BajaBlanca - 1-17-2014 at 11:38 AM
We got this article on different suggestions for the BEST PLACES to retire and I thought you might enjoy reading it ~ PUERTO VALLARTA is where Mexico
fits in:
The World's Top Overseas Havens
A Brief Introduction To The Top Places To
Consider In Your Search For A Better Life Overseas
Dear Overseas Opportunity Letter Reader,
The trouble with the living, retiring, and investing overseas ideas we consider each day in these dispatches is that, the more closely you look at
them, the more confusing the choices become.
Once you open your mind to the possibility that you could spend your time or your money anywhere...where in the world should you think about going?
The options can seem overwhelming.
It helps if you can clarify your objective or agenda. To that end, here are shortcuts:
•World's Most Affordable Retirement Haven: Cuenca, Ecuador
Cuenca, Ecuador, is the most affordable place you'd want to live in Latin America. Other places may be a bit cheaper, including some places elsewhere
in Ecuador, but you'd be removed from the conveniences of a city, you wouldn't have access to certain services, amenities, and conveniences that make
life comfortable, and your standard of living might be reduced. In Cuenca, you could live well, perhaps better than you're living now. Your life could
be enriched, your breadth of experience expanded. All at an almost unbelievably low cost. Cuenca amounts to the world's best quality of life buy for
the money. You could enjoy a comfortable life in this charming colonial city on as little as US$700 a month...
Review details of our complete Cuenca, Ecuador, budget here...and access our Cuenca Retirement Report here.
Check out our full Ecuador Resources Page here.
For a full list of the world's cheapest overseas retirement havens, go here.
•Best Place To Retire To The Beach: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, is my number-one choice for a sophisticated retirement by the sea. This is oceanside living that's also cosmopolitan and
international. Puerto Vallarta is charming, colorful, and historic, with both local flavor and developed (in some cases, five-star-level) tourist
infrastructure (restaurants, hotels, shops, art galleries, cafes, marinas, golf courses, etc.). The beaches are among the best in Mexico...and the
world.
And the best part is that, here in P.V., not only can you plug into a fully developed retirement lifestyle...built, furnished, landscaped, and within
minutes of the fairway or the yacht club if those pastimes interest you...but, unlike in southern California (with which you could easily confuse
these Pacific coast beaches), you can also afford it.
No, probably not on a Social Security-only retirement income. But if your retirement budget is a bit bigger, and you've dreamt your whole life of
retiring with a view of the crashing Pacific, I'd say this could be your number-one right-now choice.
You could live for less elsewhere in Mexico--in Chapala, for example--but, in Puerto Vallarta, you're buying a higher standard of living. Puerto
Vallarta is this country's (and one of the world's) best seaside choice.
Access our Puerto Vallarta Retirement Report here. You can also check out our most comprehensive resource on P.V., Mexico...our Live and Invest in
Puerto Vallarta Home Conference Kit.
Check out our full Mexico Resources Page here.
•Best Place To Escape To The Mountains: Medellin, Colombia
Medellin is a city of parks and flowers, from interactive outdoor museum-parks, where children can build and experiment, to art museums, an aquarium,
an amusement park, delightful botanical gardens, a planetarium, and dozens of small leafy parks and shaded plazas.
Thanks to its mountain situation, this is also a land of eternal springtime, with a near-perfect climate year-round.
There's no shortage of things to do in this town, both outdoorsy and more cerebral. This is an industrial, economic, and financial center for this
country, but also a literary and an artistic one. Newspapers, radio networks, publishing houses, an annual poetry festival, an international jazz
festival, an international tango festival, an annual book fair, and, back in 1971, Colombia's answer to Woodstock, the Festival de Ancon, all have
chosen Medellin as their base.
Much of the activities tend to be enjoyed outdoors, thanks to the near-perfect weather. It's temperate in Medellin, meaning you wouldn't have to have
air conditioning in your home. This could reduce your overall monthly budget by US$100 or more.
It's possible to find apartments and even houses available for what qualify as absolutely (as opposed to relatively) cheap prices. El Poblado is the
top end of the market. To rent, you're looking at US$1,000 to US$1,500 for older homes (sometimes furnished) and US$1,500 to US$2,000 new.
In less recognized, more local neighborhoods? Those prices can fall in half and more.
For all those reasons, and others, this city has gotten my attention...and you can expect regular coverage in Medellin in future issues of the
Overseas Opportunity Letter.
Meantime, you can access our complete Medellin, Colombia, Retirement Report here.
You can also access our full Colombia Resources Page here.
•Best Health Care: France or Panama City, Panama
France is a country of superlatives. Its health care, for example, is the best in the world. For years, the World Health Organization (WHO) published
an index rating and ranking the quality of the health care in all the countries of the world, and, year after year, France came out the winner.
If you're a legal resident, health care in this country is also highly subsidized by the government, even sometimes free.
Complete details on living, retiring, and owning a place of your own in France are featured in our France Starter Kit.
You can also find information on our France Resources Page, including monthly cost-of-living budgets.
For top-notch health care at a far more affordable cost, look to Panama. A complete blood workup at Panama City's gleaming new Hospital Punta Pacifica
(www.hospitalpuntapacifica.com), managed by Johns Hopkins Medicine International, is US$36. A full physical with an English-speaking doctor, likely
trained in the United States, is US$50. While a home-care nurse can charge $25 an hour in the States, in Panama City, they can cost US$25 a day.
Certainly, the country's best medical facilities are located in Panama City, and, if health care is a concern, you should stick close to the capital.
You can arrange local Panama health insurance (with a US$300 annual deductible) for US$150 a month or less, depending on your age. Note, though, that
most local Panama health insurance plans accept new applicants only through age 64.
You can go here to access our budgets for living in Panama City, or here to learn more about this country on our Panama Resources Page.
In addition, our Panama Letter is one of the best resources available today for anyone considering living or investing in Panama. You can learn more
about it here.
•Best Living Among The Vines: Mendoza, Argentina
Mendoza is wine country, and, where vines grow, the living is generally good. Argentines enjoy good food, good vino, and good conversation, and, here
in the interior of this country, these things are the priorities of life. A friend who relocated to the Mendoza region of Argentina recently
practically gushes in reports of his new life. "My garden is bursting at the seams," he writes, "though I don't look after it. My gardener does.
Honestly, it's a feast for the eyes, and the luscious grapes that hang from the vines around me are going to produce wine with my name on it."
My friend is so pampered here, he says, that he feels like a guest in his own home, for Mendoza not only boasts a great qualify of life, but that
lifestyle comes at a very affordable cost. My friend's gardener earns US$100 a month. A round of golf is US$4; a cup of coffee is 95 cents; and a good
table wine is US$2 a bottle.
This region is a good choice for the active retiree who isn't ready to sit back rocking on his front porch. There's skiing, hiking, climbing,
bird-watching, white-water rafting, kayaking, even kite-surfing. And golfers rejoice: Argentina has more golf courses than the rest of Latin America
combined. After a day hiking or kayaking, tango the night away at one of Mendoza City's many entertainment venues or relax at the spas of Pismanta,
which offer everything from hydro-massages and mud-therapy treatments to a vaporarium.
Wine, relaxation, and sports are a recipe for a great vacation, but what about day-today living? Mendoza's laid-back atmosphere, safe cities, strong
infrastructure, unspoiled culture, affordability, and friendly people combine to create an idyllic lifestyle. Perhaps the most livable place in the
region is Mendoza City, which offers all the sophistication of London or Paris, including five-star restaurants, diverse entertainment, rich culture,
a well-respected university, sophisticated and polite people, and performing arts venues that match those of any European city, but at an affordable
cost to rival that of Mexico.
You can go here to access our Country Report on Argentina, or here to learn more about this country on our Argentina Resources Page.
•Ease Of Residency: Belize
Well over a decade ago, the government of Belize enacted legislation to allow Qualified Retired Persons (QRP's) to obtain permanent residency in this
country. In many ways, this program is the most efficient route to foreign residency anywhere in the Americas. And, while the QRP visa allows you
full-time residency, you can enjoy the benefits of being a QRP even if you spend as little as two weeks a year in Belize.
Belize's QRP program offers not only the equivalent of a U.S. Green Card to foreign residents aged 45 and older, but it also grants a host of other
incentives designed to encourage foreigners to come and bring their money. These incentives include a permanent exemption from all Belize taxes,
including income tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, and import tax on household goods (up to US$15,000), automobiles, boats, even airplanes. The only
requirements are that you or your spouse be 45 years of age or older, that you consider yourself to be retired, and that you show that you have at
least $2,000 a month in income to support yourself in Belize (from a pension or some other regular income).
In practical terms, the "consider yourself to be retired" requirement means that, as a QRP, you can't apply for a work visa. This is not to say that
you couldn't do international, Internet, or even local Belize business as an entrepreneur. You just can't take on traditional "employee" work.
Under these circumstances, the benefits of the QRP program could be significant, especially if you have active business income from outside the
States. In this case, as a non-resident American, your first US$97,600 (or US$195,200 as a couple) in foreign-earned income would be exempt from U.S.
tax. And, again, as a QRP, you're also exempt from Belizean tax.
For more information on qualifying as a QRP resident in Belize, get in touch here, or access our Belize Resources Page.
BajaBlanca - 1-17-2014 at 12:17 PM
We have been to P Vallarta but not to the other countries
Does anyone have experience elsewhere?