Best Places In The World To Retire

Most people in San Miguel de Allende wear casual clothes. Women wear very loose clothes and Mexicans wear Mexican clothing, too. I do design my own clothes and we sell them at my boutique.

 

I used to have a boutique in Playa del Carmen where it was always very hot so I made hippie chic, loose clothes, which I still sell here. You can wear them either in an elegant way or a casual way.

 

Most of my clients are retirees. They...

Most people in San Miguel de Allende wear casual clothes. Women wear very loose clothes and Mexicans wear Mexican clothing, too. I do design my own clothes and we sell them at my boutique.

 

I used to have a boutique in Playa del Carmen where it was always very hot so I made hippie chic, loose clothes, which I still sell here. You can wear them either in an elegant way or a casual way.

 

Most of my clients are retirees. They don’t want to wear tight clothes. They are looking for clothes that would cover their arms and clothes that don’t show too much but looks nice at the same time. Those are the kinds of clothes that sell the best in San Miguel de Allende. 

 

There are also opportunities to dress up nicely here in San Miguel de Allende. There are galleries that hold openings so people go there dressed up.

 

(Clothing display at Kika's Boutique, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, pictured.)

There are times when the expats here decide to meet up, have some beers, or just chill out. Just walking down the streets of San Juan Del Sur, you will meet a lot of expats going to bars or just randomly in other places here and there.

 

There are no expat communities in Nicaragua that I know of, but San Juan Del Sur and Granada are small enough towns that the average expat would bump into other expats all the time. There are beach...

There are times when the expats here decide to meet up, have some beers, or just chill out. Just walking down the streets of San Juan Del Sur, you will meet a lot of expats going to bars or just randomly in other places here and there.

 

There are no expat communities in Nicaragua that I know of, but San Juan Del Sur and Granada are small enough towns that the average expat would bump into other expats all the time. There are beach developments that a populated mostly by expats such as Rancho Santana, and Iguana Beach in Tola, where I have been working in the last 18 years. Over 90% of the real estate in these places were bought by expats. Most of them bought there for investment purpose,s but more and more of them are buying for the purpose of having something to live in once they retire.

Your neighbors in the Algarve would be a mix depending on where you live. If you live in a town they would more likely be Portuguese. The bigger the town the more likely it would be to have Portuguese neighbors. Further out it is more likely there would be a mixed bag of people. There are certainly municipalities where six or seven nationalities could surround you, a little bit like Florida.

 

When I lived just north of Miami, I had neighbors from three or...

Your neighbors in the Algarve would be a mix depending on where you live. If you live in a town they would more likely be Portuguese. The bigger the town the more likely it would be to have Portuguese neighbors. Further out it is more likely there would be a mixed bag of people. There are certainly municipalities where six or seven nationalities could surround you, a little bit like Florida.

 

When I lived just north of Miami, I had neighbors from three or four nationalities who were very transient. The Algarve doesn’t have quite the same transient society that I felt in Southern Florida, but certainly from a heterogeneous perspective, there are a variety of nationalities that reside in the Algarve. It’s fairly likely that your neighbors will be Portuguese, English, Dutch, or German because of the number of people from those countries who have settled in the Algarve. 

 

Most of the people who move to the Algarve would tend to be wealthy by Portuguese standards and comfortably middle class or wealthy by international standards. Most people who have made the decision to come here so they do so because they are financially able to afford to do so. This is a pensioner’s paradise.  These are people who have their pensions intact and can afford a good living in the Algarve, where you could easily live on a lot less than you would if you were living in London, New York, Stockholm, Helsinki or Paris. And so, what we find is that people here who come from abroad and in particular the pensioners have a much higher quality of life and spending power, than the average across Portugal and from whence they came.  

 

(Jose Mourinho, Portuguese football manager, pictured.)

The worst reason that I can think of for retiring overseas is that you’re unhappy where you are. I have seen very few examples, if any at all, of somebody being fundamentally being unhappy where they are, and coming to a different country, and miraculously becoming happy. It’s very hard to chase happiness from that regard.

 

If you have a marriage that is failing where you live, it’s unrealistic that you’re going to move to a foreign...

The worst reason that I can think of for retiring overseas is that you’re unhappy where you are. I have seen very few examples, if any at all, of somebody being fundamentally being unhappy where they are, and coming to a different country, and miraculously becoming happy. It’s very hard to chase happiness from that regard.

 

If you have a marriage that is failing where you live, it’s unrealistic that you’re going to move to a foreign country and miraculously save your marriage. If you have children who are failing where you are, it’s unrealistic to think that you’re going to come to another country and miraculously turn their life around.

 

There are things that go on inside your own home that you, and not your government, are responsible for. I’ve seen many people come to Panama hoping that Panama is a paradise for them, that all of the problems going on in their lives will become magically cured, and that’s absolutely the wrong way to look at moving abroad.  

 

(Gilbert family making friends at church, Boquete, Panama, pictured.)