Live and Invest Overseas
The Best Places To Retire In 2025 Report
FREE REPORT: THE BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN 2025
We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.
  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    Learn More About This Event
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    Learn More About This Event
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
 Moving Out Of The U.S?

THE 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN 2025

the 10 best places to retire in 2025

PLUS: A SPECIAL BONUS DESTINATION

Simply sign up to receive the FREE daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we’ll immediately email you our editors’ latest research report… absolutely FREE

We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

Home Lifestyle

Why Returning To America Has Made Me Glad I Live Overseas

World’s Greatest Country?

by Lief Simon
Jul 07, 2023
in Lifestyle
0 0
Bridge of the Americas, Panama

iStock/LisaStrachan

I’ve been back in the United States for a short while—and I’ve already had enough.

My takeaway is that, to borrow a line from Will McAvoy’s opening monologue in the first episode of the HBO series “Newsroom,” America isn’t the greatest country in the world.

Now, if you’re an American reading this, before you reach for the delete key in anger or begin typing out an email to tell me how I’m all wet, stick with me.

Quality Of Life In America

In every way that you can measure quality of life, the United States doesn’t rank number one. It ranks well in many categories but not best in any one that I’m aware of (now’s your chance to send an email telling me how I’m wrong… I’ll appreciate being set straight).

However, this is a big place, and, even in categories where the United States excels overall, parts of the country lag far behind the developed world.

Take infrastructure, for example. Every time I’m in the United States, I’m struck by the poor quality of the infrastructure. The roads I’m traveling every day here in rural Illinois aren’t in any better condition than roads I drive anyplace else in the world where I spend time.

And they’re far worse than roads in France, for example, where I’ve got a lot of experience behind the wheel.

This is true not only in the context of roads in northern Illinois.

The broken asphalt and pot holes I’m bumping over every day here are similar to those in downtown Houston and suburban Baltimore, two other places in this country where I’ve spent time in the last few years.

Cell phone coverage, likewise, is hit and miss. Here in Woodstock, my phone gets one bar at best and most calls are going straight to voicemail. The internet service is maddening.

And it’s not just infrastructure…

What Is Going On With Health Care And Diet?

Health care in the United States is a factory experience. One reason I’m here in Illinois is to help my mother with some health problems. The experience is eye opening in the worst possible way.

Old people in this country go to various doctors regularly for one ailment after another. The result in every instance, as far as I can tell, is for the doctor to prescribe a pill or an injection.

Two out of three commercials on television are for prescription drugs. “Ask your doctor about blah, blah, blah,” every one of them recommends in the end. And loads of aging Americans do. They ask, the doctors write out a prescription, and the patient goes away to buy more drugs to take along with all the other drugs he’s taking, feeding the health insurance and pharmaceutical conglomerates that run the health care industry in this country.

All those drugs come with long lists of side effects, counter effects, and potential complications.

Start Your New Life Overseas Today!
Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we'll send you a FREE report on the 10 Best Places To Retire In 2025.
We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

And don’t even get me started on the insane bureaucracy surrounding Medicare and U.S. health insurance and working out what’s covered and what’s not, what you’ll pay out of pocket and what you won’t…

In no other country on earth is health care bureaucracy so complex—or health care itself so expensive. In Panama, Kathleen and I pay US$35 to visit an excellent, English-speaking doctor. In France—ranked by the WHO as the best health system in the world—a family doctor visit costs 25 euros. And 70% of that can be reimbursed if you’re part of the national health care system.

There are excellent private health care facilities all over the world that rival any center of excellence in the States…

Despite all the medicating in the States (or, I’d say, at least in part because of all the medicating), the health of the average American is critically low. I haven’t checked the statistics, but my observational experience suggests that better than 70% of people in this country are overweight and half those are excessively overweight.

They go to their doctors with complaints related to being overweight. Rather than counseling the patient on lifestyle choices, the doctor, to make the point again, writes out a prescription.

It’s not like that elsewhere…

I don’t want to get into a debate about why people get fat (there, I used the word… not very “woke” of me). However, I believe that, in most cases, it’s because they eat too much and exercise too little.

The poor eating habits of the average American are understandable. You have to work hard here to eat healthy. I estimate that more than two-thirds of the grocery store where I’ve been shopping is given over to nonfood items. For every aisle offering fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and bread, there are at least two selling candy, chips, cakes, doughnuts, soda, and a lot of nonfood that I’ve never seen before.

I’ve taken to reading the nutritional labels on each item I’m considering buying. Every processed product has sugar listed among the top five ingredients. It’s no wonder more than 10% of the population of this country suffers from diabetes… and another 35% is considered pre-diabetic.

Enough about food.

Too Many Lawyers

Let’s talk instead about attorneys!

Television commercials in this country sell one of three things—drugs, charities, and lawyers. “Were you ever exposed to XYZ? If so, you may be eligible for a payout. Get in touch now to talk about filing a suit…” recommend the sleezy attorneys in bad suits.
Like prescription medications and sugary foods, lawsuits have become an industry in this country. We should all aspire to go our whole lives without one, but they are being pushed on us from all angles.

(Forty million lawsuits are filed in America every year… and no doubt many of them are frivolous. Indeed, my latest issue of Simon Letter is all about how you can protect yourself from frivolous lawsuits by going offshore.)

Will My Neighbors See The Light?

Here in northern Illinois, most people seem happy with the lifestyle they’ve been sold. I’d say that’s because they’re not aware of the alternatives.

Like Will McAvoy, I’ve undertaken a mission to civilize. Or, well, to expand the minds of my neighbors here in Woodstock.

How’s it going so far? Not so well…

“Where do you live?” one lady wanted to know.

“Part of the year in Panama and part of the year in Paris,” I told her.

“But Paris is so dirty!” she said. “Everyone I’ve known who’s been there says the French are filthy. How can you stand living like that?”

Funny, I thought, I’m wondering the same thing about you.

I’m not anti-America and I’m certainly not anti-American, but I am anti-the lifestyle that I’m seeing all around me.

And appreciating the diversified lifestyle I’ve developed over the past 30 years more every day.

Stay diversified,

Lief Simon signature

Lief Simon

Editor, Simon Letter

Tags: 'France'Live abroadlive overseasPanamaParis
Share83Tweet52
Lief Simon

Lief Simon

Lief Simon has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents and traveled to more than 75 countries. His real estate investment career began with a $5,000 down payment on a three-flat building in Chicago. Less than three years later, Lief sold the building for a leveraged return of 3,000%—$150,000 in profit after closing costs and commissions.

From there, he turned his attention overseas and has bought property in 24 countries including France, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland, Belize, Spain, Argentina, Cyprus, Romania, and beyond. Thanks to his decades-long career as a global property investor, Lief has built a multi-million-dollar portfolio that includes rental properties, significant land holdings, and 7 personal residences.

Lief has established residency in 3 countries and acquired a second passport from Ireland.

In 2008 Lief and wife Kathleen Peddicord made the most important investment of their lives—a 215-acre oceanside finca, known as Los Islotes. There, on Panama’s largely undiscovered Veraguas coast, they’ve installed underground electricity, water, and internet and built a forever family home that sits at the heart of their ultimate vision: a gold standard private residential community for those in search of a true safe haven escape.

Lief’s latest book, “Cowboy Millionaire—The New American Pioneer,” collects all the wisdom he has learned in three decades of living and investing outside America.

He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches. For real estate investment opportunities, check out his monthly Global Property Advisor service.

If you’d like to meet Lief in person, join him for one of our upcoming in-country conferences. You’ll find further details here.

Start Your New Life Overseas Today!
Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and we'll send you a FREE report on The 10 Best Places To Retire In 2025.

We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.
Our Expertise Unlocks The World

quick links

  • Best Places To Live
  • Best Places To Retire
  • Finding A Job Overseas
  • Real Estate

LIOS Resources

  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs
the 10 best places to retire in 2025
Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and get your FREE REPORT: The 10 Best Places To Retire Overseas In 2025

We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

As seen in

US Media Logos

© 2008 – Live and Invest Overseas™ – All Rights Reserved.

About Us / Contact Us / Privacy Policy / Terms / Unsubscribe
Facebook-f X-twitter Youtube Linkedin-in Instagram

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
HOME

Top Countries

  • Spain
  • Portugal
  • Panama
  • Belize
  • Colombia
  • Cyprus
  • Mexico
  • France
  • Montenegro

Best For:

  • Health Care Abroad
  • Retirement Living
  • Cost Of Living
  • Investing in Real Estate
  • Establishing Residency
  • Gun Ownership
  • English Speakers
  • Safety
BROWSE ALL COUNTRIES

Budgets

How Much Will It Cost
To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
  • Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
  • La Rochelle, France
  • Mazatlán, Mexico

Luxury

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • The Panama City Beaches
  • Paris, France

Resources

Global Living

  • Living & Retiring Overseas
  • Raising A Family Abroad
  • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
  • Offshore & Diversification

Making Money

  • International Real Estate
  • Banking
  • Employment
  • Investing
Meet Our Experts

Real Estate

Overseas Property Alert 

 

How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams

VISIT SITE

Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

 

Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

READ MORE

Explore Our Latest Posts

 

Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

EXPLORE

Conferences

Live and Invest In Spain Conference

VALENCIA, SPAIN Sep. 17-19, 2025
Learn More About This Event

Offshore Wealth Summit

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA Oct. 15-17, 2025
Learn More About This Event
PRE-REGISTER

GREECE WORKSHOP

VIRTUAL Nov. 13, 2025
Learn More About This Event
PRE-REGISTER
MORE EVENTS

Contact Our Events Team:

Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
1 (888) 627 8834

From Outside North America:
1 (443) 599 1221

Working Hours
Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

Store

Overseas Havens Reports

  • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

Conference Kits

  • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

Lahardan Books

  • Titles on living and investing around the world

Services

  • Overseas Living Letter: Affordable Retirement Guidance
  • The Simon Letter: Wealth Protection Insights
  • Global Property Advisor: Global Investment Opportunitites
VISIT OUR STORE

Free Report

THE 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN 2025

FREE REPORT: The 10 Best Places To retire in 2025

Sign up to receive the FREE daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter and we’ll immediately email you our editors’ latest research report…

We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

LIBRARY

Follow Us:

© 2008 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

RETIRE OVERSEAS AND LIVE LIKE ROYALTY

Sign up for FREE to learn how. Plus, check out our FREE report on THE 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE


We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.

RETIRE OVERSEAS AND LIVE LIKE ROYALTY

Sign up for FREE and learn how to live the good life on a modest budget, find bargain property, and more. Plus, check out our free report on the 10 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE.

We Value Your Privacy! We will not share your email address with anyone else, period.