For what it's worth.

It's close, cheap, and many areas have a climate that makes southern California's seem severe by comparison. I'd love to retire there if it weren't for the health care.

it was possible to buy health insurance for $300 a year. Good care. A lot of doctors either along the border or in populated areas have studied in the States. Do some research. It is a good option.

Supposedly the best they had in town. Let's just say Mexico is off the table for permanent retirement, maybe a part-time apartment but that's it. I love the country but one has to be realistic.

beaches, jungles, mountains, deserts, great food...

Oh, and it's one of the few countries where the average American can legally move, and live permanently, without frequent visa runs to the border.

Of course there's also the language barrier, the noise and other annoyances that are not for the faint of heart.

not cheap.

Except the jungles, colonial buildings, ancient ruins, unique cuisine and perhaps the best climate in the world (Mexican Highlands).

Besides that, Mexico is just like Canada.

Canada is easy to move to if you have the money.

Thus my point: Mexico is close & *cheap* to move to, thus all the middle-class expat retirees etc.

You minimized the appeal of Mexico.

The average American qualifies for a Mexican visa. The average American does not qualify for a Canadian visa.

The weather and climate do not compare.

BTW, parts of Mexico are more expensive than parts of the US and Canada, and certain goods and services are more expensive everywhere in Mexico, but I already agreed with you that Mexico can be quite a bit cheaper than points north.

different scenery, different appeals.

But the primary reason there are so many US expats in Mexico is, IT'S CHEAPER.

I don't know why anyone would want to pretend otherwise.

The areas where most expatriates live in Mexico are more expensive than parts of the US and Canada.

Living in Mexico is cheaper than the US for a comparable standard of living.


The U.S. State Department estimates that the number of Americans in Mexico has increased from about 200,000 a decade ago to between 600,000 and 1 million today.

"The people who are buying here are three or four years away from retirement ... although there are also a lot of younger people coming - 38 to 40 years old - looking for a place to rest or get out of the cold."

Analysts say the influx of Americans is fueled by such factors as a lower cost of living, more affordable housing, warm weather, a more relaxed pace of life and a different political atmosphere.

Depending on which part of the United States Americans come from and where they move, living in Mexico can be 25 to 75 percent cheaper. Like most world capitals, Mexico City itself can be comparatively expensive, and its crime, congestion and pollution problems turn off many.

But expatriates in Mexico generally pay less for health care and medicine, housing and domestic help, according to experts and the expatriates themselves.

Rojas and a colleague, T.S. Sunil, are studying a sample of U.S. retirees in Ajijic, Jalisco state. She said more than half the 172 people surveyed said they were living on less than $1,000 a month. That money covered rent, utility bills and other costs such as maid and gardener service and regularly eating out.

"These are people who are looking for alternatives that will accommodate their fixed income," she said. "The key question here is, how many Americans can manage to live (in the United States) on less than $1,000 and have all those amenities?"

http://www.banderasnews.com/0503/nr-expatriates.htm

Did we give them one of the Hawaiian islands when nobody was looking?

I like living in USA for a change!

I have never been to Australia though, and I would like to visit there. I'd also like to see Iceland--I may try to get there this year.

fed up with here. It's really a lovely country from what I understand.

It's beautiful, and it's clean, plus their government does a far better job at keeping the corporations out of politics.

And then there's the better access to healthcare

I don't know her personally, but I've always liked the artwork of Natasha Dahlberg (and bought some of her t-shirt designs.) She and her husband moved to NZ and set up a micro-brewery! Here's a link to Natasha's art, too (it makes a pop-up with thumbnail links)

I don't need a visa, and I can live and work in New Zealand, and the only concern I'd have is being close to Auckland so if I needed to get back here to my family, it's only 3 hours to do it.

The beaches on the North Island are pretty awesome, and the weather is much milder than what we get here, plus the most important thing is that they don't have any poisonous critters like we do

So, that's one poisonous critter

I've only ever been to North Island, so I know what you mean about the beaches. Plus, they're a big draw for people wanting to surf (plus surfing competitions.)

Waiheke Island is a little more expensive to live on than the main island, but it's just one of those picturesque places that you don't care how much it costs so long as you can visit or live there. My GF compared it to Hawaii for beauty, even more than the places she's lived on North Island (such as Whakatane, and Whangamata.)

Australia second.

and Australia is a country that cares about civil rights, pays workers a fair wage and has some lovely beaches.

The fact that much of the wildlife can kill you, well, that's not a bonus so I chose Canada first, Australia second

No one with the opportunity to go to a more developed nation would choose the US.

The right wingers are slowly taking over the country ala Ron Reagan style. Plus the global warming effects are getting scary, droughts, fires, etc. Also the country being divided by pro and anti immigration forces. They don't want brown people there. Asian Indians are being attacked in the media (Murdoch doing his shit there also).

mind, it is still paradise .

and they have compulsory voting, too, so that won't happen that wingnuts take over the country like the US has been. They also don't jail people for sneezing in public.

The US? Being sighted by police is pretty much a guarantee that you will be harassed by them, no matter how white, green, black or yellow you are. They harass because they can and there is no reprisal for it. "I don't like your shoes." Expect to get hauled down the street like the girl that was jogging and was grabbed by two cops because she was "jaywalking" while jogging and accidentally jogged out of campus.

Clearly, jogging anywhere without papers, or without being prepared to being grabbed by police officers from behind shouldn't scare anyone one. You should automatically assume it is the police and this is not a beat down or a robbery, just police exercising justice.

That's essentially what that story illustrated.

the western provinces in Canada. I love it up there too .

and has the best places to hike .

I voted Australia but I also love the coast of California and if I could afford it, that's where I'd live.

It's one of those nice places to visit but I wouldn't want to live there locations...

My granddaughter is there.

What is in the foreground?

I even dream of an apartment in Centre Ile in Strasbourg

in the Middle-East

2 years in Africa

and 3 years in Europe.

Would love to live in France for a while - hence a vote for Europe

that would make me happy. I love Alaska, not always so sure about the US.

The continental US has gone off the rails, again.

Alaska is still on the continent, I think, but as I pointed out in another thread, the shippers don't think so.

We have people down here passing bills to ensure discrimination. On "religious" grounds. What is godly and religious about discriminating in giving people health care?

"I saw you walk past the gay bar last month, and I don't agree that you can pass it by without lobbing a fireball in it. I can't treat you for a heart attack in this ER, because you deserve it for not burning them with fire as God commands!"

Alaska is pretty conservative, but the western states and provinces are liberal. Maybe we should annex Mexico too and end the so-called immigration problem once and for all by making them citizens.

Some of us have actually been trying to get Californians (the liberal ones, anyway) to move on up here. Alaska would get more liberals, and Californians could remember what water is like.

In fact, Jeanne Devon of The Mudflats posted this on her Facebook page last week:

Here's my diabolical plan for the day: I want a really gay-friendly city that is becoming so gentrified that its residents are being forced to flee (I'm looking at you San Francisco) to send up a few hundred transports filled with new Alaskan voters. They can stay for a few years - call it a missionary trip - until we vote out all the bigots in the legislature. As it stands now, with the most recent polling, the majority of Alaskans are in support of same-sex marriage, and a whopping 71% believe in some kind of legally recognized union between same-sex partners. It's not us, it's them. So come on, SF! Send us your displaced, your non-Google employees, your heretofore middle class yearning to be free!



140 likes and 40 comments. People like the idea.

much more expensive to live there than the lower 48. Don't know if I could get used to the winters either at my age.

at least as compared to the eastern US. The climate change seems to be working to our advantage, at least for now. Here in Anchorage, food is a little more expensive, but housing isn't too bad, nowhere near as much as Bay Area or LA area. You can still buy a fairly decent house here for about $300,000. Rent on a two-bedroom is about $1200-1500. Gasoline is about $3.60.

Living here isn't cheap, but it's nowhere near as expensive as it used to be.

I couldn't handle $1200 a month.

And you are fortunate to have such reasonable rent in California. Is your town inland? My daughter, who lives in Marina del Rey, pays about twice what she'd pay here for a comparable apartment, but, of course, that's a pretty upscale neighborhood and they do have some fairly nice amenities in their complex.

I understand that San Francisco's cost of living is through the roof now unless you live in a place with rent control.

Maybe they could get more. I don't know. It's small and cramped, but I have a nice garden and a view of the ocean and the dunes here on the Central Coast. It's just a little dry and hot for me these days. I prefer the big trees, lakes and rivers. I like cooler temperatures and the moisture that comes from frequent rain. I like the wildlife, eagles, elk, deer and even the occasional bear and wolves as long as they don't get too close. Here we have deer, huge jack rabbits and coyotes. There are cougars and bears too, but I only saw a cougar once ten years ago climbing a hill across the road from me.

when I visited. My boyfriend's cousin lives there with her girlfriend. They were the only liberal in their neighborhood. But, boy, gorgeous area!

because Juneau is generally considered one of the more liberal towns in AK.

and there were yard signs up for the local Tea Party guy everywhere!

My daughter and her husband bought some land in Chile - the equivalent of 8 U.S. acres. It is very beautiful. The back of the property has trees, the front faces the ocean. They plan to build a house but must first put in a road and then steps down to the beach.

Sam

their Social Security there. I believe it's because they didn't want Americans who had worked there for American companies to retire there. They wanted them gone.

My daughter's husband is from Chile but lives here. They have been married 6 years, and he is working on getting his citizenship (doesn't want to acquire it through a marriage). She carries both an American citizenship and a Chilean citizenship. I sure that won't make a difference but I do think he is thinking of retiring at the home they build there. And they are both paying into Social Security....

Sam

about earning American dollars through their work. It's pretty black and white for me. I know for a fact, I can't collect SS there because my whole working life has been in the USA and in dollars. There might be shades of grey for your family.

And I live in Portland, Oregon. That's no accident...

They're so laid-back and they aren't in a hurry, especially in countries like France and Spain. They enjoy life. I hate feeling like I have to be in a hurry all the time in this country and I feel like I never have any time to sit back and enjoy the show, so to speak.

paid in dollars. They are laid back value social interactions more than getting ahead and making money.

I may go do that, hopefully sooner than later.

Glad to see you back, Cleita.

I want to do on the fracking that's been going on off our California coast in secret. It's been verified. I have a lot of information to go through to digest into something that's readable and with all the sturm und drang here it's on the back burner.

Don't let hateful people bring you down. Life is easier if you ignore them.

I look forward to that post. Fracking is a huge issue and it's something that really needs to be addressed in our water-starved areas.

Two of those faults including the big one the San Andreas are parallel to the El Diablo Nuclear plant and one the Hosgri fault runs directly under it. Now Rachel Maddow has been reporting on the multitude of earthquakes happening in Oklahoma, a place not known previously for earthquakes, that appear to be directly related to fracking, so imagine what we are up against here if we have an earthquake magnitude in excess of 7.5, which is all that plant is built to withstand. Can you say Fukushima on steroids? Also, the amount of water that is needed for the operation would contaminate water we need for agriculture in a state already starved of water with this drought. I have five hours of a meeting and stacks of documents to try to put in some cognitive way, but it's important.

Let's go to Barcelona. The planet. Not the city.

Just so long as we go pick up Clara at the school she's teaching in.

York.

Or Newnewnewnewnewnewnewnewnewnewnew York?

No wait!

Cardiff.

Actually I was joking with my daughter tonight we were going to move to Cheswick so I could be a temp from Cheswick (when I graduate, I'm going to start by getting a temp job because of a clause in my separation agreement).

Although, I think I'm pretty happy with the country I'm currently in (Canada). I'd like to move out of my province though.

Stunning flat on the Cours Mirabeau or thereabouts, with a residence secondaire in the hills.

Lived in France for four years a lifetime ago; it made a somewhat favorable impression. Late spring is when you want to be in Paris, btw, for those of you wrestling with the question. April is a weather crap-shoot, no matter what the jazz men say.

very nice...The good thing is that it wasn't all that crowded and it was lovely for walking...

Hawai!

but for where to live permanently i would probalby say the US because that's the only place i have actually lived.

but i would like to experience living in other places for some months to see how it is.

if it wasn't for the language barrier, I wouldn't mind moving abroad. One of the biggest reasons why (besides health care) is because I believe that it would be even easier for an American guy to have success with a foreign woman than an American woman. I met women from various places in Europe and Asia, and from personal experience, the women who I have talked to from countries outside the U.S. seemed more open and outgoing overall. They always responded to my emails, they were very straightforward about what they wanted in a man, and they seemed to be enthusiastic about hearing from me every day. I don't mean this as a knock on American women, but the closest that I have ever gotten to having success with women was ironically with someone outside the country.

A lot of women from poorer countries (Asia, Eastern Europe) just want to escape poverty and will dump you as soon as they've gotten money out of you or qualified for that U.S. visa.

not hot with the unrelenting sun we have here. Somewhere peaceful, quiet, surrounded by nature, but also not too far from goods and services and medical care. Oregon, perhaps?

And I am not waxing nostalgic. I was there just last month and it only confirmed my feeling on the matter.

I'd live in my house, which I do. Small world.

I hope to go again in a year or so

Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, or Finland. Highest standard of living in the world. Best educational opportunities. A semester enrolled as a full time student at the university of Geneva in Switzerland costs 2000 Swiss francs(roughly 2500USD)for tuition.

That would include the US if we can get it done on a state by state basis.

And not for the dope.

In Los Cabos alone, look at the colony of people moved there.

if I had to pick somewhere else to live, I would choose either the jungles of the Amazon or Costa Rica.

on this farm.

but they won't let me stay for more than 3 months at a time. Ditto Europe. I'm one generation too far removed to qualify for ancestry visas in Norway and Germany.

Of the places I could actually move to, I've been only in the U.S. After these past two winters, I'm seriously thinking of moving back to Oregon. Hawaii would be great, too. I like the weather and the Asian and Polynesian cultures.

Of the places I haven't been to that I could possibly get permission to move to, the central highlands of Mexico seem most attractive. I know from having traveled to Cuba that my Spanish is already at survival level, and I'm sure I could improve if I lived among the language.

under the care of three awesome congressmen and skiing galore...though I don't ski anymore.

in Europe and loved it!

It's cold underground, and I can only swim so long.

second place in either New York or London. But if I have to chose one place only - there is no place I would rather live than where I am living now in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

Huffington Post Travel: Saipan: The Most Beautiful Place In America You've Never Heard Of (PHOTOS)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018558151

For the cuisine, and countryside

money to travel extensively and really see the world. So many interesting places. So little time.

The country no longer reflects my values and there is nothing left here for me.

a first world country where health care is a basic human right.

Since we're fantasizing, I might as well assume that I'd be rich to. If money wasn't an object I'd live way Upstate NY, where I grew up. I'd have a 2,000-3,000 sqft cabin home on one of the smaller and more remote lakes up there. Providing I could find a job up there that would make a decent income in my field (which isn't likely and is why I live further downstate, about an hour north of NYC), it is possibility that I could make it happen.

However, that being said, I lived about 40 minutes outside of Nuremberg, Germany for 4 years and I absolutely loved it. For the fun of it I'd probably maintain a home in Nuremberg, in the area within the old city walls, kind of close to the castle there. I absolutely loved Nuremberg. It was big enough to have everything you'd expect a big city to have yet small enough for you to really get to know it. There is also a tremendous amount of history in that city and I love the character and feel of the place.

Overall, there are things I don't like about our country and there are things that I believe the Europeans do better but I still believe in our country. I would love to see us become more "European" in many aspects but this country is still my home.

One place I visited I'd love to live, Boracay Island.