How to Vote with Your Feet for a Lower Cost, Healthier Lifestyle in the Tropical Paradise of Your Choosing!
By Peter Macfarlane
“We didn’t leave our country… our country left us.” Retiring or living abroad is becoming more mainstream all the time. The exodus from Canada, the US and the UK has grown from a trickle to a river. All over the world families are more mobile and are seeking better lives together. And people are retiring earlier and younger these days. I see two factors at play in all this - one positive and one negative.
The first is simply the internet. You can literally run a business from a laptop, or telecommute to your desk job back home, no matter where you are in the world. The second factor is the deteriorating quality of life at home, for baby boomers faced with falling property prices, mounting debts and soaring health insurance costs, and totalitarian government’s intent on watching and controlling all we do. A happy expat I know recently commented, with his apologies to Ronald Regan (or was it Bob Dylan?) who famously said “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me”… We didn’t leave our country – our country left us.
If you are looking for a way to get out of the rut, to make a change for the better, read on! The following article is about how you can profit from this trend and participate in it. About how you can upgrade your lifestyle, reduce your living expenses, be healthier and achieve greater personal and financial freedom. Often people are trying to start a new life or career overseas following a life-changing event such as a divorce or second marriage. If this sounds like you, you’ll probably find the following suggestions and links helpful.
Sounds ambitious? Well I am ambitious! But fortunately for you I’m not just some dreamy-eyed travel writer. I have done it myself. I run an international e-commerce business and for most of the year I telecommute to my virtual office over broadband from my home overlooking a tropical beach. When the humidity gets too much in the summer time, I head for my apartment in a tax-free ski resort for a month or two and continue running my business from there, in my spare time. If you would like to read more about my story and wealth building opportunities offshore check out my International Wealth Creation Made EZ article.
Of course in this article I can only expect to scratch the surface, but below I will give you some links for further research and explain the various information resources that we have placed at your disposal here on this site. I'll also tell you how you can sign up for our email newsletter Q Bytes and if you would like a 12-part course free of charge about how to free yourself from bureaucrats and conmen, and with no purchase necessary nor any obligation. We pride ourselves on our unique editorial perspective covering international lifestyle, wealth building, freedom and privacy. I hope you find our ideas useful.
OK, let’s put it another way, make things really simple. Things are getting better in the developing world, while things are getting worse at home. By making a few simple changes in your life, you and your family can benefit from this. Typical retirement destinations in Latin America like Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Ecuador where real estate still offers excellent value for your dollar or pound. Pristine environments and now more sustainable development of eco-friendly resorts, fewer processed foods, and most importantly of all a more caring, family-oriented lifestyle. Infrastructure like internet, healthcare, education and air transport is also developing inleaps and bounds. A good health insurance policy costs a fraction of the US or Canadian price, for example.
This has not all been financed on easy credit, and the result is that it’s not all blowing up in our faces like we see in the US, the UK and Canada.
European retirement haven options like Spain, France, Italy and Croatia are looking good too. Although Europe is generally thought of as expensive these days, you may be surprised at the low cost of living in certain areas of unspoiled countryside outside big cities in Western Europe. Recently, for example, we held an informal get-together weekend for our VIP members in the mountains of the Principality of Andorra which ranks highest in the world for longevity (life expectancy) and it’s also a bonus that they don’t have any income or corporation taxes there! The cost of living is less than in the UK, Denmark or Sweden for example.
Our members who visited this tax-free principality in the mountains were all very impressed at the lifestyle, business opportunities and banking in Andorra. Basically, you can live and work in Andorra and run your business tax-free provided you don’t actually open a local business dealing with local residents. Indeed several from our group are already thinking of establishing at least a part-time base there! Events like these are just one of the reasons we do recommend you sign up for The Q Wealth Report if you haven’t already. You can also keep on our mailing list for future events by signing up for our free Q Bytes email newsletter.
Return from Lifestyle to Investing
