Panama’s Cost Of Living Comparison. Part III
Where Panama is NOT cheaper:
Plane Ticket
Panama City, Panama to San Jose, Costa Rica (1 hour flight): $400
Panama City, Panama to Buenos Aires, Argentina (8 hours): $906
NYC to D.C. (1 hour flight): $106
NYC to LAX (8 hours): $312
Consumer goods
The mainstreaming of discount shopping websites like Amazon, Ebay, Overstock, and more, has streamlined bargain shopping. Although you can ship products down to Panama, it’s hardly cost effective.
For example, I was considering buy a discounted Flip camera off the internet and shipping it to Panama. It was priced $25 off and shipping was $6. Thus, I would save $19. However, international shipping to Panama was $47. The increase shipping negates most all internet savings.
The Flip camera is the size of approximately a standard smartphone. Imagine trying to ship something large like furniture. It is not cost effective.
Internet service
States: $40 for 20mg fiber optic
Panama: $450 for 15mg satellite
Please, add other price comparisons from other parts of the world.
Where Panama is cheaper. Where Panama is kinda cheaper, kinda not.
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Evan is an expat from Seattle, WA. This blog is about being Gringo in Panama for the past 5 years. Also, check out his travel book series - 
Dawn on Thu, 22nd Jul 2010 6:33 pm
I am SO glad you posted this. I know people still want to move to Panama SIMPLY because it is ‘more affordable” than the US.
Mara Yanoshik on Sun, 25th Jul 2010 4:10 pm
I always think about the little savings that we have down here. IT is a huge disappointment that flights are the biggest price difference. I really wish to fly to Costa Rica or Colombia it would be equivalent to the distance but that just isn’t the way it works here. Oh well, we are taking the good with the bad!
jim on Tue, 27th Jul 2010 11:06 am
it seems that all the hype about panama good for retiring gringo has lost its ump…realestate prices are out os site and utilities are unheard of…..jim
dds on Tue, 7th Sep 2010 8:22 pm
My guess is the Internet usage is based on somewhere outside Panama City.
I pay $30 for 4Mb/s ADSL in a new development. There is some part of the HOA fees that go towards subsidizing this (they offer a lower plan for no cost), but $450 is much too high for a xDSL/Cable-based connection.
The latency on Satellite is also terrible and should be avoided if you can can any type of wired-based connection.
Otherwise, good info around!