Best Places In The World To Retire

For sure in Los Cabos, you can get by if you only speak English, but in La Paz and in La Ventana (where I live, about 40 minutes from La Paz and 2 hours from Los Cabos), you could get by with “English only” only in areas where there are foreigners, so you probably would prefer learning some Spanish. In Cabo, you can certainly get by without speaking any Spanish but in La Paz you would miss out on a lot if you don’t know the local language because it is a very integrated...

For sure in Los Cabos, you can get by if you only speak English, but in La Paz and in La Ventana (where I live, about 40 minutes from La Paz and 2 hours from Los Cabos), you could get by with “English only” only in areas where there are foreigners, so you probably would prefer learning some Spanish. In Cabo, you can certainly get by without speaking any Spanish but in La Paz you would miss out on a lot if you don’t know the local language because it is a very integrated community.
 
In La Ventana, there is a pretty big foreign community but any of the service people that you are going to get involved with, whether in the grocery store or doing your gardening, housekeeping, or any of the local businesses, do not necessarily speak English. It is the same thing in La Paz, where you can go to one of the major grocery stores there and find out that they do not speak any English. Even in the immigration offices, sometimes you would find a hard time looking for someone who speaks English.  

 

(Art show to raise money for a local ambulance, La Ventana, Baja California Sur, Mexico, pictured.)

Whether or not you are satisfied with your decision after one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, and so on. You really have to know yourself and you really have to know the community in which you are going to choose to live in order to ensure that you’re in it for either the long term or enough time that made the effort worth it. Maybe it’s not permanent. You could decide to stay for only three to five years but the point is to choose the right location so...

Whether or not you are satisfied with your decision after one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, and so on. You really have to know yourself and you really have to know the community in which you are going to choose to live in order to ensure that you’re in it for either the long term or enough time that made the effort worth it. Maybe it’s not permanent. You could decide to stay for only three to five years but the point is to choose the right location so you feel that you are able to achieve that goal that you have for yourself.
 
In order to make that happen, it is best to spend time reading up on the different cultural dynamics, hearing stories from other expats, and actually spending time in two to three locations probably for three weeks to a month, or maybe more. It is nice to really get into a rhythm before making that choice to move. I think it would be rather naïve, and most likely, a catastrophic mistake to show up and buy a place after being there for only three to four days. You can have a feeling that this place feels right after a few days but you really need to test that feeling out and that means doing your due diligence by spending three weeks to a month there. Make new friends in the area and try to figure out what part of the town you could imagine yourself living in. You have to figure out what your routine might be if you lived in that certain place. Going through that testing phase, I think, is a requirement in order to make sure that the decision you are going to make is based on sound judgment.

The healthcare in Portugal was a sensitive issue for us for many years because until we joined the European Union we were an undeveloped country. We came from the two world wars then we went through a dictatorship then there was a revolution and the Communists took over and that made our country even poorer. As a result, Portugal’s medical facilities were not top of the line 30 years ago. But then we joined the European Union and as we joined the European Union, there are certain...

The healthcare in Portugal was a sensitive issue for us for many years because until we joined the European Union we were an undeveloped country. We came from the two world wars then we went through a dictatorship then there was a revolution and the Communists took over and that made our country even poorer. As a result, Portugal’s medical facilities were not top of the line 30 years ago. But then we joined the European Union and as we joined the European Union, there are certain rules with which we had to comply, and the quality of our medical systems was one of them. At that moment, there were two or three really famous Portuguese businessmen who invested heavily in medical facilities and systems, so today, and for the past 10 years, we are at the same level as any other civilized European country. So we have very good medical facilities at the moment.  We are on par with France, Great Britain, etc.
 
There was a trend 10 years ago when there was a big boom in the construction of private hospitals.  In the last 10 years, the Social Democratic Party took over, and one of their measures was to develop the public medical system, so they built all these new hospitals and clinics. I come from a middle-high class family and I use the public medical system. I compared the public and private system because I have private medical insurance and I have a public hospital near by and I use both. I didn’t used to go to the public system because of it having bad reputation in the old days. But the other day, I had a problem with my son and I took him to the public hospital and I was impressed because I got better service than at the private hospital. I don’t know if it was a coincidence but the hospital was brand new with a very quick reply. I went in and out in an hour and sometimes that doesn’t happen in hospitals around the world. So I am very, very impressed with our public medical system at the moment.  

 

(View of Hospital São José from Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal, pictured.)