Day 06: Step #3, Finding Your Haven

The World’s Top Havens Compared

Dear Student,

Yesterday we looked at what it would cost you to live in the world’s top havens. Working from the budgets I presented, I asked you to make a list of the countries that meet your personal budget parameters (that is, that you can afford given the size of your monthly nut).

Today we’re going to consider these top havens beyond cost of living and consider them in terms of everything else.

Specifically, for each country on our list, we’re going to look at:

• Cost of living (As I’ve explained, this should be considered separately from cost of housing. We’ll return to this discussion of housing costs when we talk about finding a rental in your haven of choice. Meantime, for our purposes here, I want to make it possible for you to compare each country in this regard generally, at the same time as you’re making the other important comparisons.)

• Climate

• Health care

• Infrastructure

• Accessibility to the United States

• Language

• Culture, recreation, and entertainment

• Taxes

• Special benefits for foreign retirees

• Education and schools (in case you’re planning a move with school-aged children)

Every country on my list is appealing for different reasons. While all could make an ideal adopted home for someone… they’re not all right for you. Your job, starting today, is to identify the one(s) that are.

Making this choice is about, first, understanding yourself (you’ve done that work, on Day 1) and, second, understanding the pluses and the minuses of the place. No place is perfect, and nothing anywhere is absolute. No country, for example, has perfect weather all the time. And there’s no such thing as perfect culture.

It’s all relative.

Therefore, your challenge comes down to making comparisons. Some places offer better weather than others… some offer more options for outdoor recreation… some are nearer to your home town (wherever that is) than others… in some countries the public transportation systems are more developed than in others… etc.

To help you to make these necessary comparisons, I’ve rated and ranked each country on my list in each of the categories you should be considering. Each country receives one to five stars in each category, five stars being the best, one star being not so good. For example, five stars in the Climate category would mean that the country’s weather is pretty darn great year-round. One star in the Special Benefits for Foreign Retirees indicates that the country offers few extras (tax breaks, travel discounts, etc.) for expats. Four or five stars in the Language category for a country where the language is not English means that you could live here and get along day-to-day without learning the local language if you wanted to. Etc.

One more thing: I haven’t included Safety on my category list. This is not because safety isn’t one of the important issues you should consider when making your comparisons and choices. It is because all the places on my list are safe.

Again, though, no place is perfect in any regard… meaning no place is perfectly safe. In every city of every country everywhere on earth, there are areas where you shouldn’t travel alone at night and where a woman should hold on tightly to her purse as she passes through.

That said, warnings from the U.S. State Department and looping video footage from CNN notwithstanding, I say again that I would qualify every place on my list as safe.

Go here now to access the chart I’ve prepared for you, showing how the world’s top havens compare on 10 important issues.