Best Places In The World To Retire

To add more information to Spencer's answer, as a tourist any person can own property or purchase property in Mexico. (A tourist cannot purchase property near a border of the sea or lake.  Only Mexicans can purchase property within  certain meters of the shore of the sea).

 

Also as a residente temporal status you cannot be a shareholder in Mexican corporations, or open or start a Mexican corporation. 

 

To add more information to Spencer's answer, as a tourist any person can own property or purchase property in Mexico. (A tourist cannot purchase property near a border of the sea or lake.  Only Mexicans can purchase property within  certain meters of the shore of the sea).

 

Also as a residente temporal status you cannot be a shareholder in Mexican corporations, or open or start a Mexican corporation. 

 

To work in Mexico the Instituto Nacional de Migracion (the Mexican immigration department) requests that any Mexican corporation or employer in order to hire a foreigner must have more Mexican employees than foreign ones.  Also a foreigner with residente temporal or residente permanente cannot work in the Mexican government. 

 

(Former steel mill, Monterrey, Mexico, pictured.)

 

 

 

 

The worst reason to retire in Belize is if you are on the run. If you are on the run or if you are trying to escape from something, do not come here. Belize is completely on the radar and we regularly deport people back to the US with US Marshals, so this is not the kind of place where you can escape and hide. John McAfee (an anti-virus software pioneer), tried to escape here and then he tried to escape back to the US. So, this isn't a place that you can run to. This is a place where...

The worst reason to retire in Belize is if you are on the run. If you are on the run or if you are trying to escape from something, do not come here. Belize is completely on the radar and we regularly deport people back to the US with US Marshals, so this is not the kind of place where you can escape and hide. John McAfee (an anti-virus software pioneer), tried to escape here and then he tried to escape back to the US. So, this isn't a place that you can run to. This is a place where you can come to, not run to.
 
The other worst reason to move to Belize is if you really think that you can get an entirely different culture here in Belize. The North American culture is here, too. We might not have the big box stores, we might not have the brand names or kind of locations that we have in North America, but that undertone is here in Belize, because of the American TV that we get. With marketing efforts coming down here, when people are making choices such as which kind of chips to import, do we do plantain chips or banana chips, or do we get Doritos? Everybody has been watching the Doritos ads from the Super Bowl, so they bring in Doritos here. You are not escaping the things that you know by escaping here. You are still accessing them.
 
It is not a complete change of lifestyle and culture. If that is what people are looking for, then they might need to look farther away in the world in order to get a complete culture shift. The culture of Belize is very similar to the culture that we live in at home in North America. It is very westernized here, so if you are looking for something that's not westernized, then this is not the place. 

There are no government hospitals or private medical facilities on Bastimentos. The nearest (small) hospital with no specialists to speak of is in Bocas town. There is a slightly better hospital in the mainland town of Changuinola, 1 hour away including water taxi to the mainland, and there are perfectly good private hospitals in the mainland town of David, a 4 hours trip away (counting getting to the mainland). You are also 1 hour away by plane, from world class medial...

There are no government hospitals or private medical facilities on Bastimentos. The nearest (small) hospital with no specialists to speak of is in Bocas town. There is a slightly better hospital in the mainland town of Changuinola, 1 hour away including water taxi to the mainland, and there are perfectly good private hospitals in the mainland town of David, a 4 hours trip away (counting getting to the mainland). You are also 1 hour away by plane, from world class medial services in Panama City.