I am completely serious; I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. I have done some expat homework but there are so many places I have never visited to consider. So many different pros and cons. For myself, even climate change is a factor. Otis just slammed Mexico; it turned into a monster with historic alacrity. Higher on that coast was one of the places I was eyeing that has a big U.S. expat community because hablo muy Poco español. I expect the clean up and infrastructure rebuilding is not as efficient or fast as here in Fl. Don't want to go from the frying pan to the fire.
If you narrow down your search, let me know, please and thank you.
On topic: I don't have anything to add I haven't written in the past. I.E. We need much tougher gun laws. Bans on capacity and weapon type. Mandatory training. Mental health evaluations. The process of qualifying to own a firearm should be expensive for the purchaser. Hell, even something as mundane as COMPTIA and EMS certifications require regular recertification. Charge the owners fees to cover everything, and require mandatory training and evaluations every 3yrs. Even hunters; no exceptions.
Or we continue are descent into the Robocop dystopia.
HURR DURR! Makin' guns illegal means only criminals will them! HERP DERP!
No you vast morons, only the ones that are banned. Can't afford or pass the requirements for ownership? Too fucking bad. As beyond you as it is to understand; that's how civilized societies work. Certain constraints are placed upon all of the members for the collective good.
In the great recession.. I lost my job and my condo. Everything I had been taught by wall street.. to always vote Republican came crashing down that year. I was horribly depressed and I just needed to get away from NYC.
I went to Singapore and found myself. Stayed there 6 years. The good part of it was.. traveled and I really got to know pro's and cons of many places.
Like Thailand is a dream destination for some (especially Brits) but I've been there enough to know the financial cons and other cons. Especially that it floods and you can have snakes coming into your room to escape the flooding. Good for sex life though if you're single, but so are a lot of other places!
Lots of foreigners do Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.. it's cheaper by a tad but you run into scams and it ends up costing a whole lot more than the sticker price. That in your golden years is going to cause a whole lot more stress and totally defeats the purpose of moving as you're moving just to get away from stress.
That's why I don't want to actually live there. Visit 2-3 weeks for fun, get my fill and fly back home. That way South East Asia stays in the "honeymoon" phase.
Personally I like Australia the best - really good health care, not crazy amount of shootings and it's close enough that if I want a holiday into Bali, Cebu, or somewhere, it's not too far to travel or get back. Like a 6 hour trip! However it's not cheap and that's the hitch. Like I might as well just stay in Singapore and travel.
There are also cheap destinations in Europe.. where if you buy a house, you get a residency visa. Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece. My father's friend moved to Greece and he loves it there!
You can use vacation time to go scout out places before you finalize. Honestly you only need a week to so to see if you really like a place. Since you speak spanish.. Spain would be good. Why don't you look at Giriona or Benidorm?
Anyways I can't narrow down a place for you, since it's all going to be based on 75% your budget, 20% by your personal needs and 5% by availability of banks or services which can transfer your money from the US to you so you can spend it!
Don't underestimate that last bit.. I really liked Laos but banking and money transfer and availability of drugs was a nightmare. Had to travel like 50km just to find ibuprofen from the sticks!