Provided by
Dow Jones
By Catey Hill, MarketWatch
She moved to a beautiful, laid-back island in 2013 -- and now, for a surprising reason, she's returning to North America
Marlene "Mar" Houghton never wanted a conventional life.
"Adventure -- that's what makes my heart sing," the now-63-year-old, former British Columbia resident tells MarketWatch. So when she happened across a story online about Belize being the next hot retirement destination about seven years ago, she almost immediately booked a flight.
"I got to Belize and fell in love. It's raw -- not like Hawaii or Mexico -- people are very nice, it's English-speaking. I just found it so fascinating and thought this might be an interesting place to do a coffee shop," Houghton tells MarketWatch, adding that she'd wanted to open a coffee shop abroad for years because she'd found it was often hard to find a good cup of coffee when traveling.