Best Places In The World To Retire

There aren’t many American-trained doctors in Mexico because there are several Mexican doctors who are really, really, very well-trained. In fact, good Mexican doctors go to the States and serve over there, and then come back to Mexico. As an example, I have a friend who is a doctor who goes to the States once a week to offer consultation. He dedicates an entire day to just attend to patients and give prescriptions, and then comes back to Mexico.

 

The...

There aren’t many American-trained doctors in Mexico because there are several Mexican doctors who are really, really, very well-trained. In fact, good Mexican doctors go to the States and serve over there, and then come back to Mexico. As an example, I have a friend who is a doctor who goes to the States once a week to offer consultation. He dedicates an entire day to just attend to patients and give prescriptions, and then comes back to Mexico.

 

The patients see him instead of seeing an American doctor because American doctors charge more. A Mexican doctor can charge half of what an American doctor charges, and still be able to make some profit. This happens in the United States.

 

The Mexican doctors do not get training or internship is the United States. Their training is here in Mexico. The good doctors who have specialties do go to France, Italy, or Germany. The generalists, on the other hand, prepare and train here in Mexico.  

 

 

The doctors in Mexico are really good doctors, but there are also a lot of crooks who take advantage of the language barrier, and tourists being new to the place. This damages the image of the good doctors. There are several really good doctors, and they will take care of you exactly how they should- nothing more, nothing less. 

 

When you go to a doctor, the first thing you need to have is confidence, because you’re never going to know if what he did was necessary- you’re just going to have to trust him. If you go to a doctor who does things that are not necessary just to be able to charge you more, then you’re going to lose that confidence, and you’re going to drop him. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify these doctors if you come from a different country .  In order to guard against this and to protect our clients, that’s part of the services that we also provide: we have a list of certified doctors that we can provide to our customers, so that they can be sure that they are going with a really good specialist doctor.

 

The doctors on this list are the ones who have gone through the analysis by the insurance company. The insurance company has analyzed their work, how long they’ve practiced medicine, how much experience they have, and based on this, the doctors are given a position where they can charge patients a certain amount of fee. Doctors can’t charge the same amount that the insurance company’s going to pay them, and that’s why the insurance company has gone through a lot of analysis so that they can assure you that the doctor is going to be a good one.

 

In my personal opinion, Cuban doctors who come to Mexico to practice medicine are the best ones, because they have more experience in documenting things and looking for several different ways to find a cure for different illnesses, but then again not all Cuban doctors are good. 

 

I have clients who had procedures done by Mexican doctors and thought the care they received is just as good as in the United States. For example, there’s this case of a 3-year-old kid who had leukemia. He went through the process of getting treatment for 3 years. Today, he’s 9 years old, and leukemia-free. Leukemia will never be taken away completely, though. It’s controlled, and then you can say it has disappeared, but a person who has leukemia will never be cured. 

 

He was treated here in Mexico where the doctor told his parents, “I can go to the States and treat your son over there- I have all the facilities. Or, you can stay here in Guadalajara, Mexico, where I can give him exactly the same treatment, but you’re going to spend much less money.” Although the insurance company is going to pay for it, the parents will have to pay their deductibles, and if they go to the United States, they’re going to have to pay their hotel, their trip, and moving around. That’s a lot of expenses. It was a really tough case- a 3-year-old kid with leukemia. It’s not something good to hear.

 

I have a more recent example. I had a customer who had cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant. She had the transplant done in Mexico, after the doctors suggested, “Let’s go to Mexico City, and we will do it there.” It was a successful surgery. She’s an American, and she’s recovering. It’s still too soon to say that she’s cancer-free, but she has an extraordinary attitude towards the problem. She’s always smiling and does a lot of exercise, which I think also helps a lot when dealing with a situation like that. The transplant was done here in Mexico. It was a major surgery, and it’s really complicated, because you can get infections easily, so you have to take extra care. 

 

If I had a very serious illness, even if I had the opportunity to go to the United States, I would stay here in Mexico.

 

(Hospital Civil de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico, pictured.)

In order to build in Belize, you have to get an architectural design and submit it to the Belize building committee. Once it’s approved, you can start construction. In order to do the construction, there are wealth of construction companies that are available to meet the building demand here and you can find some with good, competitive pricing.

You always have to make sure that you have a good builder. The government will not provide you with an onsite inspector to make...

In order to build in Belize, you have to get an architectural design and submit it to the Belize building committee. Once it’s approved, you can start construction. In order to do the construction, there are wealth of construction companies that are available to meet the building demand here and you can find some with good, competitive pricing.

You always have to make sure that you have a good builder. The government will not provide you with an onsite inspector to make sure that things are done. There have been cases with storage and staircases ending up inside the house, when it should have been outside. The house was still functional, but it definitely looked weird. You want to make sure that you have a good builder with a strong reputation. That is why we have our own company and our own architect and construction manager to ensure that construction is done within our guidelines, so you don’t end up with salt water concrete or no rebar in the concrete.

 

These situations could very well happen because they don’t inspect buildings during construction in Belize. You just cannot assume that anything you build in Belize will be built to the North American standards, even when the government approves it. You could still run into people making short cuts in the United States, so I don’t think that only Belize has that problem. Contractors and construction companies anywhere could take shortcuts and the house could conceivably not be built the exact way that you want it, like with the staircase inside the house, when it should have been on the outside.  (This is the worst story I’ve heard.)

There are a good amount of high quality contractors who have a good reputation, but you have to check. You can feel fairly confident that your house will be stronger than North American standards. Generally, houses in Belize are built with concrete and steel, so they can withstand the pounding that a normal home in the US would not withstand, which is important, because here in Belize we do have weather flare ups.

 

Personally, if I were having a house built, I would make sure that I had a trustworthy contractor that was properly vetted, and I would also visit the property frequently to make sure that things were going the way they’re supposed to go.

 

(House under construction in Cerros Sand, Belize, pictured.)

Retirement in San Juan Del Sur would mean a very quiet and slow-paced life. There are a lot of open areas and you wouldn’t feel the hustle and bustle of a big city. Retirement here would be a very relaxing experience. Your biggest concern would probably be trying to stay out of the sun for too long and finding things that would keep you busy from day to day.

 

There are a lot of expats in San Juan Del Sur that form communities with other expats so...

Retirement in San Juan Del Sur would mean a very quiet and slow-paced life. There are a lot of open areas and you wouldn’t feel the hustle and bustle of a big city. Retirement here would be a very relaxing experience. Your biggest concern would probably be trying to stay out of the sun for too long and finding things that would keep you busy from day to day.

 

There are a lot of expats in San Juan Del Sur that form communities with other expats so within San Juan Del Sur, there is plenty of accommodations, restaurants and bars, and local venues that host open mic nights (stand-up comedy nights), or salsa nights. There are a lot of places to go to if you want to go dancing, too.

 

San Juan Del Sur is one of the few places where you will find a lot of things to do compared to other neighboring beach communities. This is one of those places where if you go out to town, more often than not, you will find something fun to do. And depending on your age bracket, there are some days of the week when the parties in San Juan Del Sur just goes on and on.

 

But if you are the type of retiree who enjoys your privacy, San Juan Del Sur can also be a great place for you because out here, you can get away from the crowd fairly easily.

 

A lot of retirees also like to go to neighboring beaches or visit the neighboring colonial cities like Granada or Ometepe Island which is about 1 hour and 20 minutes away from San Juan Del Sur. These are places where retirees can go to and explore to occupy their time. Also, the border of Costa Rica is not too far away from here so you can go there any time and explore.

On account of there being so many new mobile companies in Portugal, there is a lot of competition, so you can get a bundle including Internet, television, mobile phones, television, and depending on how many foreign calls you want, you can pay anything from €32 up to €78 (about $35 / £23 to $85 / £56).

 

And there are many very good people here who will do installation and setup.  There’s excellent support for that here in...

On account of there being so many new mobile companies in Portugal, there is a lot of competition, so you can get a bundle including Internet, television, mobile phones, television, and depending on how many foreign calls you want, you can pay anything from €32 up to €78 (about $35 / £23 to $85 / £56).

 

And there are many very good people here who will do installation and setup.  There’s excellent support for that here in Portugal.  

 

(A scene from Os Nossos Dias, a Portuguese telenovela, pictured. )