Best Places In The World To Retire

The cost of living in Chapala and Ajijic is low that you could have very nice quality things without spending a lot of money. Chapala is cheaper than Ajijic in everything – housing, restaurants, etc. Ajijic is a little more expensive than Chapala but I see people who live here off of their $1,200 a month pension. They live in a small nice house. They don’t often go out to eat at restaurants but they do go from time to time.

 

They also join...

The cost of living in Chapala and Ajijic is low that you could have very nice quality things without spending a lot of money. Chapala is cheaper than Ajijic in everything – housing, restaurants, etc. Ajijic is a little more expensive than Chapala but I see people who live here off of their $1,200 a month pension. They live in a small nice house. They don’t often go out to eat at restaurants but they do go from time to time.

 

They also join groups that do not cost them a lot like the Lake Chapala Society (LCS) where you pay an annual membership fee of 525 pesos ($29), which gives you a bridge groups, a group of other games to play, access to a book library, access to a movie library, different talks during the week, a movie club, and many more.

 

There are free services offered only to members of the LCS. After I paid my annual membership fee at LCS, I went to an optometrist the next day for free. They have people from government offices who give advice who speak once every week. The consulate of the United States from Guadalajara comes once a month and they could help you if you have any problem or if there is anything that their office can help you with. If you need to renew your passport, they take it, bring it to Guadalajara, and bring it back to Ajijic. You could also have legal assistance for free but of course the lawyer will tell you how much you will pay if you pursue anything legally but at least the legal advice is free so you would know whether to proceed. The LCS also holds classes or tutorials on how to use a computer, how to use your iPhone or you iPad, or how to speak Spanish. They also offer cheap trips such as trips to Costco in Guadalajara, which only costs 300 pesos ($16). They’d take you to Costco in a bus, you can then buy what you need and then come home. Nobody does that in other places in Mexico but we have that here in Ajijic.

 

(Graphic posted on the Lake Chapala Society page when the US consulate is in town, pictured.)

Retiring abroad always has significant challenges and risks that the person looking at moving abroad has to mitigate. For example, is your income going to be taxed in the country that you’re going to move to? How does the country you’re moving from tax the money if you don’t live in the country where you earned it?

 

Being an American citizen in Panama, which has a territorial tax system, what you’ll find in Panama depends on what...

Retiring abroad always has significant challenges and risks that the person looking at moving abroad has to mitigate. For example, is your income going to be taxed in the country that you’re going to move to? How does the country you’re moving from tax the money if you don’t live in the country where you earned it?

 

Being an American citizen in Panama, which has a territorial tax system, what you’ll find in Panama depends on what your income hurdles are. This means that the money that you earned from the United States is never going to be taxed the first cent in Panama, and if you don’t live in the United States, your first $100,000-plus of earnings in the United States isn’t going to be taxed.

 

There’s an advantageous living situation for an American citizen in Panama to enjoy without the burden of cumbersome United States taxes. That’s the overwhelming reason why many of the expats from the United States choose to live here in Panama, along with the food, and the rental and utility cost generally being at a par or much lower than in the United States. 

 

Another reason why someone would want to be hesitant in retiring abroad is the question of safety in the country that they’re looking at. Is the country safe for the retiree? There are many choices that you can make when moving abroad- there’s Europe, South America, Central America, and Asia. 

 

What I found here in Panama was a nice mixture of relative safety, not feeling like someone lives right on top of me all the time, feeling easy about going through American-style roads, feeling good that I can turn on the tap and drink the water out of it, being able to go to the grocery store and find things that I enjoy eating, and being able to go to the hardware store and find name brands that I enjoy using. For me here living in the Chiriqui Highlands, there’s also going into David and shopping for new name brand cars that I am familiar with and understand. These are all the reasons I was able to move to Panama and still feel like, in many ways, I still got to experience the American culture.  

 

(Gilbert children on a black sand beach, Panama, pictured.)

The dress code in Cayo is very casual. You could wear flip-flops and a t-shirt all year round.

 

My friends and I wear a little nicer sandal most of the time. We wear Capri pants and short-sleeved blouses. We have Belizean friends and Chinese friends here who all dress the same way.

 

There are opportunities for dressing up if you are a “fashionista.” The San Ignacio Hotel downtown, which is owned by a Belizean family, holds events where...

The dress code in Cayo is very casual. You could wear flip-flops and a t-shirt all year round.

 

My friends and I wear a little nicer sandal most of the time. We wear Capri pants and short-sleeved blouses. We have Belizean friends and Chinese friends here who all dress the same way.

 

There are opportunities for dressing up if you are a “fashionista.” The San Ignacio Hotel downtown, which is owned by a Belizean family, holds events where you can dress up.  A man might wear a nice shirt or light dress jacket and the ladies really nice dresses and high heels.

 

We have one small casino here and the locals like to go there because it is an inexpensive fun night out. I don’t gamble but a lot of my peers do gamble and when they do, they dress up a little bit more than the usual.

 

Around town the men usually wear cargo shorts and anything from a regular t-shirt to just a slightly nicer short-sleeved shirt. In the banks, you will see the employees wearing suits. When I set up my business here and I had the bank come out to install my credit card machine, the technician showed up in a suit. It was so hot but he wouldn’t take his jacket off.

 

(Volunteers in San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize, pictured.)

We do have crime in Portugal, but it’s not violent crime. One of the reasons that there are so many Brazilians and so many South Africans coming to Portugal now is because Portugal is so much safer than their countries.

 

The crime rate has gone up in Portugal.  Do you have houses burgled in Portugal? Yes, we do. But people are not violent. It’s not like in many other countries where they would probably shoot you first and steal from you...

We do have crime in Portugal, but it’s not violent crime. One of the reasons that there are so many Brazilians and so many South Africans coming to Portugal now is because Portugal is so much safer than their countries.

 

The crime rate has gone up in Portugal.  Do you have houses burgled in Portugal? Yes, we do. But people are not violent. It’s not like in many other countries where they would probably shoot you first and steal from you afterwards. But they do have people breaking in and they have probably youngsters on scooters who rush past you and grab your handbag. But compared to many other countries, the crime rate overall is very low.

 

There are certain areas of Lisbon that are poor areas and in which the crime rate is quite high. Portugal has to be very careful because of its long coastline makes it a natural transit point for drugs. The influx of drugs that also comes from Morocco also causes crime. Unfortunately, gone are the days when most of the Portuguese could leave their keys in the front door and that’s absolutely fine; you can’t do that today, so you do have to be aware. But every foreigner that I know here says that when they come home late, they don’t feel intimidated and nervous like they would in other places. As far as statistics go, I know that the crime rate has gone up but its not astronomical like a lot of countries.

 

In England, in London, I’ve never had any incidents there but my mother’s house was burgled and totally wrecked. In Brazil, I was attacked on a Saturday coming back from the supermarket. I’ve never, fortunately, had anything like that happen here in Portugal.

 

A lot of people ask, “Carol, where would you like to go back to live?” To answer, I think it’s easier to say where wouldn’t you like to live and that would mainly be because of security and I don’t have that feeling at all here in Portugal. And I have to say most of my friends who are foreigners and Portuguese say the same thing. They all feel safe in Portugal.

 

(A village in Baganca, Portugal, pictured.)

In order to work legally in Nicaragua, you have to be a legal resident.  Within reason, I am not aware of any restrictions on what jobs you can have based on you being a foreigner.

In order to work legally in Nicaragua, you have to be a legal resident.  Within reason, I am not aware of any restrictions on what jobs you can have based on you being a foreigner.