My permanent retirement city overseas

So, I was in the grocery store the other day and a fellow named Richard came up to me and he said, "I saw your video a few weeks ago where you talked about where you would retire and you talked about slow traveling around Southeast Asia for retirement." And he said, "But some of us, we don't want to slow travel. We just want to pick one place and live there and develop friendships and buy furniture and buy stuff and have it around us." And and so I thought about it. You know, Richard's right. Basically, he said, "You've been to 78 countries. Where would you put down roots today if you could no longer travel?" In this video, I'll answer Richard's question. If you're new to the channel, I left the United States 19 years ago. Some of those countries, some of those 78 countries are suitable for for people to retire, and some just aren't. 41 of them people would be interested in. Of those 41 countries, I have written reports on more than 116 cities. Last time I counted, each of those cities has videos. We don't just research online and tell you stuff. We actually go to these places. So, I have reports on 116 cities and there's 1,300 videos, not just of me, but also uh other retirees that live in these places. So, this is on the ground research and experience I'm sharing with you. And that's why Richard was asking me, "What's your favorite? you've been to all these places and he wanted to know out of all of them, what's my favorite? And so, so that's really what this is about. It's decision time for me

because I know many of you are are are interested in like because I've seen all these places. I know the pros and cons. I know what they feel like. You know, what is it? Where would I if I had to settle down and sit somewhere year round, where would I go? He's basically saying, level with me. Where where would you retire? Enough of this slow travel stuff. Some of us don't have the money or the time or the ability to do it. Just tell me where you would settle down. And so that's what this video is about. Um, and so I gave that some thought and uh, that's what I'm sharing with you in this video. I thought about the first choice I would make and then I thought about how some of you wouldn't make that choice. So I'll tell you what the second choice is and why you would make the second choice instead of my choice. And then that brought up a third choice. Now, you may not agree with me on my first choice or my second, but there's a good chance you'll agree with my third choice and and you'll know the reason why when this video is over. And then there's a fourth choice. And then at the end, I'll tell you why I'm not picking the other countries in my favorite part of the world, which is Southeast Asia. There's a lot of information here, so buckle up and we'll get going. So, my first choice, um, if I had to stay in the country year round, first of all, I'm a beach person. I like being at the beach. I like swimming and walking on the beach. I like sitting in a chair on the beach and watching the sunset. Something about the beach. And so for me, it has to be a beach. And so if I'm going to pick a city where I have to live there all year and it's going to

be at the beach and I'm permanent. I'm going to sit there. Uh this is here's the country I would pick and here's why. Um it has to have affordable living. So affordable living is uh you know depends on your budget but typical expats in all four of these places uh live anywhere from like 1,500 to 2500 a month. Really frugal ones uh can live on in many or most of these places for like a,000 to 2,000. And um you won't really know if you're the frugal one until you go and do your visit, see where you would rent and all that, where you'd eat. But ju that just gives you an idea of range of costs. And so, so that's what I mean by affordable. Um, and also they have to have excellent food. I mean, what's the point? You got, you got to have good food to eat. You got to be able to shop, get nice food. And so food's important. Accommodations. There should be a range of prices and kinds of accommodations so you can find the the the kind that fits your budget for your lifestyle. And and uh so that's important. Also, walkability. One of the things I love about uh living overseas is that I don't have a car anymore. You can't check a car when you leave. Many expats have cars, but I like it to be optional. I like to walk out my house and have coffee shops, restaurants, uh bars, things to do, the beach or mountains or something. You know, I don't want to get in a car and drive for 40 minutes. Uh I just like to walk or ride a bike. And so walkability is very important. Next up

for me is is beach life as I talked about, but beach is too hot for some of you. So, the second place I'm going to tell you about is cooler than the beach cuz most of the beaches in Southeast Asia are just pretty dang hot. So, also has to be safe. Safety is very important uh when you get to retirement age. You don't want to deal with, you know, people giving you trouble or whatever. Also, if you're going to be permanently in a place, you want to have a retirement visa, right? You don't want to do visa runs. Um and so, you have to have a affordable retirement visa and you have to have the possibility of grandfathering your visa. this first place I'm going to tell you about that in the past they've grandfathered visas once you get in you're good now they're a country they can do whatever they want but but in the past they've done that so hopefully they would do it in the future grandfather the same terms and then also worldclass medical you know when you're retirement age you want to be able to walk into a hospital and somebody diagnoses you tells you what's wrong and fixes you and give you know gives you a reasonable price so affordable worldclass medical and I'm self-insured that means I have money in the bank if something goes wrong, I'll just pay for it myself. But also, the place has to have medical insurance available for a, you know, fairly reasonable price. You know, maybe, you know, cheaper than US prices. Uh, you're not going to beat Europe, for example. They many of those countries have uh medical uh that citizens get pays out of their taxes or whatever. Also, this first place I'm talking about has affordable assisted living. And so, where is this place in the world? My first choice, a beach.

It's in Thailand. It's called Guah in Thailand. and it has a couple of retirement visas. Uh I could probably qualify for either one of them called a retirement visa where you put 800k bot in a tie bank and you renew it every year. That's about $25,000. They have another one for pension. They have other ones for people with more money. They have people for ones for digital nomads. All different kinds of visas, but that's just we're talking retirement in this video. And so Wah Hin has all of that. And it's a great city, great restaurants. And so that's my number one pick. If I parked my butt today and I wasn't traveling anymore, I would retire in Wah in Thailand. Okay, I told you the beach might be too warm for you. So, what is warm? In the hottest part of the day, from the coldest time of year to the warmest time of year, the temperature ranges from 87 Fahrenheit to 93 F, which is 31 C to 34 C. That might be too hot for some of you. What about at night? at night from the coolest time of year to the hottest time of year ranges from 74 Fahrenheit to 79 Fahrenheit. So it cools down a little bit which is 23 C to 26 C. But that's too hot for some of you. That those daytime highs and maybe even the nighttime highs are too hot for some of you. If that's you, here's my second choice. Same country, Chiang Mai, Thailand. It's a little higher elevation. It's a little cooler. And so what is the what's the seasonal weather like there? The hot the hottest time of the day from the coolest time of year to

the hottest time of year ranges from 81 Fahrenheit to 90 Fahrenheit, which is 27 Celsius to 32 Celsius. What about the coolest time of day? You know, at night from the coolest time of year to the hottest, what's the range? 52 Fahrenheit to 63 Fahrenheit, which is 11 Celsius to 17 Celsius. But Mai has a burn season. So you're going to Many people leave Mai during the burn season. What is the burn season? They actually burn the crops instead of till it into the soil. So the air is bad. So many people go to the beach. What's different about Chiang Mai than Wahin at the beach? It's up in the mountains. It's green. It's uh it's a thousand-year-old city with uh cultural extravagance, gorgeous temples and history. It has a moat around the the old city. uh with uh with the castle walls still in parts of it and because it parts of the year it's cooler you don't have to siesta most of the year like you do in Wahin during the hot time of the day and so you can be outdoors more okay what if you're willing to travel a little bit more you know maybe not as much as me not a slow traveler but you're willing to do limited uh international travel maybe four flights per year but only in Southeast Asia what would I recommend I would actually pick this over Guah Hin if I was willing to travel like this. I would stay there 11 months of the year and then I would spend maybe a month of

the year flying to nearby cities or whatever. Uh four flights a year round trip. I would fly only regionally nearby countries because it's relatively cheap. This country has affordable cost of living both um the apartments and the food. It's really reasonable. It has a range of apartments from uh reasonable price to more extravagant, you know, like your home country possibly. It's very walkable. It has grabbed there to go once in a while if you want to go a little further. It has a very nice beach life. Gorgeous, gorgeous beaches, uh beach bars, really nice, but the beach might be too hot for some of you. I'll talk about that in a minute. Very safe. Um it has excellent medical. It's excellent but not world class like Thailand was but it's affordable and you can either self-insure or you can get medical insurance and it doesn't really have a highly developed assisted living right now but it's it is developing as we speak and so over time maybe by the time you're ready for assisted living it would it would have something near you that would be affordable so where is this city in the world I'm talking about Daong Vietnam this would be number three and I personally would pick it over Wah Hin for my base because I wouldn't mind doing visa rents. Um I may still get a a retirement visa in Wahin just so I can pick up that that grandfather benefit in case they change the rules. I'll have my retirement visa in place. I would spend

probably as much or more time in in uh Daong, Vietnam. So what if the weather's too warm for you? First of all, what is the weather in Daong? So the seasonal average highs, this is from the lowest time of year to the highest hottest time of year during the hot hottest time of day run from 75 Fahrenheit to 93 Fahrenheit, which Celsius is 24 to 34. From the cool time at night, from the cool time of year to the warmest time of year at night, the temperatures range from 64 Fahrenheit to 81 Fahrenheit, which is 18 Celsius to 21 Celsius. So, Daang is a little cooler than Wahim. The problem with Daang, I already talked about, you have to do four visa runs per year. And in Daang, it's about $150. There's a bus that picks you up, takes you to the border. Same day they bring you back, includes your visa, and you have to do that four times a year. Each visa you gets worth uh gets you 3 months. And so you take a bus to the border. That's the that's the downside of Denam. But what if the beach is too hot for you in Denam? What would I do?

This second place is Dot, Vietnam. And the weather, how cool how much cooler is it than Dan? The highs for the hottest time of day, from the coolest time of year to the hottest, range from 70 Fahrenheit to 80 Fahrenheit, which is 24 Celsius to 27 Celsius, much cooler. And the cool time of day, from the cool time of year to the warm time of year, ranges from 50 Fahrenheit to 64 Fahrenheit, which is 10 Celsius to 18 Celsius. And that's Dot, Vietnam. What how is it different than the beach at Daam? Uh, Dot has endless rolling hills. It has these gorgeous century old uh, tea plantations. It has um all the green houses, flowers, and it's just a very green and beautiful uh, part part of Vietnam. Uh, it's it's cool enough where you you can wear long pants and a sweater or even a light coat if you want to at night. And you you can have outdoor life there all year round, whether it's hiking or wandering around the city or whatever it is. You're not doing this siesta thing during the hot time of year, hiding indoors during the hot time of day. Again, the Delot has the same problem. You have to do the four visa runs a year. Why not Cambodia?

Now, Cambodia, I love Cambodia. It's an amazing place. But for retirement age people that are worried about their health, they want to be within, you know, whatever 10 minutes of a decent hospital. They have some, they do have health care in Cambodia. It's just not at the level of uh Thailand or uh Vietnam. So healthcare is very important. Uh what about Malaysia? Malaysia has in my opinion it has as good or better healthcare than Thailand. The the problem is that the retirement visa in Malaysia is too cost too costly for most people. And so um you can go to Borneo which is the Borneo is a huge island and parts of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. You can go to either Saba or Sarwalk and the visas are a little bit cheaper, a little bit more reasonable than the main part of uh Thailand. Um, but for most people they prefer they rather be in KL or Penang. But Borneo is a gorgeous place. You want to look into that if that sounds fun to you. Why not Lao? Lao infrastructure is just it's not really up to it. Healthc care is not really up to it yet. Give it another 10 years. Check again. Why not Bali? You know, I love Bali. It's one of my favorite places. I love a little city in the mountains called Ubud. Um, the problem with Bali right now is traffic and infrastructure. Um, Ubud in the mountains is my favorite city. It's a gorgeous little walkable city. Great food, great nightife, everything about it. You never have to get in a car. It's all walkable in my opinion. And the problem though is if you want to go to the beach, you're in Bali. You're going to want to see the beach, right? I'm a

beach person. It could take you 3, four hours to get to the beach even though it's only an hour drive away if the traffic were reasonable, but it's just not. Um, so that's why it's probably not a long-term place to retire. If they ever get the get it together with the infrastructure, all these would be a great choice. But for now, I would say it's really not a good choice. So, also, I have a video about what my real retirement would would be, which is called slow travel. I would live I would spend my retirement all around Southeast Asia. Maybe three months here, three months here, three months there. And that video, I'll put that video uh below. Dan's real retirement. It'll be in the notes below the video. So, my two uh two favorite picks um uh number one and number three uh for beaches uh Thailand and Vietnam. I'll put Thailand over here, Huah Hin and Da Nang over here. You can watch more detail about each of my favorites. Uh and if I were going to settle down, that's where I'd park my butt. Thanks for watching.