International Living’s expat network is your key to a new life in a new country. Get real, honest advice from people just like you. Discover the tips, tricks, shortcuts, and strategies you can use to cut through red tape and improve your life overseas right away.
Read about and learn from real-life experiences our expats have had in their new home countries, from health care to taxes, earning an income overseas to buying real estate…and much more.
I turn the corner and walk on the narrow sidewalk, up a gentle slope. The street is cobblestone. The surrounding buildings are centuries old, painted in rich shades of burgundy, amber, and burnt umber. An older woman going home from the market, laden with bags, walks by.
One thing that makes the lifestyle in the Colonial Highlands so appealing is the ideal temperatures much of the year—no air-conditioning needed. During the day, expect temperatures in the 70sF, cooling off into the 60s F at night and dipping into the 50s F in the wee hours.
Bids bounced from one side of the auction room to the other amid the rapid-fire patter of the auctioneer. The price rose thousands in a couple of seconds. I wasn’t even bidding on the property but I could feel the excitement.
Retire sooner. Spend less. Live better. That’s the end goal. And there’s no question: You can do it. You can do it in all sorts of beautiful, welcoming, good-weather communities that dot the globe. Laidback beach escapes. Quiet mountain get-aways. University towns. Even cosmopolitan cities.
As the costs of healthcare, utilities, taxes, and food continue to rise in North America, the idea of retiring abroad is gaining traction. International Living has been talking about saving money by moving abroad since before the internet…for 36 years, in fact.
For many North Americans, moving to Italy to live in a stone cottage with its own olive grove is dream-worthy enough on its own. But for Bruce Adgate and Joanna Ross, it was just the start of their adventures.
For serial housesitters Denny and Eden Rudin, gone is their hectic, working-world life in the U.S., with car and mortgage payments and high medical costs. “With housesitting, we find it’s actually cheaper than our life was back in Arizona. Plus we get to see new places,” they say.
“The longer I stay here, the more I realize I’ve made a good choice,” says Leo Ellis of his new home in the colorful Thai city of Chiang Mai. Leo moved here in 2012—at the modest age of 87. Four years later, he’s as happy as ever to call it home.
I’m strolling along a pretty, red-brick promenade, gazing at a scattering of fishing boats bobbing in the luminous, blue-green waters of a small harbor. The warmth of the May sunshine on my shoulders feels like an embrace.
When it comes to crisis real estate investing in Europe, I’m looking to Portugal. There the opportunity to profit is still strong—particularly in the popular tourist destination of the Algarve.