The Next Big Find: Where our Scouts are Headed Now

I began working at International Living nearly a decade ago--20 years after we first started identifying gorgeous real estate in not-yet-fashionable places...

Places where, in the worst case, you would always have a property you could enjoy. But where, in the best case--which often came to pass--your property would not only remain attractive…but also become much more valuable as the local economy improved and foreign buyers flocked.

We were first in Costa Rica in 1983…in Nicaragua in 1997…in Argentina in 2000…and in dozens of other destinations well before the mainstream media took notice of them.

We’d recommend a place to our readers…and they’d buy. Just as U.S. papers and TV news dished up heated reports about long-gone dictators…or financial crises that were already beginning to pass…or riots our friends on the ground would say they slept right through.

For almost three decades, ours has been a lonely beat. Our correspondents in the field buy plane tickets to places no one wants to fly…our scouts bribe captains to sail around the next bend in the river. Sometimes we find rich rewards. Always, adventure.

Thirty years ago, friends and family would scoff, “Who wants to spend time in places like Latin America?” But these days, the answer is: A lot of people. And they’ll spend not just time, but money, too. The markets we covered from our lonely outposts have become de rigueur.

In 1995, our readers jumped at beachfront lots on Roatan for $13,000 an acre. Today, lots half that size on the largest of the Bay Islands off Honduras list for more than $300,000.

Costa Rica did such a good job of marketing itself that today it’s an eco-haven everyone can name. Condé Nast Traveler glowingly recommends Granada in Nicaragua. Travel + Leisure recently voted Buenos Aires as one of the world’s top cities.

We got our readers to those places first. But we’re not sitting on our laurels. There’s always some “next” destination. Some place the daily papers and glossy travel magazines haven’t noticed yet.

In fact, in the April issue of International Living Magazine, we tell you about our favorite "next" destinations right now, places with real estate opportunities you could profit from.

From the piece of Mexican coast you probably haven't heard of (yet) that's about to get a $1.5 billion infrastructure investment…to the best place in Ecuador to own a vacation rental thanks to the high demand and low prices (for now)…to the former French colonial town in Cambodia that's about to return to its glory days as a favorite beach resort of high society…and more.

Find out more about these real estate opportunities in the April issue of International Living Magazine.

You have one day left to try International Living Magazine for a dollar. If you want instant access to the April issue, including the articles I mentioned above…plus instant access to every premium article we've published during the past 100 months…plus the members-only report "How to Retire in Paradise for $30 a Day"…all for just $1…then this is your last chance.

Len Galvin
Managing Editor, IL Postcards