Best Places In The World To Retire

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Recently Answered Questions

Does the ocean in Mexico have dangerous animals in it?

Liliana Cota - Stewart Title Baja and Stewart Title Puerto Peñasco

Horses for hire on Rosarito Beach, Mexico – Best Places In The World To Retire – International Living

We don’t hear about dangerous animals in Mexico in the ocean a lot. In case there is a dangerous animal that could hurt people in the area, the authorities are quick to warn people. For example, if it is high tide, the authorities discourage people from going surfing because it might not be safe.

I live in Tijuana, which is close to San Diego. There was one time when there was a shark around San Diego, and the authorities alerted all the tourists in Tijuana and...

How's the golf in and around the Pedasi, Azuero, Panama area?

Jade Wills - Maya Moon Marketing

The one thing that’s missing in Pedasi is a golf course. (If someone put in a golf course in Pedasi, I think our whole family would move here.)

I’m not a golfer, so I’m not certain, but I believe that the closest larger golf course is in Boquete in one direction and in the Coronado area in the other (both 3 – 4 hours away).

I'm told that there is a smaller course in Chitre, about an hour away.

Are there tax advantages or disadvantages if I retire, work or live abroad?

Tabitha Paddock - Greenback Expat Tax Services

taxes – Best Places In The World To Retire – International Living

One of the biggest tax advantages of living abroad is enjoying lower tax rates (depending on where you retire obviously) found in some outside countries. However, as a US citizen or Greencard holder, you are required to report your worldwide income to the US every year. Even if you are no longer living or working in the US. This often means two tax returns, and twice as much taken in tax... Right? Wrong!

Fortunately, the US has certain exclusions and credits in place to...

How much does food cost in Granada, Nicaragua?

Carlos Roman Gutierrez Solis - Casa Granada Properties

Food in Granada is quite inexpensive. When I spend around US $10 at the market I can feed three people with that. I can buy chicken or meat, cheese, plantain, and rice and I will have enough and plenty for dinner. I may even have something left to cook the next day.

I do not feel restricted with what I need at all. I spend around $300 every month on food and that is good enough to feed my whole family.

How much you spend on food obviously depends on what you choose to...

Are there earthquakes in Belize?

Tamrah Lozano

There has never been an earthquake in Belize. However we have felt some small movements from earthquakes in neighboring countries.

How are the rules of etiquette or customs different in Portugal?

Carol Bartlett Ribeiro - Carol Bartlett Ribeiro, Property Consultant

1836 sketches of women of Portugal – Best Places In The World To Retire – International Living

The Portuguese language is a very formal language, but like everything else in the world today it’s becoming more and more relaxed.

There is a generation of Portuguese who are “old school” who would stand up when elder people come in to a room, and that, in Portuguese would never refer to their mother or father using the informal of “you”, “tu.” Today, in general, young children today will be less formal but in certain levels in Portugal there are still very strict rules of who you are, where you are, where you’ve been, and how you live.

On average now it’s a lot easier going than it used to be. I was talking to a friend of mine today about the time when girls would go out there would always have to be chaperone because the parents wouldn’t let it be any other way. These days if you told a 12 year old they needed to have a chaperone, they would say, “Are you crazy?”

In America, even if you’re the president of the company, people would say to you, “Hi, Bob,” whereas here in Portugal it would always be “senior doctor” or “senior professor” or “mister engineer.” You would never use the more informal way of speaking; until you became friendly with them, there’s always that formality. So you would never say, for example, “Senior Bob” you would say “Senior Johnson,” you wouldn’t say the first name. So there are small things like that that would be a faux pas.

The Portuguese are really, really impatient when they get behind the wheel of a car. They drive like lunatics on the motorways and you wouldn’t think it was the same race of people that gets behind the wheels of their cars and they sit on your bumper or don’t let you in. For them, it’s “me first, me first,” which is odd, because they’re not like that we’re they’re chatting to you, but behind the wheels of their cars, you do have to be careful, or, alternatively, you just do what they do.

(1836 sketches of women of Portugal, pictured.)

Recently Posted Expat Stories

Rainforest and Summit Park in Panamá

Biodiversity in Panamá is well known worldwide. Case in point: Panamá's prime humid forests, especially in Darién, with one of the oldest jungle areas, as well as Gamboa, Chiriquí and Bocas del Toro. Rainforest tours are very popular, and many adventure tour operators offer them, in combination with bird watching.

But there is a place, almost unknown to visitors and foreigners, called the Summit Botanical Park, situated 30 minutes from the city, with an area...

Change or Die

Hello folks. I wasn't sure where to post this, so many places I could have and not sure if I put it where the most people could read it and help them. But since El Valle is my town I posted it here. Maybe the people who run this site will see fit to place it where it belongs, on another page or in the trash.

My name is Mark. I moved to Panama 8 years ago. I used to write for International Living on their expat exchange site. I wrote over...

Park Eden In El Valle de Anton Panama Is Aptly Named

For the final stretch, we followed the blue signs to Park Eden from the main road. The way was unpaved and bumpy, with rocks smoothed over by frequent travel, slowing us to peer into the gates and gardens of well-kept El Valle de Anton homes and jostling us so we were forced to look up at the handsome ridges of the caldera that were thick with riotous jungle. If I were a Victorian British memsahib arriving to the cooler regions of the hill stations, the grounds...