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To produce the 2011 Quality of Life Index we consider 192 countries in nine categories. This involves number crunching thousands of pieces of data from official government sources, the World Health Organization, The Economist, the United Nations and many other journals, tables, and records

A Lithuanian company called Olialia (pronounced “ohh-la-la”) has announced plans to create a resort in the Maldives staffed entirely by beautiful blondes. The “Island of Blondes” is set to open in 2015.

Verdant green tropical forest sweeps down to golden-sand beaches washed by the rich blue Pacific. It’s some of the most outstanding coast I’ve ever seen. This stretch of northwest Costa Rica—Peninsula Papagayo—is a chic, up-market destination where the jet-set goes to stay in world-famous resorts and multi-million-dollar houses.

Every weekday morning my husband and I join the crowd at the Estadio Deportivo Salvador Alvarado—Mérida’s tidy, well-kept sports stadium.

They didn’t invent the cuckoo clock, just put it in a small chalet to hang on the wall, but pretty much everything else is true about the Swiss. It’s one of the cleanest countries in the world, trains and buses run on time, the chocolate’s fantastic, the views tremendous and the cheese to die for.

The hardest thing about owning a home in France is leaving it. From the moment I looked through a viewfinder at the age of eight and saw slides of rolling French landscapes, I’ve been hooked. But it wasn’t until 2004 that my lifelong dream of owning a place in France became reality.

What do you do for health insurance if you retire abroad at age 65 or older? Some U.S. expats are relying on their Medicare coverage. But this only pays for medical care performed in the U.S. Why not use your Medicare as part of a three-pronged health-insurance strategy that also includes local health care and a medical-evacuation policy for emergencies?

A midlife crisis—if you fully embrace the stereotype—can be expensive. Fancy car...trophy wife...new body...new career. But—as with so many things—your buck buys you more when you take your midlife crisis to a tropical paradise and teach it to dance the salsa. Consider these alternatives...