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Home Retirement/Living

Top Retirement Havens For 2011

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Nov 09, 2010
in Retirement/Living
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“This Isn’t What We Expected At All”

On the opening afternoon of one of our Live & Invest in Panama Conferences last year, one of the attendees approached me, nervously, and said, “My wife and I don’t like it here. This isn’t for us. I think we’re going to leave and return to the States tomorrow. This just isn’t what we expected at all.”

“What did you expect?” I asked. “That is, what were you hoping for?”

“We like the beach,” the man replied. “For us, the idea of moving to Panama has been all about living at the beach.

“Plus, we’re on a very fixed income for our retirement. Already I can tell that we wouldn’t be able to afford living here in Panama City. We were hoping to find somewhere affordable on the ocean. I guess our expectations were unrealistic.”

“No,” I explained. “It’s not that your expectations were unrealistic. It’s that Panama City isn’t going to meet them. But that doesn’t mean you won’t find what you’re looking for in Panama.

“In fact, I think I know just where you should look. And here’s what I suggest:

“Stay on and finish out the conference. You’ll make many important and useful contacts and connections here. Then, when the conference is finished, travel out to the Azuero Peninsula, to the town of Las Tablas. I think that there you’ll find exactly what you came for…”

I forgot about this conversation until earlier this week, when we received an e-mail from that reader. Here’s what he wrote:

“Kathleen and crew, after attending your Live and Invest in Panama City seminar, my wife of 44 years and I decided to purchase a home and live now, full time, in Las Tablas, Panama! Just wanted to let you know how things turned out…”

My point isn’t that you should move to Las Tablas. My point is that you shouldn’t judge any country by the first city within it that you happen to visit.

Belize City, for example, is a wholly unappealing place, poor, dirty, and unsafe in parts. Belize, on the other hand, is a delight and one of my favorite places in the world. Don’t land in Belize City, wander around for a few days, and decide (as a friend did recently) that all Belize is a hell hole. You’re missing out.

Likewise, Managua. You’ve got to pass through it if you want to travel in Nicaragua, because that’s where the international airport is located. But you don’t want to stick around. The charms and attractions of this country are to be found inland in colonial Granada and along the Pacific coast.

The landscape, the climate, the cost of living, the level of safety, even the tax rates vary city by city, region by region anywhere. You know this to be true back home. Florida isn’t Texas…Manhattan isn’t Detroit. But, somehow, we can forget this once we cross international borders.

Buenos Aires isn’t Cafayate…Chiang Mai isn’t Bangkok…Paris isn’t Languedoc…etc.

Even I forgot this, I fear, when drafting my letter to you yesterday, in which I shortlisted our top havens for 2011. I recommended 11 countries that, as we move toward the New Year, should be dead center of your retire-overseas radar.

This does you no good, though, because you aren’t going to retire to any one of these countries. You might, though, choose to retire to a city or a town or a beach or a neighborhood in one of them.

Therefore, today, I’d like to revise my list of the World’s Top Overseas Havens for 2011, to thin-slice it, as we say, and therefore to make it more useful for you, as you continue your thinking and planning.

Super Cheap

#1: Leon (cheapest), Granada, or San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

#2: Cuenca, Ecuador

#3: Medellin, Colombia

#4: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Moderate

#1: Las Tablas (cheapest), Panama City, or Boquete, Panama

#2: Montevideo, Uruguay

#3: Buenos Aires or Mendoza, Argentina

#4: Ambergris Caye or Cayo, Belize

#5: Kuala Lumpur or Penang, Malaysia

Luxury on a Budget

#1: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (This one I got right yesterday…)

#2: Southwestern France

Kathleen Peddicord

P.S. These aren’t the only places on our radar as we move toward the New Year, and they certainly aren’t the only places in the world where you could live or retire well. All these places, though, provide particularly appealing lifestyle and cost of living options that we’ll continue to draw out for you over time.

In addition, in the New Year, our editors and correspondents will be scouting in the Philippines, Chile, Vietnam, Laos, Peru, Croatia, and beyond…

Tags: 'top retirement havens'2011retirement havens for all
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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