Best Places In The World To Retire

Shopping in the Algarve is good but not excellent. It’s not like 5th Avenue and it’s not Oxford Street, nor is it the Champs-Elysees, although the Champs-Elysees is quite complicated. You wouldn’t come to the Algarve to do your super-duper Christmas shopping. You wouldn’t come here to find a huge variety of high end luxury items. I can think of only one or two locations where there is a little bit of a cluster of high end stores and people might go there if...

Shopping in the Algarve is good but not excellent. It’s not like 5th Avenue and it’s not Oxford Street, nor is it the Champs-Elysees, although the Champs-Elysees is quite complicated. You wouldn’t come to the Algarve to do your super-duper Christmas shopping. You wouldn’t come here to find a huge variety of high end luxury items. I can think of only one or two locations where there is a little bit of a cluster of high end stores and people might go there if they are visiting and they need a special present.

 

The main focus on the shopping here in Algarve is pragmatic. There are half a dozen or more shopping centers across the Algarve. The largest ones are in Faro and just outside Albufeira in a place called Guia and also in Portimão. Those are the more obvious locations in which to find malls. Then there are smaller shopping centers in next level of towns going down like in Tavira, Loulé, Lagos, etc. And then there is still the existence of smaller shops like the bakery, the green grocer, and the like.

 

For clothes shopping, electronics, and furniture, we have medium-sized stores scattered in a retail park, which tend to be in bigger cities or alternatively, in the center of town. You might find a special clothes store in the center of Lagos or a special jewelry store in the center of Tavira, or a cork store that sells products made of cork in Silves. You will find these kinds of specialty stores in the towns and villages around the Algarve.

 

Generally speaking, the prices depend on the basis of comparison, but anyone coming from North America and Northern Europe find that shopping in the Algarve to be generally cheap. However, there are some exceptions. They would never find it more expensive than where they came from but they would quickly get accustomed to the lower cost of living and what they would see is that certain items are more expensive than others. Electricity, cars, fuel, and electronic items are not as cheap in the Algarve as one would expect, given the low cost of living in Portugal, particularly if you are coming from the US, where electronic good are so cheap. Electronics products might be even more expensive in the Algarve than they would be in the US. But generally speaking, if you are coming from the UK, you could easily cut 30% to 40% off your cost of living to live as a good as, if not a better quality of life.

 

(Moorish castle and hillside town of Silves, Portugal, pictured.)

 
We first thought that we would like to live in Turks and Caicos, some small islands with a small population in the Bahamas.  One of the things we thought we liked about it was the...

 
We first thought that we would like to live in Turks and Caicos, some small islands with a small population in the Bahamas.  One of the things we thought we liked about it was the beach.  It started out that we walked on the beach every day.  Then, we walked on the beach a few times a week, then, once a month.  It turned out that the beach wasn’t as important to us as we thought.  If we had bought in Turks and Caicos without fully understanding this, it would have been a mistake, at least for us.  (Maybe not for you, if you really love the beach.)
 
Later, we came down to Panama, to Boquete, to visit friends who lived here and were enthusiastic about retiring here, so their attitude influenced us.  In addition, the cost of living and the lifestyle we saw in Panama were totally different than what we had in Toronto, Canada, which is where we’re from, so we decided to build a vacation home in Panama.  Having a vacation home in Panama worked for us because we could visit before making the final move.
 
We knew more what we wanted because we had already done the beach scenario at Turks and Caicos, and even though we enjoyed it there, it became clear to us that our priorities were for golfing, the social activities in a retirement community, and the weather, so the beach started to take a second position, because we found that in Boquete, we had the things that we discovered were most important to us.
 
Another very important factor is the cost of living.  The cost of living in Panama is much, much less than in Toronto, Canada, which you realize when you come here to Panama.  This becomes an eye opener, and you think “I can come down here to Panama with my US $2,000 to $3,000 per month pension and live quite nicely.”
 
This is one of the reasons why, if you’re on a budget, Panama is much better than Turks and Caicos.  The costs in Turks and Caicos are unbelievably high for food and other items.  Everything is imported.  I used to joke that when we went down to visit for two or three weeks, it felt like I had to take out a second mortgage just to finance the purchase of our groceries.  I was talking with a woman yesterday who has her home on Curacao who told me that her electrical bill was something like $1,000 / month.  Many of these places are very nice and have picturesque beaches, but when it comes to actually living there, when push comes to shove, it’s very, very expensive.
 
In Boquete, which is up in the mountains, the weather is especially nice, if you like cooler weather in the evening.  Here at Tucan, in Arraijan, we’re closer to the ocean, so the weather is not as cool in the evening.  We do, however, have other advantages that may appeal to you: 

Is this the best place for you?  Maybe, if these things appeal to you. Find out what you want and then find your best place.