Why I decided to stay in Colombia during the pandemic

This article is of a more personal nature, so if you’re looking for discussions on investment, you may want to check out some of my other articles.

A year or more ago, we were all facing a lot of uncertainty regarding what was going to happen next. Ironically, I had just watched a long documentary on the Spanish flu, and then, mere days later, we all shut ourselves in for a long while. In fact, for many people here in Colombia, many of us shut ourselves in voluntarily, days before it became a legal requirement!

As the year 2020 wore on, I became more and more convinced that I needed to not leave Colombia and wait out the pandemic here.

My reasoning behind staying in Colombia

I had several reasons why I decided to stay put. Here there are, in no particular order:

• Colombia is my home now, and I didn’t want to be caught out away from home.
• Colombia has great internet infrastructure, so I had no problem working from home.
• This same great internet allowed me to stay in touch with family in other countries, etc. (since I didn’t share a household with them I’d have had trouble seeing them in person in many cases, anyways.
• The cost of living here is much much cheaper than in Canada or the US.
• I would have missed the people here too much. The number one reason I live here instead of just investing here is the people in the first place.
• The health care here is much better than Canada, and much less expensive than in the US.

Now, in May 2021, I look back on that time, when I was wondering if I should go back “up north” to Canada or the US (I’m a dual citizen) to wait the pandemic out. I’m very glad that I decided against that move, and stayed in Colombia the whole time.