• About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
FREE REPORT
BEST PLACES TO RETIRE
*No spam: We will NEVER give your email address to anyone else.
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
Live and Invest Overseas
  • HOME
  • COUNTRIES
    • Top Destinations
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • France
      • Colombia
      • Dominican Republic
      • Thailand
      • Mexico
      • Spain
      • Argentina
    • Browse All Countries
    • Best For
      • Retire Overseas Index
      • Health Care
      • Cost of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Editor’s Picks For Retirement
      • Establishing Residency
      • Starting an Online Business
      • Single Women
      • Playing Golf
  • BUDGETS
    • Super Cheap ($)
      • Cuenca, Ecuador
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand
      • The Philippines
      • Las Tablas, Panama
      • Granada, Nicaragua
    • Cheap ($$)
      • Algarve, Portugal
      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Carcassone, France
      • Buenos Aires, Argentina
    • Affordable ($$$)
      • Abruzzo, Italy
      • Barcelona, Spain
      • Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
      • Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
      • Costa de Oro, Uruguay
    • Luxury On A Budget ($$$$)
      • Ambergris Caye, Belize
      • Paris, France
      • Panama City Beach Area
  • Real Estate
  • ARCHIVES
    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore Diversification
    • Our Latest On Coronavirus ⚠️
  • Making Money
    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing
  • CONFERENCES
  • BOOKSTORE
No Result
View All Result
Live and Invest Overseas
No Result
View All Result
Home Retirement/Living

A History Of Retiring Overseas

Live And Invest Overseas by Live And Invest Overseas
Apr 30, 2013
in Retirement/Living
0
A couple at an overseas beach - Retiring Overseas
209
SHARES
3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Like Hemingway and the Dalai Lama–A Brief History Of Retiring Overseas

Move overseas and you join a distinguished clan of expats. Think Marco Polo, Rousseau, Einstein, Hemmingway, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and the Dalai Lama. Think early Australians, forced to live down under after being sentenced to transportation back in England. Think businessmen, colonial administrators, agricultural workers, missionaries, and mercenaries.

Think retirees.

I’d like to share a very personal review of expat retirement over the past 60 years or so. Not to spoil the story, but I conclude, and I think you’ll agree, that overseas retirement looks better today than ever before. These days, expats move easily and seamlessly to Panama, Ecuador, and Belize…to Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam…to France, Ireland, and Spain.

Large numbers of Americans and Canadians first began retiring abroad in the 1950s. Most went to Mexico, most often to San Miguel de Allende and Ajijic/Chapala. They were pioneers. Friends Paul and Vicki Terhorst, called the “George and Martha Washington of retiring overseas” by SmartMoney magazine, got to know some of those pioneers. Those old-timers, often in their late 80s by the time Paul and Vickie met them, remembered a Mexico where no one spoke English. English-language newspapers and magazines showed up in the mail weeks and months after publication. Only governments and big businesses had phones. Moving money from one country to another was a big deal and required a major effort.

Perhaps as a result of those challenges, expats in Ajijic/Chapala, for example, tended to hang out together at the cafe on the lake. Every afternoon at cocktail hour the bar would fill up. Later in evening others arrived for dinner, music and dancing, maybe a show. They received mail at the cafe, and, by the 1970s, those who recently returned from the United States, brought movies on VHS.

Many of those pioneers in the 1950s and ’60s built modest houses, often on large, landscaped grounds in or near the city. Some of those compounds were later donated to churches, charities, and the American Society.

My friends Paul and Vicki became expats in 1981, not in Mexico, but in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentina had introduced color television three years before, as part of hosting the soccer World Cup. The four television stations offered programming in Spanish, never any other languages. In all of Buenos Aires, an urban conglomerate of maybe 10 million people in those days, you could make international phone calls in only one tiny office downtown. People waited in line for hours, even days, for access to one of the few international lines. Private, direct-dial phones had recently been introduced in downtown businesses, but, if you could get one at all, it cost you upwards of US$20,000. Fewer than 5% of Argentines had bank accounts, and cashing a check required about the same effort as getting gold out of Fort Knox.

Paul and Vicki and other expats in Buenos Aires in those days got their English-language news from the Buenos Aires Herald, still published today, and via shortwave, usually the BBC. During the 1982 war between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands (Argentina calls them the Malvinas Islands), Paul and Vicki hosted a cocktail party every day after work at their Recoleta apartment. They and their fellow expat friends would listen to the day’s war news on BBC shortwave. Argentina broadcast the war news, too, on Argentine TV. But local censors delayed the news for so long that the Argentine TV reports were out of date.

By this time, international air travel was well established. By the time Paul and Vicki retired in 1984, Ronald Reagan had deregulated airlines in the United States. Unfortunately for the airlines, that was about the last time anyone made any money in that industry. Paul, Vicki, and the rest of the American expat community, on the other hand, now were able to travel more often and enjoyed lower fares.

Paul and Vicki eventually became PTs, perpetual travelers, along with a handful of other expats, moving from place to place from time to time.

Along with lower airfares, a second game changer in those days was the introduction of money market accounts and the debit cards (now called cash cards or ATM cards) that went with them. With a money market account, savers could get 15% interest on cash savings, instead of the old 3% or so when the Fed capped deposit interest rates.

Debit cards meant expats and retirees overseas could travel without traveler’s cheques and without large amounts of cash. At first, they had to go into banks to get money, slapping down the debit card and passport to get the local currency they were after. Later, with the introduction of ATMs, they could access their cash even more efficiently.

Then came the biggest game changer of all–personal computers and the internet. With the internet, a few years later, came email, Skype telephone calls, online airplane tickets, online bank accounts, internet hotel reservations, and online tax return filing. Suddenly communication was so much easier.

Paul Terhorst tells a story about when his father died in California in 1992. At that time, he and Vicki were running around Thailand. To notify Paul, his brother in Los Angeles called a nearby friend who had traveled with Paul and Vicki in Thailand. The friend said that, if in fact Paul and Vicki were in Bangkok (they were, as it turned out), they would probably be at such-and-such hotel. Paul’s brother called the hotel but couldn’t understand anyone there. So he jumped in his car, drove to a Thai restaurant nearby, and asked if the cook spoke Thai. The cook did. Paul’s brother arranged for the cook to make the call for him and eventually got Paul on the line. What a thing!

Today, Paul’s brother would simply send an email. Or call, using Skype or a cell phone. What in 1992 required luck, persistence, and a Thai cook, these days takes only a simple click.

We expats and retirees overseas come a long way since the cozy, cafe society of Ajijic in the 1950s. We may miss some of the community camaraderie. I imagine it was great fun to wander down to the cafe and see friends every evening. Then again we can see friends today, too. And for sure we can get in touch with much more easily, with all of cyberspace at our disposal.

Kathleen Peddicord

Continue Reading: Comparing Retirement Life In Belize, Panama, Uruguay, And Colombia

Tags: 'Argentina''Buenos Aires''retirement''Thailand'Mexico'Paul TerhorstpioneersVicki Terhorst
Share84Tweet52
Previous Post

Budget For Your Retirement Overseas

Next Post

Tokyo Governor In Olympics Gaffe

Live And Invest Overseas

Live And Invest Overseas

Live and Invest Overseas is the world's savviest source for top opportunities to live better, retire in style, invest for profit, do business, and own real estate overseas. Established in 2008, the Live and Invest Overseas' editors and correspondents have more experience researching and reporting on top opportunities for living well, investing for profit, doing business, and owning real estate around the world than anyone else you'll find.

Related Posts

Caribbean beach in Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic

12 Reasons Why We Chose To Live In The Dominican Republic

by Kathleen Peddicord
June 30, 2022
0

"I've had enough of your Caribbean vacations for this year!" This is the response Bill Piatt got from his wife...

Read more
Senior woman with pink skirt and white shirt who retired alone at the beach

Retiring Abroad Alone? Here Are 6 Things To Know

June 27, 2022
Thai style garden located in Royal Park Rajapruek, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The Best Way To Beat Inflation For Retirees

June 26, 2022
Guanajuato, scenic city lookout near Pipila

How To Love Your Life Abroad After The Honeymoon Period Is Over

June 24, 2022
Taipei's City Skyline at sunset with the famous Taipei 101

The Top Affordable Places To Retire In Asia And Live Well

June 19, 2022
A grid with several Latin American countries

Finding The Best Places To Live In Latin America

June 9, 2022
Palms and beach at Caye Caulker island, Belize

Choose The Lifestyle You Want In Belize

June 6, 2022
Next Post

Tokyo Governor In Olympics Gaffe

Start Your New Life Today, Overseas

A world full of fun, adventure, and profit awaits! 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 Style Overseas Today.







LIOS Resources


  • New To LIOS
  • Ask An Expert
  • Media Center
  • Contact Us
  • FAQs

Quick Links


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

Sign up for our free daily e-letter, Overseas Opportunity Letter, and get your FREE report: The 10 Best Places To Retire Overseas In 2022

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Unsubscribe

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Countries
  • Budgets
  • Archives
  • News
  • Events
  • Bookstore
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Members Area
  • Contact Us

© 2008-2021 - Live and Invest Overseas - All Rights Reserved.

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.

RETIRE OVERSEAS AND LIVE LIKE ROYALTY

The World’s Best Places To Be In 2022?

Discover Them Here…