Best Places In The World To Retire

The standard of living in San Miguel de Allende is like everywhere else- it depends on how much money you have. I have lived very economically where I was paying US $200 a month for rent for a clean, decent apartment that was nice and wasn’t a dump. I had nice neighbors and it was quiet and clean. It was small, but for $200, what would you expect? 

 

I have also paid about $300 a month...

The standard of living in San Miguel de Allende is like everywhere else- it depends on how much money you have. I have lived very economically where I was paying US $200 a month for rent for a clean, decent apartment that was nice and wasn’t a dump. I had nice neighbors and it was quiet and clean. It was small, but for $200, what would you expect? 

 

I have also paid about $300 a month for an exceptionally nice apartment. It was quite lovely, and that was a good deal. As long as you don’t try to find a place through the Internet, you can get a good deal. If you use the Internet, you’re going to pay twice as much. If you wait until you arrive here, during the high season, you might have trouble trying to find a place, but during any other time of the year, you’re going to have choices for maybe 30% off; it’s going to be a lot cheaper. I highly recommend not finding a place to rent on the Internet, unless you don’t want to save money. If you want to save money, wait until you get here and ask around. Maybe even the realtors will give you good deals, too.  

 

You get more quality for less money in San Miguel de Allende.  An apartment in Davis, in northern California, is going to cost you over a thousand dollars, but you can get a rough equivalent here for maybe $500. In San Miguel de Allende, I’d say that you’re paying less than half for the same quality for an apartment, and maybe with a lot more charm and a lot more interest.

 

As to other components to the standard of living in San Miguel de Allende, we have the Fabrica La Aurora, which has over 50 art galleries with high quality and high end art from really accomplished artists. I’m an artist, so I suppose I’m a little biased. You can go in there any time for free and spend the day walking around. They also have café’s where you could sit and enjoy your coffee, and talk to people.

 

You can also go into the Jardin, where you could sit for free. There are always people to talk to, and they’re friendly. The Jardin is a social place, but if you don’t want to socialize, you can tell people to go away. Most people are approachable and will talk to you if you’re new in town. People are very friendly and you can learn a lot. You can spend the day looking at the beautiful cathedral, sitting under the sun or a shade as you please, and it doesn’t cost a nickel.  

 

(Art Gallery and former factory, Fabrica La Aurora with Best Places in the World to Retire, Jet Metier, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pictured.)

You don’t have to own a car in the Algarve but many people do own cars here.

 

The Algarve is a little tricky in the sense that the distances can be misleading. Nothing is very far in the Algarve. A lot of people say they want to be able to be close to the coast, which they will define as about half an hour away, but you can be anywhere in the Algarve in half an hour’s drive.

 

But it is where you want to be in 5 to 10...

You don’t have to own a car in the Algarve but many people do own cars here.

 

The Algarve is a little tricky in the sense that the distances can be misleading. Nothing is very far in the Algarve. A lot of people say they want to be able to be close to the coast, which they will define as about half an hour away, but you can be anywhere in the Algarve in half an hour’s drive.

 

But it is where you want to be in 5 to 10 minutes walking distance that becomes tricky. There are lots of these areas, residential suburbs in the outskirts of towns and cities, which are generally too far to walk into a town and just too uncomfortable for public transport, which is sometimes infrequent on these small secondary roads. We find more and more people requesting a place that is within walking distance to the town center, shops, and restaurants because in that sense, you can do without a car. If you are in a town like Lagos, Portimão, or Faro you will find that they have the bus networks that can take you anywhere in the city so you wouldn’t need a car.

 

If you are going out of the town or the cities, having a car is definitely advisable.  

 

(The beach at Praia da Luz, Algarve, Portugal, pictured.)

I live in the Cayo district in San Ignacio, Belize, and have lived here all my life. Thankfully, I’ve never had issues with crime. When you look at our area compared to Belize City, and if you read the news, there’s a lot of crime going on in Belize City, but a lot of it has to do with petty crime, gang-related or drug- related crime. Basically, it’s just one gang getting even with the other one. Thankfully, there are really no gangs in our areas, so there are...

I live in the Cayo district in San Ignacio, Belize, and have lived here all my life. Thankfully, I’ve never had issues with crime. When you look at our area compared to Belize City, and if you read the news, there’s a lot of crime going on in Belize City, but a lot of it has to do with petty crime, gang-related or drug- related crime. Basically, it’s just one gang getting even with the other one. Thankfully, there are really no gangs in our areas, so there are no gang fights and gang rivalries.

There is crime in my area, but it’s usually petty crime like burglaries. Crime is something you really can’t avoid. It can happen anywhere, but there are security measures that you can take to be on the safer side. You just have to be smart about what you do and how you do it. For example, you don’t walk the streets late at night, like 11:00 or midnight. I don’t do it and I’m a local. You just don’t flash cash in front of people or wear lots of jewelry or brand name clothes because you can become a target. This is because foreigners stand out so much, they have to be careful.

For example, I had a neighbor who would park his car outside his yard. I told him to park his car inside his fence, but he said that he never had any trouble and he had been parking his car outside his yard for a long time. One morning, when I was taking out the garbage, I noticed that his car was missing a window.  The reason this happened was because he had gotten home at midnight and he had forgotten to click the alarm, and he was being watched.

As for the shore and in the Cayes Islands, I have friends who live in Hopkins, which is on the shore. They are a couple from Canada and they love living there. They blend nicely with the locals and have made friends with the fishermen. They cook together with the ladies. If you look at the news, there’s hardly any crime going on, for example, in Placencia or in Hopkins. On the islands, you might hear about some crime, but it’s about somebody who went home late at night or somebody at a nightclub who was under the influence of alcohol or drugs and they were a target. Like I said, staying safe is just being smart.

 

There are many older people who live in Granada who have never been to Managua, even though now it is only 45 minutes away by car. The reason is that, before they improved the highway, it took two hours to get there.