You don't have to sell everything you own, say good-bye to everyone you've ever known, and take off for a new life in some distant and exotic place, never to be heard from again. That's not the only way to realize the benefits of retiring overseas.
You can, as Adriane put it, "Just dip a toe in."
This retire overseas idea is enjoying more attention today than ever, especially in the United States, where Boomers at and approaching retirement age are coming face-to-face with figuring a plan for how they're going to spend this next phase of their lives. With many years, even decades of healthy living still to look forward to, this current generation of retirees is more interested than any that has preceded it in considering outside-the-box opportunities. Certainly, retirement in the States these days is no longer about making a choice between Arizona and Florida.
The options for a rewarding, fulfilling, and affordable retirement today are limited only by the retiree's imagination.
Well, to be fair, his imagination...and his capacity for bold and brave.
This was the point Adriane reminded me of when we spoke this week.
"I'm intrigued and infatuated," she said, "by the idea of retiring to another country. But, frankly, I'm also pretty sure I'm not ready to make a full-time leap. I'm more interested," she explained, "in Snowbird options."
The U.S. News & World Report reporter who interviewed me this week about the book asked how I recommend someone just beginning to consider this idea get started.
Adriane Berg's approach is the perfect getting-started strategy. Don't imagine that it's all or nothing. Don't think in terms of a full-time move for the rest of your life. To start, think, for example, about spending a few months a year someplace new and interesting, warm and welcoming.
Retirees from upstate New York and the Dakotas have been migrating south for decades. The difference today is that your viable, even easy, and certainly appealing options can take you much farther south...or maybe across the Atlantic...or even very Far East. Panama is the new Florida. Mexico and Nicaragua dramatically more alluring (in my estimation) alternatives to a Sun City retirement in Arizona.
Other good part-time retirement havens are Argentina andUruguay, where the seasons are the reverse of those in North America. These aren't tropical getaways but offer more cosmopolitan wintertime escape options.
Other places that make sense as part-time retirement choices are those where establishing full-time residency is a hassle or, perhaps, impossible. You'll have your work cut out for you trying to organize full-time legal residency as a retiree in Croatia, for example. And many foreigners remain indefinitely in Thailand without formalizing their stays, making regular "visa runs," as they're called, every few months to refresh their tourist papers. I don't recommend this, of course. Easier and safer simply to limit your visit so that you don't overstay your tourist visa, making Thailand another good part-time option.
My point is, if you're just warming up to this idea of spending your retirement years in a new country, take the pressure off. This isn't all or nothing. You can think part-time.
Better yet, you can start by just taking a trip. Which warm, welcoming, interesting, affordable overseas haven has your interest?
Book a plane ticket and go visit. Spend a few weeks or a month. Treat it as a holiday. And see where this getting-started journey leads.
It could be the fun and easy first step of your rich, satisfying, adventure-filled new life overseas.
Kathleen PeddicordP.S. What else this week?
ALSO THIS WEEK, from resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon: The idea of investing in real estate, especially preconstruction real estate, along the north coast of Brazil has been receiving a lot of attention over the last handful of years. The argument in favor goes like this:
Brazil is self-sufficient for energy, has a rapidly growing middle class, will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, and boasts miles and miles of sandy beaches.
What more could a real estate investor want?
I looked at Brazil before all the recent frenzy, back in 2003 and 2004. After a couple of trips, I decided that, while an argument could be made for why to invest in real estate in this country, I could identify far easier places to make money buying, holding, and selling property. While you could find opportunities in Brazil, I concluded that the average investor was better off looking elsewhere...
Read more...
You can, as Adriane put it, "Just dip a toe in."
This retire overseas idea is enjoying more attention today than ever, especially in the United States, where Boomers at and approaching retirement age are coming face-to-face with figuring a plan for how they're going to spend this next phase of their lives. With many years, even decades of healthy living still to look forward to, this current generation of retirees is more interested than any that has preceded it in considering outside-the-box opportunities. Certainly, retirement in the States these days is no longer about making a choice between Arizona and Florida.
The options for a rewarding, fulfilling, and affordable retirement today are limited only by the retiree's imagination.
Well, to be fair, his imagination...and his capacity for bold and brave.
This was the point Adriane reminded me of when we spoke this week.
"I'm intrigued and infatuated," she said, "by the idea of retiring to another country. But, frankly, I'm also pretty sure I'm not ready to make a full-time leap. I'm more interested," she explained, "in Snowbird options."
The U.S. News & World Report reporter who interviewed me this week about the book asked how I recommend someone just beginning to consider this idea get started.
Adriane Berg's approach is the perfect getting-started strategy. Don't imagine that it's all or nothing. Don't think in terms of a full-time move for the rest of your life. To start, think, for example, about spending a few months a year someplace new and interesting, warm and welcoming.
Retirees from upstate New York and the Dakotas have been migrating south for decades. The difference today is that your viable, even easy, and certainly appealing options can take you much farther south...or maybe across the Atlantic...or even very Far East. Panama is the new Florida. Mexico and Nicaragua dramatically more alluring (in my estimation) alternatives to a Sun City retirement in Arizona.
Other good part-time retirement havens are Argentina andUruguay, where the seasons are the reverse of those in North America. These aren't tropical getaways but offer more cosmopolitan wintertime escape options.
Other places that make sense as part-time retirement choices are those where establishing full-time residency is a hassle or, perhaps, impossible. You'll have your work cut out for you trying to organize full-time legal residency as a retiree in Croatia, for example. And many foreigners remain indefinitely in Thailand without formalizing their stays, making regular "visa runs," as they're called, every few months to refresh their tourist papers. I don't recommend this, of course. Easier and safer simply to limit your visit so that you don't overstay your tourist visa, making Thailand another good part-time option.
My point is, if you're just warming up to this idea of spending your retirement years in a new country, take the pressure off. This isn't all or nothing. You can think part-time.
Better yet, you can start by just taking a trip. Which warm, welcoming, interesting, affordable overseas haven has your interest?
Book a plane ticket and go visit. Spend a few weeks or a month. Treat it as a holiday. And see where this getting-started journey leads.
It could be the fun and easy first step of your rich, satisfying, adventure-filled new life overseas.
Kathleen PeddicordP.S. What else this week?
- "My garden is a mass of primroses, daffodils, violets, tulips, fruit blossoms, and camellias," writes FranceCorrespondent Lucy Culpepper from the Béarn region in the southwest of that country.
"In the distance, I can see a tractor plowing the deliciously rich, chocolate-brown soil in preparation for the coming maize season. A woodpecker is tapping away at a hollow tree in the woods behind the house, and a hoard of garden birds is busy chasing the emerging gnats to feed to their young.
"Spring has arrived in the Béarn!..."
- For many, the driving agenda behind seeking out a new life in a new place is a desire to live on the beach. Right on the sand. With nothing between you and the water lapping at the shoreline. Uninterrupted views, uninterrupted access...the ability to step from your front door right on to the beach and to saunter at will down to the water's edge...
The truth is, though, there are limited options worldwide for this kind of front-line beach living. Your chances for enjoying a right-on-the-sand lifestyle supported by the amenities and services of a master-planned community are even fewer and what opportunities you find of this description typically come at a serious premium.
In Belize a couple of weeks ago, I spent the day ata place where this kind of true beachfront living within a planned community is not only possible but also affordable...
- In last Sunday's dispatch, I pointed you to top options if your primary agenda in seeking out a new life in a new country has to do with reducing your cost of living, elevating your standard of living, realizing your dream of a life at the beach, or pursuing adventure abroad without having to invest inlearning a new language.
Today, more shortcuts based on other compelling reasons for seeking out a new life in a new country...
- "'The main thing expats need to understand before moving to Panama," reports Panama Letter Editor Rebecca Tyre in her April issue (due out later this week), "is that you can't change the locals. You must accept their culture and enjoy it. Too many people move here with the idea that they will be able to change Panama and make it more like the place they left. They seem to forget that left wherever they came from for a reason. No place is perfect.'
"That's David Fuhman's advice to anyone considering a move to Panama. David has been living here for four years. Originally from the United States, David owned a bar and restaurant in Costa Rica before making the move to Panama. A Chiriqui resident, David said it was friends who first convinced him to give Panama a shot, and he's glad he did.
"'The best thing about living in Panama is that it's peaceful here. The people are wonderful, and everyone gets along with one another. Also, there's very little industrial pollution in Panama, which is another benefit.'"...
ALSO THIS WEEK, from resident global real estate investing expert Lief Simon: The idea of investing in real estate, especially preconstruction real estate, along the north coast of Brazil has been receiving a lot of attention over the last handful of years. The argument in favor goes like this:
Brazil is self-sufficient for energy, has a rapidly growing middle class, will host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, and boasts miles and miles of sandy beaches.
What more could a real estate investor want?
I looked at Brazil before all the recent frenzy, back in 2003 and 2004. After a couple of trips, I decided that, while an argument could be made for why to invest in real estate in this country, I could identify far easier places to make money buying, holding, and selling property. While you could find opportunities in Brazil, I concluded that the average investor was better off looking elsewhere...
