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Ordinarily, I skip over blog posts and emails in which people rave about how lucky they are. Sometimes life deals you a great hand, and I’m all for letting the world know about your good fortune…but I rarely get anything I personally can use out of articles on the topic.
The financial and lifestyle benefits of living, working, and retiring abroad are pretty obvious. If you live in a place with temperate year-round weather and lower prices for food, transportation, rent, taxes, and real estate, you’re going to be more comfortable and save money.
Back in 1997, my wife and I were married in the sunny glass-covered atrium of the Don Carlos Hotel in San José, Costa Rica. The hotel provided a musician who played keyboards and a notary public who handled the paperwork and shared with us the bottle of champagne the hotel included in the wedding package.
One of the first things people say when they hear my wife and I have lived in Latin America for 16 years is, “You must be fluent in Spanish.” I have to admit that we are not, but I don’t feel too bad about that. Here’s why.
I didn’t move abroad for the affordable healthcare. I moved abroad for the adventure and the weather. I wanted to see how other people in the world lived. I wanted a more relaxed, less stressful lifestyle. I wanted warm weather year-round.
Among the enlightened and civilized places in the world—the places I and most other expats choose to live—the basic freedoms of speech, action, and movement are pretty much the same, and for the most part guaranteed by the governments of those countries.
It’s been a few months since my wife, Suzan, and I have been in Ecuador. After living in Cotatachi, high up in Ecuador’s northern Andes, for eight years, we moved to central Mexico to be closer to our three-year-old granddaughter. Logistically, is was a no-brainer.
I've grown to love packing for travel. Which is odd, because I really don't like the act of traveling itself, at least not on airplanes. For normal folks like me, who most often travel in coach, airplanes are simply cramped, overcrowded, flying buses.
I remember when the “self-help” trend really took off, and bookstores (remember those?) featured entire "Self-Help" sections. Suddenly you could find your true mission in life, become more confident, promote your business, be a better parent, improve your eyesight, get a better job...you name it, you could help yourself do it with the right book.
I spent the morning texting with a friend in the States recently. I have the kind of phone plan that provides unlimited text and data between Mexico and the U.S. and Canada, so I'm able to indulge this modern addiction from my current home in Central Mexico at no additional cost.