Utila: Off-Grid Living in the Unspoiled Caribbean
Subscriber Login - Not A Member Yet? Click Here Email Address Password Remember Me Forgot Your Password?
John Clites
Small, Pleasant, and Not Yet Overrun: Ljubljana
Subscriber Login - Not A Member Yet? Click Here Email Address Password Remember Me Forgot Your Password?
A Very Sinister Chapel…
It’s not so much the peeling paint or statues of winged angels that catch my eye in this ancient chapel…it’s the pillars of skulls holding them aloft. A church decorated with bones—thousands and thousands of human bones—might sound like a macabre monstrosity. But not so in the Czech town of Kutná Hora, where it takes pride of place among the locality’s other attractions.
Retired in Our 40s and Homesteading in Belize
Caprice Parkes and Joe Singh's rustic lifestyle is very different to the life they left behind...and they love it. The couple lives in Chan Chen Village, in Belize's northern Corozal District, abutting Mexico. Young "retirees" at only 43 and 45, Caprice and Joe actively work a 22-acre homestead, and are largely self-sufficient. "We grow our own greens, spinach, lettuces, okra, beans of different sorts, herbs, cassava, sweet potato, onions, and fruit trees," says Caprice. "Joe goes fishing and hunting with the locals from our village. We can pretty much eat for free most days. We raise chickens and turkeys and will shortly start raising pigs."
Brazil: Quality Healthcare, Half the cost
Although best known for samba, carnival, and success on the soccer field, these are not the only achievements Brazil has to its name. This country also has high-quality and highly affordable healthcare, as I have found over the course of my six-plus years living as an expat here.
Play Your Retirement Wildcard…and Enjoy
My Grandpa Clites retired at 65 from U.S. Steel. Soon after, he took Grandma on the obligatory one-week packaged tour to Hawaii. After returning home, they moved to a retirement village. Grandpa took up painting by the numbers. He died at 69. Grandpa had a short and, if I’m blunt, pretty empty retirement. Unfortunately, his story was common for his generation. He did what everyone else did. He probably never even realized that other options were available.
“A Lifestyle We Could Never Afford in the U.S.”
"Florida was nice but boring," Maryann Risley says of her retirement to Orlando with husband, Steve. After all, "you can only visit Disney World so many times." The couple craved some excitement and some new adventure, so they began to research retirement abroad. "I found IL magazine and started to read about the benefits of retiring in Panama," Maryann says.
Downsize: Enjoy a Simpler Life
I arrived in Rio in 2008 with just two suitcases and a backpack. While I’ve accumulated a few things since, I still own very little. Interestingly, I don’t miss my old stuff. And I had a lot of stuff. My home was perhaps less cluttered than many American homes with electronics, knickknacks, and the latest must-have gadgets from The Home Shopping Network. Still, I was a single guy with a three-bedroom home, and an SUV parked in the garage. I had stuff.
Small-Town USA in the Heart of Southern Brazil: Meet Serra Gaúcha
This valley reminds me of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Here, as there, ancient rolling hills are blanketed in a mix of pines and broadleaves. Then the bus I’m on passes a clutch of palm trees. Okay, not quite North Carolina. The Serra Gaúcha region, in southern Brazil, is practically unknown abroad, but it’s very popular with Brazilians. They flock here to enjoy the temperate, highland climate, so different from much of mostly-tropical Brazil. (Serra, in fact, means “highlands.”)
Brazilian Visas: All you Need to Know
Interest in Brazil is at an all-time high. This month the world’s most famous carnival hits the streets of Rio, and this year’s soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic games are being held here. These are great reasons to plan a visit, but there are reasons to stay longer, too…white-sand beaches, pleasant weather, incredible natural beauty, a vibrant culture, diverse and healthy food, and warm and receptive people.