Ken C. wrote last week to say: “Kathleen, I have been reading your daily emails for a month now. There is one topic that I haven’t seen addressed as yet.
“I want to explore the idea of spending time in another country, but I have always lived in the United States, and, due to numerous family connections, I am not interested in deciding on a permanent location as yet. “I’m thinking of two or three months in one of the places you write about. Then I’d return to the United States for a couple of months or so staying with family. Afterwards to consider a new location and repeat the process. I would travel very light and seek a furnished rental for each overseas adventure. “Perhaps in time I would be ready to settle into something permanent. “I am considering subscribing to your Overseas Living Letter service,LINK but I fear it is mainly geared toward making a permanent move or maybe a property investment.
“In summary, is it feasible to do what I am imagining without making a commitment?” I like this question because it makes an important point.
You don’t have to sell everything you own, say good-bye to everyone you’ve ever known, and take off for a new life in some distant and exotic place, never to be heard from again.
That’s not the only way to realize the benefits of retiring overseas. In fact, there is no “only” way to retire overseas. This idea is infinitely customizable.
A New Life Overseas
It works if you want to leave your current life in the rear view for good… and it works if you—like Ken C.—want to spend a few months a year in another country.
You could divide your time between the United States and a part-time home overseas… or maybe (again, like Ken C.) split your time between the United States and many other countries in series.
The idea of retiring to another country is enjoying more attention today than ever, especially in the United States, where Boomers at and approaching retirement age are coming face-to-face with figuring a plan for how to make the most of this next phase of their lives.
With years or decades of healthy living still to look forward to, the current generation of retirees is more interested than any that has preceded it in considering outside-the-box opportunities.
Start Your New Life Today, Overseas
Certainly, retirement for Americans these days is no longer about making a choice between Arizona and Florida. The options for a rewarding, fulfilling, and affordable retirement today are limited only by the retiree’s imagination.
Your retire-overseas plan can take whatever form you want it to take. Don’t think in terms of a full-time move for the rest of your life if that thought makes you uncomfortable.
To start, you could consider, for example, spending a few months a year someplace new and interesting, warm and welcoming.
Retirees from upstate New York and the Dakotas have been migrating south for decades. The difference today is that your viable, even easy, and certainly appealing options can take you much farther south… maybe across the Atlantic… or even way far East.
Panama is the new Florida, and Mexico, Belize, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and on and on offer dramatically more alluring alternatives, I’d say, to a Del Webb retirement.
Part-time retirement havens include Argentina and Uruguay, where the seasons are the reverse of those in North America. These aren’t tropical getaways but offer more cosmopolitan wintertime escape options.
Other places that make sense as part-time retirement choices are those where establishing full-time residency is costly, a hassle, or maybe impossible.
While they’re both among my favorite places to spend time, Croatia, for example, offers no formal retiree residency option, and Ireland requires you to show a minimum of 50,000 euros of income per year per person to qualify for a residency visa.
My point is, if you’re just warming up to this idea of spending your retirement years in a new country, take the pressure off.
This isn’t all or nothing. You can think part-time. And you can start just by taking a trip to start the journey of a overseas life.
Which sunny, friendly, and affordable overseas haven has caught your interest? Buy a plane ticket and go take a look. Spend a few weeks or a month. Treat it as a holiday. And see where this getting-started journey leads. It could be the fun and easy first step of your rich, satisfying, adventure-filled new life overseas.
Until next time,
Kathleen Peddicord
Founding Publisher, Overseas Opportunity Letter
