IL Postcard

Why I Retired Early Overseas

Date: 02/16/2008

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008

Read more about retiring overseas in International Living Postcards—Sunday Edition

You should retire overseas, for at least part of the year.

I figure the United States must be a pretty lousy place to retire. Why? Because it’s a great place to work.

I grew up in a Los Angeles working-class family in the 1950s and 1960s. I, and many of the kids I knew back then, have been exceptionally successful. We worked hard, and had a little luck. But we also grew up and started our careers in California, during the most prolonged, sustained economic boom in world history.

Vicki and I have traveled to some 80 countries during the past 40 years. In all our travels, I’ve never found a place that offers more opportunities than the U.S. for business success. If you have to work for a living—and most of us do—you want to be in America. Every place else comes in a distant second. The U.S. may have lost its economic dominance, and may in fact be spiraling downward. But it’s still the best place for a young person with pluck to get ahead.

Now, Americans know how to play, no question. But Americans tend to work hard, play hard. American life tends to be fast and furious. I maintain that in retirement we need a more leisurely environment altogether.

In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain noted the hard-driving American attitude of the 19th century, compared with more leisurely Europe. He went to Europe and the Middle East with a group of American tourists, a group he called “the innocents abroad.” In France, Twain observed: “Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe—comfort. In America we hurry—which is well, but when the day’s work is done we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry...I do envy these Europeans for the comfort they take. When the work of the day is done, they forget it... The change that has come over our little party (of Americans) is surprising. Day by day we lose some of our restlessness and absorb some of the spirit of quietude and ease.”

I believe you’re better off retiring in France—or any other place in Europe, South America, or Asia—than in the United States. What makes the U.S. a great place to work makes for a lousy place to retire. In the U.S. your neighbors hustle and shake. They have little time for pleasantries, much less to sit for an hour in a café. Sure, you might hang around with other retirees in America. But you’ll have to search them out. And you'll have to give up on old friends, who for the most part will still be working.

Paul Terhorst
Roving “Retire Early” Editor, International Living

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