Best Places In The World To Retire

The best place to retire depends on the person, and what they’re looking for.  In order to do this, you need to establish the reason you’re moving before you pick a place.  The best place for another person may not be the best place for you.  You need to get clarity on why you’re moving, what you want to accomplish, and what you want your daily life to be like.
 
Write out your ideal day.  When you wake up, who do you see around you? ...

The best place to retire depends on the person, and what they’re looking for.  In order to do this, you need to establish the reason you’re moving before you pick a place.  The best place for another person may not be the best place for you.  You need to get clarity on why you’re moving, what you want to accomplish, and what you want your daily life to be like.
 
Write out your ideal day.  When you wake up, who do you see around you?  What do you see around you?  Is it mountains?  Is it a beach?  Is it farmland?  A valley?  Skyscrapers?  Then, go from there.  What do you eat for breakfast?  Would you want some tropical fruit?  That tropical fruit could be falling off the trees in Nicaragua, where there could be mangoes in the road, pineapples and watermelons growing on the side of the road.  Or, perhaps you would prefer a baguette and an espresso.  There are no espresso machines in a lot of places in Nicaragua and Ecuador, for example, unless you have it at your house.  There’s no cappuccino.

 

(Pictured to the right and above: Corn Islands, in Nicaragua.)
 
What would you like to do in your normal day?  This is something that, otherwise, we don’t generally get to choose.  All the way from being a five year old in kindergarten through school and then work, most of us don’t get to define our day.  What would you do if you could do whatever you wanted?  Would you like to go whitewater rafting, would you like to go hiking, would you want to sit at a café in a city and sip your coffee and read a book?  What is your ideal day?  Maybe you don’t want to see any people.  Maybe you want to live on the top of a mountain only surrounded by nature.  
 
Once you have a clear idea of what your day would be like, then move to the finances.  How much money do you have to live on each month?  Most of us aren’t going to be living in a chateau in Switzerland, which is one of the most expensive countries in the world.  Of course, the more you have to live on each month, the more flexibility you’ll have in choosing your best place to live.
 
After you’ve defined what you want your typical day to be like and you’ve come to terms with your budget, you need to do your research.  This is the point where it’s really good to have someone to help you, even for an hour or so to get a real perspective from someone who’s worked in the place you’re considering or lived there.
 
We have lists of countries and areas that are the best and the worst, based on very specific criteria.

 

(Pictured to the right: France)