Where to?

[mcoyote]

I like the US, but we won't be able to retire here and stay healthy and housed, and I don't believe the economy has anything to recommend it in the coming decades. Much as in Snow Crash, we appear to be down to pizza delivery [read: service work, requiring folks with money for services], movies, and software, and that won't employ too many people.

Plus, we keep making the rest of the world mad at us, gas is getting to the point where it's expensive to go anywhere in this joint, and we're not doing anything worthwhile otherwise (like...exploring the solar system or whatever).

Where to?

[Rincewind]

http://www.auroville.org/ - if you don't mind hippies, your dollar will last a very long time in India.
Posted on: March 05, 2008, 02:14:12 pmOh wait, you're the guy that hates hippies, scratch that!  lol

[vitaminC]

Maybe you could teach English to the Chinese.

And you'll likely need to go to a so-called third world country if having cheap gas and a nearby factory are your priorities.

Good luck.

[mcoyote]

Oh wait, you're the guy that hates hippies, scratch that!  lol

Me? Heck no...who do you think you're talking to? I don't hate anyone, really...but I did grow up with hippies, of the first order, and definitely have an aversion to moochers and body odor as a result.

[mcoyote]

Maybe you could teach English to the Chinese.

And you'll likely need to go to a so-called third world country if having cheap gas and a nearby factory are your priorities.

Good luck.

*shrugs -- My sister teaches English in the Czech Republic and has been there for over a decade now.

I'd suck at Chinese, from what I've read about the language, but I could muddle through a Slavic or romantic language. What the Czechs have a larger demand for is software engineers, as they do in India (for example), and those are definitely above-average jobs for those countries but pay an unpleasant fraction of what they do here.

Plus, like the rest of the world, they're training plenty of folks locally to do that work just fine, but there are still lead positions here and there for the adaptable. The trick is finding such a setting that will let me live once I stop working (or let me stop working at all), and won't prevent me from earning a living as an incoming US citizen. Might not be possible.

[Rincewind]

Me? Heck no...who do you think you're talking to? I don't hate anyone, really...but I did grow up with hippies, of the first order, and definitely have an aversion to moochers and body odor as a result.

I thought you were the one worried about slipping into a mellow-yellow mindset, sorry.  I would still say India.  Auroville is actually a nice expatriot 'intentional' community, though a little strange.  And it is not far from Pondicherry and Madras.

If you want to keep working, try Bangalore for software jobs.

[mcoyote]

I thought you were the one worried about slipping into a mellow-yellow mindset, sorry.  I would still say India.  Auroville is actually a nice expatriot 'intentional' community, though a little strange.  And it is not far from Pondicherry and Madras.

If you want to keep working, try Bangalore for software jobs.

Oh, *that*. No, that was because of some well-chosen words from another on this board that stuck in my head, not the concepts underlying them.

I have about a dozen contractors from Bangalore in nearby cubes in my office -- ironic if I get were to get shipped back here. I wouldn't do it if the outlook for my lifestyle in retirement was worse than it is here, and I don't think India is renowned for its social safety net -- though it may be more possible to pile up enough scratch to live well in retirement there.

That's what my mentor at CSC on my first MOC procject, back in '95, did. She took her tasty, old-school CSC retirement and moved to the Philippines. Difference is, she was from there originally and had a good plan in her head for stretching her savings once she went back. If one is an outsider, I'm sure things would be a lot more tricky and expensive.
 

[traveler]

Aren't there a lot of expat Americans retired in Costa Rica? Also, many Americans have retired in various parts of Mexico. I'm sure there are other countries in central or south America where one might go. What about eastern Europe?

I've had the same question in mind for a while, but don't have an answer yet.

You should probably pick a place soon, and begin learning the language. My Spanish skills could be resurrected in short order, so I'm leaning that direction.

[Nouroog]

Mexico, Belize.... someplace south, warm, brown, and on the ocean.  

[mcoyote]

Mexico, Belize.... someplace south, warm, brown, and on the ocean.  

Ooh! Ooh! Let's buy up a chunk of Baja near the Sea of Cortez and make it the ST.N retirement community. Oh, wait...we'd kill each other...

[Nouroog]

Between the guns, the beer, and the dirtbikes? Yeah, probably.

[mcoyote]

Between the guns, the beer, and the dirtbikes? Yeah, probably.

Well, ok, I'll take the guns, you take the beer...and-- ..wait..that won't work.

[mcoyote]

Mexico, Belize.... someplace south, warm, brown, and on the ocean.  

Eh, in all seriousness -- fresh water is too scarce and global warming are going to make these places uninhabitable in a couple of decades. Thinking...Ireland, Vancouver, Iceland...?

ED: Actually, Iceland's tricky...I've been there, little water, no arable land, vulnerable to sea level rise...hmmm.

[katzke]

One of my friends retired at 45 to a little island off of the coast of Honduras. He bought a business (a movie store and one-screen theater) and plans to operate it when he's not scuba diving or sleeping on the beach.

[Nouroog]

One of my friends retired at 45 to a little island off of the coast of Honduras. He bought a business (a movie store and one-screen theater) and plans to operate it when he's not scuba diving or sleeping on the beach.

Very cool!  

[bomber]

I know a couple of folks that lit out for Ireland -- this was before the dollar fell, but they tell me the folks are nice (which matches my experience) and their retirement income went a long way there . . . ..  

at one time, you could get a tax free deal if you were an artist of darned near any stripe.

the riding's pretty fair, too ;-}

[DredheadV2.0]

I was thinking of going back to the homeland I've never seen - my mom's side is Estonia.  Apparently they've turned it into quite the awesome little country - strong economy, extremely tech-savvy, civil liberties abound.

However, that whopping great big kleptocracy along its Eastern border worries the shit out of me.  I like Canada as a neighbor much better than Russia.  I think I'll stay put, in the country my foreuncles helped create.

[lizard]

Mexico, Belize.... someplace south, warm, brown, and on the ocean.  

I think I read somewhere that non citizens cannot legally "own" property within 100 miles of the coast in Mexico. Might put a damper on some oceanfront locations.

[stefrrr]

I was thinking of going back to the homeland I've never seen - my mom's side is Estonia.  Apparently they've turned it into quite the awesome little country - strong economy, extremely tech-savvy, civil liberties abound.

However, that whopping great big kleptocracy along its Eastern border worries the shit out of me.  I like Canada as a neighbor much better than Russia.  I think I'll stay put, in the country my foreuncles helped create.

Isn't Estonia the country that all of the labor is outsourced to in the Dilbert cartoons?

[Nouroog]

I think I read somewhere that non citizens cannot legally "own" property within 100 miles of the coast in Mexico. Might put a damper on some oceanfront locations.

What about Belize or Costa Rica?