Here’s How To Decide The Best Place For You To Retire Overseas
Returning to the office after two weeks in Istanbul, Lief and I find our Panama City-based staff hard at work on two important projects. Our team is simultaneously finalizing our 2014 Retire Overseas Index (to be presented in a special bumper issue of my Overseas Retirement Letter, due in subscribers’ inboxes Aug. 15) and preparing for our annual Retire Overseas Conference, taking place this year Aug. 29–31 in Nashville, Tennessee.
For both our annual Index and our once-a-year Stateside convention, the emphasis is on identifying and then detailing the pros and the cons of the world’s best places to think about reinventing your life. I thought you might appreciate a sneak preview. Here, therefore, are the world’s 21 best places to live, retire, or have the adventure of your lifetime right now…
- Argentina… From cosmopolitan Buenos Aires to Mendoza wine country…
- Belize… Beaches, rain forests, reefs, Mayan ruins, and rivers…
plus one of the easiest places in the world to get foreign residency… - Brazil… A huge, diverse nation boasting excellent investment opportunity and bargain beach properties…
- Chile… The ease and comfort of “First World” living, plus easy residency with little hassle…
- Colombia… A land emerging as one of the next great expat destinations, specifically Medellin, a European-feel city with a Latin American cost of living…
- Croatia… Affordable Mediterranean like it used to be…
- Ecuador… The most affordable place in the Americas to live well…
- France… The world’s best health care…world’s most beautiful city…and more affordable than you might think, especially in the secret “other” South of France…
- Honduras… Specifically Roatan…a white-sand-fringed island that qualifies as a top expat retirement haven in the Caribbean…
- Ireland… One of the world’s most welcoming nations now has a lower cost of living and cheap real estate thanks to the recent financial crisis…
- Italy… Your dream of la dolce vita is much more affordable than you think…
- Malaysia… Possibly the most welcoming Asian option, with its My Second Home program custom made for foreign retirees…
- Mexico… Accessible, affordable, and offering a great diversity of lifestyle options…
- Nicaragua… A long and glorious Pacific coastline…plus colonial Granada, the most romantic city in the Americas…
- Panama… The world’s #1 retirement and business haven…with still-emerging pockets of opportunity for real estate investment…
- Philippines… An English-speaking island chain in Asia that welcomes Americans…also boasts the only VA hospital outside the United States…
- Romania… An EU destination with a very low cost of living and bargain real estate…plus a playground for the would-be entrepreneur…
- Spain… An established haven for foreign investors and expats, with great beaches, markets, restaurants, attractions, and fiestas…
- Thailand… Super-affordable and exotic…
- Uruguay… Safe and stable…a great place to raise a family…like the America you remember from your childhood…
- Vietnam… A land with beautiful beaches, welcoming people, and a low, low cost of living…
However might you decide which of these tempting choices might be best for you?
I’ve been covering this beat for almost 30 years. I think it’s fair to say that I know just about everybody you want to know if you’re considering the idea of reinventing your life in a new country. I’ve put out a call, and more than 50 of these good folks—together the world’s savviest live-, retire-, and invest-overseas experts—have agreed to join me (and you) in Nashville next month.
I’ll be leading the discussions during the three days of the event, and my focus will be on drawing out comparisons…looking honestly and critically at the advantages and the disadvantages of each destination we’re featuring. Not only is this the most useful way to approach the question of where you should think about re-launching your life overseas…it’s also the most fun.
And, while creating a new life for yourself in a new country from whole cloth is, to be honest, a lot of work…this is also supposed to be fun, right?
Our discussions in Nashville next month, therefore, will be lively, interactive, and based in every case on firsthand experience. When considering options for where and how to retire to a new country, you don’t want an editor’s theory or a travel writer’s research. You want the real-time real deal from people who’ve done what you’re thinking about doing. In Nashville, you’ll meet more than four dozen of them, all convened with one agenda: To help you decide which haven is best for you based on what matters to you most…from weather and culture to language and cost of living.
What’s more, my one-of-a-kind Retire Overseas Conference will help you determine not only where to go…but also how to get there. In addition to real-life expats from the world’s top havens, I’ll also be joined in Nashville by my preferred global advisors—attorneys, tax advisors, shipping and insurance pros, residency experts, bankers, and more.
We host at least 10 events per year. This annual Retire Overseas Conference is my favorite. It’s my chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues around the world while introducing them to you and you to them.
See you in Nashville.
Kathleen Peddicord
Continue reading: How To Qualify For Pensionado Discounts And Benefits In Panama
