I have experience with SEO, inbound marketing, social advertising, analytics, email marketing and conversion optimization, so I'd be happy to discuss and help guide share some thoughts on where to start to get the most bang for your buck.

While other countries in the area are much easier to get to because they are closer and have invested billions of dollars promoting their tourism industry with great success, bringing direct ever more direct flights and massive investments to their country, Panama, although wealthier, has never cared to do that.

You need to have a streamlined process to deal with inbound requests.

Retiring, tourism, real estate investing, immigration, etc.

At 250k, that's 6.7 and 7.6% return blowing away most investmentsDrawbacks is that the income is based on tourism which has been great for the last decade minus covid lockdowns. 

I'd check local tourism statistics for the area as well to see if those are up or down. 

Back to your original topic (we investors do chase rabbits sometimes)...I am not aware of such a place that is not already in an established tourism/STR market.

And I prefer tourism areas that have been doing this a while instead of metro areas that don't depend on the tourism for their economy. 

If you don’t mind me asking Job growth and stabilityLimited land to hold value Tourism and revenue incomes streams as a city to gain exposureMilitary bases nearbyResort town/ beach town Commercial businesses coming into the area Tons of gentrification in the area with new construction 

Montgomery has a great rental market. 1)The last numbers I saw showed 47% of homes here are rentals. 2)That is due to a strong federal job market with federal courthouses, Maxwell and Gunter air force bases. 3)Lots of state jobs, about 10 colleges and universities, tourism, 3 major hospitals, 4)a Hyundai manufacturing plant, and Amazon is building a distribution warehouse.5) Low property taxes.6) Population growth.7) Landlord friendly state.8) We can typically hit the 1% rule on rent to price ratioFrom Wikipedia, Alabama has the second lowest property taxes behind Hawaii.2.