Best Places In The World To Retire

Dental care in Mexico is great. I have a client who had her top implants done in the States and the bottom in Mexico, here in Baja. She says that the bottom is much better than the top.

 

Going to the dentist here in Mexico is a lot less expensive than in the States. I have a great dentist in La Paz so I’m happy with him. I’ve had no issues. It costs 800 pesos (around US $43) for a teeth cleaning. I have no concerns about the quality at all....

Dental care in Mexico is great. I have a client who had her top implants done in the States and the bottom in Mexico, here in Baja. She says that the bottom is much better than the top.

 

Going to the dentist here in Mexico is a lot less expensive than in the States. I have a great dentist in La Paz so I’m happy with him. I’ve had no issues. It costs 800 pesos (around US $43) for a teeth cleaning. I have no concerns about the quality at all. However, there are no dentists here in La Ventana, where I live, since this is a small fishing village. My dentist is in La Paz, which is about 40 minutes away from La Ventana by car.  

 

 

(Ad for Consultorio Medico Dental, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, pictured.)

Without ascribing names to which places are the best places to live in the world, first of all, I would say that you would have to align your goals for yourself and your family with the goals of the place you’re looking at living. For example, if you’re looking for a freedom-loving country, or if you want to have or feel like you have more personal freedoms and liberties, you must look at a country that has that on the table. For example, people looking for more freedom...

Without ascribing names to which places are the best places to live in the world, first of all, I would say that you would have to align your goals for yourself and your family with the goals of the place you’re looking at living. For example, if you’re looking for a freedom-loving country, or if you want to have or feel like you have more personal freedoms and liberties, you must look at a country that has that on the table. For example, people looking for more freedom and liberty in their life are not necessarily looking to move to Iran. 

 

Personal freedom was high on my list, and that’s why I chose a country that had that, or had the ability to have that. My family and I wanted to live in a place where my wife and I could raise our children and where I could live my life with little to no government intrusion, which we found here in Panama, which was a great fit for us.

 

In general, Panama is a little bit more socialistic than the US regarding labor laws. There are a lot of labor rights that the people working for a company get to have. They’re actually a little bit on the oppressive side toward the business, but when you’re looking at the country as a whole, Panama has a bicameral legislature, a president, a supreme court, and a stable and steady judicial system that is blind to your nationality- whether you are a Panamanian or a foreigner. 

 

Here in Panama, there are true property rights, and titled property and land rights. As a foreigner, I can invest here in Panama freely in the real estate market whether in my own name or under a corporate name.

 

The territorial tax system in Panama is advantageous. In the United States, I am taxed on my income on a certain percentage. If I live outside of the United States for 330 days a year, my wife and I get the advantage of a US credit of more than $100,000 for each of us against each of our income taxes. That means that if we’re married and we file separately, we can double up on that exclusion. Being here in Panama where they have a territorial tax system, my income earned in the United States is not taxed up to the amount of the exclusion. That makes it tremendously advantageous for high-income US wage earners who have the ability to work remotely from Panama.

 

In a lot of these countries, though the government wants to get more involved in your business, they can’t because they don’t have the ability to do so. Irrespective of how socialist the country may or may not be, like Nicaragua for example, a government with few resources will just leave you alone because they don’t have the ability to get into your business. 

 

Here in Panama, there’s no FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, OSHA, or any of these other three-letter or four-letter organizations that what we have in the United States that when taken individually may not be an inherently oppressive system, but when taken macro economically, you’ll see all the many different ways that America tries to control your life and makes you start to realize that maybe you’re a slave to the system without even knowing it. Maybe you don’t have the freedoms any more than you thought you did, because you existed alongside these little three-letter entities. 

 

I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, so I came to Panama where those things don’t exist. Here in Panama, I can be myself and I can do whatever I want without worrying about looking over my shoulder. For example, if I annoy someone by accident, or if I said the wrong words, I’m not going to be ostracized by the community because that just doesn’t exist here. 

 

All the things that exist in America, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement and the crazy Leftist ideologies, are not systemic and epidemic here in Panama. They’re simply not part of the equation.

 

(The Gilbert girls gather leaf matter from their property for their chicken coop, Volcan, Panama, pictured.)

Going north to south, we can start on the coast at Porto, which is smaller than Lisbon. Porto had the very big textile factories as well as port wine, which gets its name from Porto and which the English did with the Portuguese. 

 

Then, still in the Porto region, there is the river D’ouro.  It is a beautiful trip coming down on the D’ouro River by boat for either two hours, two days or four days, going through the wine country in the...

Going north to south, we can start on the coast at Porto, which is smaller than Lisbon. Porto had the very big textile factories as well as port wine, which gets its name from Porto and which the English did with the Portuguese. 

 

Then, still in the Porto region, there is the river D’ouro.  It is a beautiful trip coming down on the D’ouro River by boat for either two hours, two days or four days, going through the wine country in the north, which is completely different from the wine from down in the Alentejo, south of there.  You’ll see hillsides full of wine grapes.

 

I have friends who live in Porto and I have been there several times, but I haven’t lived there. I think that it’s perhaps a calmer way of living because the city is not as big as Lisbon. It’s quieter maybe in Porto, even though it is cosmopolitan and a real city.  There are lots of foreigners in Porto.  

 

Moving south, the next significant are is Coimbra.  Coimbra is a university city. It has a lot of big hospitals that are well known, especially the eye hospital there. A lot of the history of Portugal started within that area, when there was still the monarchy here. There’s a very good book for anyone coming to Portugal, written in English, that you can pick up at the airport, written by an Englishman who lives in Cintra, called The First Global Village. It’s very interesting to read, covering from the start of Portugal up until the time of the revolution. It’s exceedingly interesting in that we don’t give credit enough in the history of Portugal. We talk about Christopher Columbus but there are other Portuguese discoverers. This book is very, very interesting in terms of language as well and where the Portuguese where and what they did and how even some of Japanese comes from Portuguese. 

 

Continuing south, there are several other places along the coast where a lot of foreigners would go as well. Then there is Fatima, which is also in that area and is very significant for Catholics.  After that, you start coming towards Sintra and then you come all the way down the coast until you get to Cascais.  Cascais is about twenty minutes due west of Lisbon.  It used to be a fishing village but now it’s a very big residential area where there are separate municipalities. There’s the Bay of Cascais, which has many boats.

 

Going from Cascais, east towards Lisbon, there is Estoril, which has the biggest casino in Europe.  There are several areas until you get to the western outskirts of Lisbon, which is quite historical. In this area is Belem, which in English is Bethlehem, and is where the kings and queens used to come down to wave goodbye to the explorers.

 

There are seven hills in Lisbon, which sits on the Tagus River as it empties into the Atlantic.  There’s a lot more money available in Lisbon now, and there’s a lot of places that have been done up. I compare it a little bit with San Francisco because San Francisco is one of the places that is a little bit more like Europe than many other cities of the States. Lisbon is a little bit like that in terms of architecture and it’s become more built up now.  There has been a lot of restoration work and they’re quite strict about the restoration because of the old buildings and they won’t let you just pull it all down and put up a modern building. If a building you own has historical value you have to keep the façade on the outside and then you can build.

 

Lisbon has a lot of very nice little narrow streets and yet then you have the main street, which is Avenida da Liberdad, and you have the Marquese de Pombal, which is the center. Marquese de Pombal was a marquese (nobleman) at that time of the huge fire that destroyed the whole of Lisbon and who arranged to have it all rebuilt. There’s a huge statue of him in the center of Lisbon and a big main avenue comes down from there. And then there is the castle of St. George. These are all the historical parts of Lisbon and history at the time of the oligarchs. Lisbon has a tremendous amount of history. 

 

Continuing south, before you get to the Algarve there is the Alenteijo, which has very nice beaches along the coast. Most of Portugal’s cork production is in Alenteijo, which has cork trees and the olive trees. It’s a big farming area that extends all the way to the coast; you can be inland or you can go along the coast.

 

And then you come down to the Algarve.  There are several different areas of the Algarve. There is Albufeira, which is the main and the most popular area, and there are many other areas as well.  The roads in the area are plentiful and good quality.  You can get to Seville in Spain in two to three hours. 

 

The Algarve has become very popular with the English, Germans, and other foreigners who were going down and buying family holiday houses and coming out for the summer. It’s a little bit warmer down in the Algarve and the sea is a bit warmer than in the Lisbon area. The Atlantic is not the warmest sea in the world but it is a little but warmer down in the Algarve.

 

The English were the primary group who purchased properties in the Algarve.   Then they started building a lot of golf courses, a lot of big hotels, and it just spread and spread. In the western part of Algarve is Lagos, which is probably the least over developed area.  The month of August is when most of the Portuguese will go down to the Algarve. Foreigners are there pretty well all year round.

 

There is a huge selection of houses and apartments in the Algarve.  You can buy houses from €15 million to €150,000 (about $15.9 million / £10.5 million to $158,000 / £105,000). So there’s a tremendous amount of building, a lot of sailing, a lot of golf, and a lot of condominiums. The lifestyle in some ways is the same as here but it’s more restricted because you’ve got the sea and you’ve got boats as opposed to here where you’ve businesses. Down there it’s more restaurants, hotels and holiday companies.  

 

(Coimbra,the largest Roman settlement in Portugal, pictured.)

Americans and other expats are treated very well in Belize. Tourism is a big thing here in Belize. I have been living here for a while and I was here before tourism was a big industry, and not once have I been told to go home or “Blimey, we don’t want you here!” Not ever. With Americans, it’s the same.  Americans don’t have problems here. They are treated well. Belizeans are happy, friendly people, so we...

Americans and other expats are treated very well in Belize. Tourism is a big thing here in Belize. I have been living here for a while and I was here before tourism was a big industry, and not once have I been told to go home or “Blimey, we don’t want you here!” Not ever. With Americans, it’s the same.  Americans don’t have problems here. They are treated well. Belizeans are happy, friendly people, so we have no problems at all.  

 

We do occasionally get the “ugly American” who is loud-mouthed and boastful and would say, “In America, we do it this way…”, which upsets a few people. But generally, there are no troubles with Americans or other expats. 

 

(Pictured: Canadians in Belize.)