Expats

Lee is Latin America Editor and Senior Property Correspondent for Live and Invest Overseas. 

After spending six years flying with the US Navy, he completed a successful career in the nuclear power industry. Taking advantage of a post-merger early retirement offer, he left the US in 2001 at age 49 and retired to Cuenca, Ecuador.  

Since that time, Lee has enjoyed and invested in properties in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. And beginning in 2001, he’s written for a number of publications about living abroad, travel writing, and property investing. 

Lee has obtained residency in Ecuador, Uruguay, Colombia, and Mexico. And he’s visited as many as 17 countries per year throughout Europe and Latin America, traveling and writing about retirement and investment opportunities.  

Lee’s network of property insiders from those travels, along with his understanding of local cultures and languages, has helped him develop insight into local property markets that only the locals usually possess. 

With over 30 years’ experience of globetrotting, courtesy of the U.S. Navy, Dusty decided it was time for a change. Retiring from the Navy, Dusty next became a professor for the Ventura Community College District before going to work with a big box retailer. Repositioning to Hawaii he anticipated living out his retirement years in paradise. The downturn in the economy prompted Dusty and his wife Carolyn to seek new opportunities and new adventures overseas. In 2013 they became full-time adventure seekers residing in Chitré, Panama.

After 23 years of living in Northern Illinois, Darren and Wendy left their careers, family, and friends last year and moved to Medellin Colombia. Wendy was a partner in a mid-sized law firm while Darren split his time between financial investing and fine wine sales. Although they loved their small community of 4,000 people, and the house they had custom built 17 years earlier, they hated the long, bitter winters and the stressful careers which left them longing for the weekend and yearly vacations. After discovering Live & Invest Overseas they attended their first conference in Orlando Florida which opened the doors to the possibility of living overseas, sooner rather than later.

As a result of the first conference, they narrowed their choices to three countries – Ecuador, Belize, and Colombia. They attended LIO conferences in each country and spent additional time in each location, renting an apartment and living like locals. Once they had their boots on the ground, they knew that Medellin was going to be their next home. They sold their beautiful house and most of the furnishings, donated or sold personal belongings, cars, clothes, etc., and quit their jobs. They bought one-way tickets and landed in Colombia on October 28th.

Darren continues to trade on the Stock Market via high-speed internet (which is available all over the city) and Wendy has found a new passion in internet and travel writing. They have found an incredible apartment to rent, have made many new friends, and are learning Spanish with a private tutor three days a week. As Darren likes to tell people, they are now – Living the Dream in Medellin!

Lauren Brown is known in her community as a connector, event organizer, avid entrepreneur, marketing maven, and seasoned digital nomad/serial expat. 

Lauren graduated with honors from Loyola University in Maryland with a double major in Spanish and International business. For the last 10 years, Lauren has built a career working in Startups in San Francisco and throughout Latin America, while also launching businesses of her own. Her specialties have been in sales and marketing, specifically social media marketing for businesses. 

Originally from Massachusetts, Lauren has had many homes over the last decade including San Francisco, Mexico City, Bogota, Medellin, and now Santiago, Chile, where she has been residing for the last 3 years (7+ Years in total as an Expat in Latam).

Online businesses and social media strategies freed Lauren from the 9-5 life and allowed her to live abroad and travel the world. As a result, Lauren is now a coach for want-to-be expats, teaching mindset, business, and marketing strategies so that anyone can show up confidently online and launch a successful business so that they can live and work from anywhere. This September, Lauren is launching Anywhere Entrepreneur, an online community for expats, and a podcast featuring stories of expat and digital nomad life.  

You can find more information about her coaching programs, podcasts, and books at: www.Bylaurenbrown.com you can also follow her on Instagram instagram.com/bylaurenbrown. 

Darlene Gunter has been an expat for 18 years in the Dominican Republic. A former business owner in Canada, she gave up everything for the adventure. From sales to consulting, to owning and running companies in The Dominican Republic… she’s done it all. She has lived in several parts of the country which gave her a broader perspective of life in the DR. She currently employs 75 people in 8 different businesses. Darlene regards her DR life as her paradise.

Sasha Savinov is an English teacher, language student, blogger, and video producer from Michigan. He studied video production at Michigan State University (Go Green!) and moved abroad right after graduating, since living in China, Indonesia, and Mexico and currently trying the digital nomad lifestyle with his wife across South America. Together they run Grateful Gypsies, a blog focused on teaching ESL, long-term travel, being a digital nomad, and live music. When Sasha’s not working online and planning grand adventures, you can find him following his favorite band, Phish. 

Amy and Darrell Bushnell moved to Nicaragua in 2006 after five years of visiting this small yet intriguing country. After many months of research and work, the website www.nicaragua-guide.com was launched to help and entertain expats living here, visiting, or just thinking about it. It has a lot of information to answer the typical questions of potential and existing expats. They also publish the popular Nica Nuggets weekly community newsletter. 

Amy has an art studio/gallery in Granada where she teaches art five days a week while Darrell works with various foundations in the area.