired of working and stress and not liking my job. I took six months off. New York would always be there. I’d find another job. Six months to catch up on vacations (sans the ever ringing cell phone) and then get back to work…sigh…the “real world.” I went to London and Paris, spent time in Sicily with friends and went sailing in Croatia. I was still planning to return to the working world.
And then for the very last week of my planned vacation, I visited Ambergris Caye, Belize with a friend. A week at the beach just lying in the sun, maybe some reading and swimming, just time to relax. And it turned into so much more than that. After about the second day, we both were totally hooked.
I’d been to beautiful beaches before but Ambergris Caye is more. Friendly, warm welcoming people and maybe most importantly, an entirely different pace of life. Not one person asked me THAT question. The first one that you are always asked in NYC: “So…what do you do?” For some reason I’d never really thought about it before, but in the states, that’s the way of sizing someone up, of putting them in a box. It felt fantastic to not talk about work but if it did come up, most people would hear “bond trader” and just look puzzled. Why WOULD you even know what a bond trader is?
So the long and short of it…I moved to Belize, but not on that trip. I took three more trips by myself over the next few months and couldn’t shake the feeling. Comfortable, welcoming, like I had lots of friends in the relatively small town of San Pedro, Belize. In the end, it was surprisingly easy to do. A few STUFFED bags…promises from friends that they would be down early and often…and I moved to a rented comfy condo on Ambergris Caye. Over the pool, feet from the ocean, where the temperature rarely dips below 70 F.
Has it always been simple? NO! I worked almost four long years managing a busy bar and restaurant and after a few years of almost constant work, I’m now making a living with my blog and website. (I wouldn’t have believed it myself). The adjustment from vacationer to expat can be a tricky one. But it has been so worth it. Belize is a tiny but AMAZING country with so much diversity - people, wildlife, culture and landscape.
The only thing I could have regretted was waiting for retirement to make this move. Belize suits me perfectly (most of the time) and I can’t get enough of it.