Europe vs. the Americas

September 29, 2007
Paris, France

Conference Director Grant Perry sent around the first draft of the proposed schedule for the upcoming Ultimate Event II in Panama City next month. Day 1 of the program included a series of "Featured Country" presentations. Reviewing the draft, I couldn't help but notice that, of the eight countries spotlighted on that first day, all were in Latin America. Not a single European country got its own Featured Country spot. Instead, Europe was dealt with as a group. Grant was suggesting that the entire Continent be addressed by our Euro-team in a single presentation!

Grant defended his position: "Our readers don't care about Europe. At least, not nearly as much as they care about Latin America. They think Europe is too expensive. Our General Session time is limited. We can't give anymore of it to Europe."

Lief Simon, our Real Estate Guru, fired back: "You'd be better off making the event Latin America-only rather than giving Europe and the rest of the world the short shrift you're giving it in this program."

"Our main pitch for Europe has always been culture and history…but there is a strong pitch to be made for affordability, too. If our readers think Europe is too expensive, it's because we're not doing our jobs. Right, in the major Continental cities, and along the Med, you can't expect to live on a budget. But it's our job to help readers understand that there's a lot of Europe beyond Paris and Florence, as we did at the Live & Prosper in Europe Conference in Barcelona last week," Lief continued.

"For example, right now you could buy a nice, livable old stone house in just about every European country for less than ?100,000. The European team gave specific examples to the group assembled for the Barcelona event early this month. The locations may be remote, but you can't get much more remote than the south Pacific coast of Nicaragua…or Boquete, Panama. The cost of living in Europe can be cheap for food and wine and even health care. We've focused on the popular, high-end locations, but that's been a mistake.

"I think we need to publish a report on 'How to Live in Europe on a Latin America Budget.' Forget the maid and dining out every night, and the cost of living in Europe starts to come close in most respects to the cost of living in Latino Land. In fact, it can be comparable to the cost of living in the U.S. in, say, Iowa, but the middle of nowhere in France or Spain is exponentially preferable to Iowa."

My colleague Euro-editor Leigh Fergus chimed in:

"I agree-we really need to get rid of the idea that Europe is too expensive. It isn't. It's as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be once you look outside Paris, the Riviera, and Tuscany."

Personally, I've just spent a wonderful few days in Bordeaux enjoying great cheap food and wine-and I've resisted responding to the first schedule (Grant wouldn't have liked what I would have had to say!).

And our combined Euro-efforts have paid off in the revised program-we're duking this out live in Panama in October. Europe versus the Americas. Myself and Steenie Harvey versus Suzan Haskins and Lee Harrison. Lief Simon and Kathie Peddicord will moderate…and try to limit the low blows.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. The battle will go live at the Ultimate Event II, Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center, Panama City, October 27.

It's shaping up to be quite a spectacle. Hope to see you there.

We'll be packing Kevlar.

Best regards,

Maria Savage
International Living's European Consultant

P.S. In fact, readers have already been getting in on the fun. One has written, in response to coverage of our just-published 2007 Global Retirement Index, to chide us:

"Is Dublin your only yardstick for affordability in Ireland? That's like saying France consists only of Paris, or Italy solely of Rome. I still have much family in the west, and find Galway and Mayo much more reasonable. We only visit the Dublin cousins for a day or two, but spend much more time with the family on the other side of the country, and thoroughly enjoy Kerry in the fall. And even in the hinterlands, great strides have been made since the Irish discovered the ice cube back around 1975.
"There are numerous, fabulous small restaurants with Euro-cuisine to rival any city on the mainland, and an abundance of family-owned pubs with their own smoke shacks for the local and plentiful salmon. At many of these places you find stellar meats and seafood, with an abundance of fresh, bright, local produce, in impressive portions, and at an attractive price.
"I realize a lot of your readership consists of people close to retirement, and as much as I love Ireland, it wouldn't be my first choice either. Too cold and damp, except for maybe the summer and fall on the Dingle peninsula. But I think you do your readers a disservice when you portray Dublin (one of the most crowded, over-priced, impossible to get around in cities in the world) as the benchmark for the whole country."

P.P.S. Full details of the Ultimate Event II program here.