Why You Won't Move Overseas Even If It Makes Perfect Sense

You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!

Photo by Julie Sd on Unsplash

The cheap condos, the waving palms, nice neighbors…is it enough?

Dear Reader: this is a long article, best taken in chunks. Lots to cover.

Not likely, if you’re most folks.

Not a slam. It’s a reality.
Stay with me here, I’m going somewhere with this.

For the sake of clarity, I am going to touch on the major points rather than try to provide comprehensive detail. This is just to get you thinking past the pretty pictures and seductive headlines.

I suggest reading

Tim Leffel

’s extremely helpful book on expat living: A Better Life for Half the Price, which he updates regularly by traveling to and interviewing expats in the countries currently the best for Westerners.

So you think you want to move?

The idea of moving overseas has terrific cache. There many blogs, some of them embarrassingly awful, selling the dream of cheap real estate, sweet locals, and great food prices. The easy life, it’s all just so peachy.

No problema!

Given the state of our state right now, against the backdrop of inflation and the general insanity that is America, a Great Escape sounds better every day.

The American Dream is dead and so is America for many of us

That’s particularly true for Boomers. Our collective long string of good luck is running out, at precisely the moment we need it the most. We’re old, which comes as a terrible shock to many. We’re going to need services and care. For those young enough, there are adventures still to be had first.

Moving overseas offers much of that.

It’s cheap, therefore…

First, let’s talk about what makes a move attractive. Money’s the first thing, especially if your target is South or Central America, Southeast Asia or many Central European countries where the exchange rate is still very favorable.

If we compare the cost of a high-rise penthouse or a bag full of vegetables, there is no contest. It’s often much cheaper.

You can often get around for pennies, you won’t need a car. Of course you may get robbed on the buses, but that’s another article.

The elderly aren’t the enemy. If you’re over sixty, you can appreciate that many of those cultures honor their elders. There’s also that.

You can get that dream house, farm, ranch, seaside luxury home, condo.

You could buy a big horse ranch! Own seaside property! Both for the price of a one-bedroom rental in Manhattan! Wow!

Just kidding. But not by much.

Doing this in Ecuador, say, means that you just tied up a great deal of your capital for the rest of your life and possibly your kids, and your grandkids’, too. Most Ecuadorians can’t buy that land. Good luck selling it if you need to liquidate and get back to America.

Why would you want to do that if being an expat is so great? Age.

Let’s discuss health care

Lots of expat sites brag about the healthcare. Some countries are requiring all kinds of insurance; much of it comes with pre-existing illness limitations. The window is closing fast on being able to get that new knee for free or at least, very little.

Local healthcare is often poor, so privatized healthcare is a much better option. Affordable, quality healthcare is one of the great shining beacons calling to us older folks and families who see a dim future in the US, particularly as some health leaders lean into the miasma theory of sickness rather than science-validated vaccinations.

Right now, not only can Westerners get first-world care for far less in many medical tourism destinations, a lot of us want better everyday health care that doesn’t bankrupt us outright. Ads for visa lawyers tout this, along with an available healthier lifestyle, which is also part of the attraction.

For many Westerners, moving to a walkable, bike-ridable city or a bright green countryside is a huge change. They reap all kinds of benefits from daily walks and runs, better food for lots less, more friends and an active social life.

We older Westerners are not only driven by lifestyle, we still want a life. For some strange reason we don’t want one illness to put us under an overpass along the interstate. Maybe we survived the cancer but we end up living in squalor. Hardly the American dream.

Like I said, the American dream is dead.

However.

If you don’t speak the language fluently, you will need a translator with some providers. Even then what you’re hoping to convey may not be communicated, so your interactions could be challenging at times.

Using a translator for all your interactions can add up, when you’re paying, say, $30 an hour.

That can get very pricey if you insist on living inside the expat bubble where only English is spoken.

What if you have particular needs?

If you’re handicapped or disabled

Disability is handled at home in most developing countries. Accessibility is not a thing, except for some accommodations in expensive expat buildings depending. You will not find much if any handicapped access, ramps or safe sidewalks.. Hell, it’s hard enough to find safe roads.

If you have these conditions, your life will likely be truncated even more. You might despise the federal government, but the Americans with Disabilities Act sure as hell made the US more available to many.

Outside our borders, there is no ADA. It may disappear in America as well.

If you’re morbidly obese, moving overseas may not be for you. Before you bark at me, obesity is not a fact of life for most in these countries, so cars, taxis, buses and the like are just not big enough to accommodate such people.

Another consideration is that you may not be able to get certain medications that are available in the USA. Many expats have to regularly fly home for care and medication.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Can you do this well into your nineties?

Many of us in our sixties all too often assume that the health they enjoy now is the same health they’ll enjoy at 85. Not only is this ridiculous, it’s a dangerous assumption.

Accidents, disease, wear and tear and pure bad luck happen, and death is inevitable. We can’t possibly anticipate our level of health at 85. We can train for it, but that’s still no guarantee.

For many who have left for a better life, reaching great old age can be bittersweet. When they need end-of-life care, they may have to head back to America. That’s when some of their earlier decisions become problematic.

Witness one American couple in their late eighties. They are currently trying to swiftly offload multiple properties all over Ecuador so that they can get back to America for long-term care. They’re in limbo, perhaps for good.

Long-term care in developing countries is the job of the family. This is just one of the aspects of community our American emphasis on the individual has cost us. Such facilities don’t exist for most in many expat havens.

If you have to do this, consider the impact of your becoming used to a cheaper life, then returning to an inflation-plagued America.

Long term care is already hugely expensive. The quality isn’t improving either because of staffing and pay issues.

Also, many if not most nursing homes also count on immigrant communities.

Nursing homes were not on the list of critical industries that Trump suddenly promised to leave alone. Lots of immigrants are leaving in droves, which means worse staffing and care issues.

So while you’re still hale and hearty and you want to head out for better options overseas, you’d best do your due diligence about what’s offered for when you are neither hale nor hearty.

If you want to spend your last days with family, you’ll be returning to a much-changed America. The sticker shock alone could kill you stone dead upon arrival. There’s that.

About that due diligence

I’m one of many many people seriously contemplating the options. Not just contemplating, actively researching. By that I mean boots on the ground, serious business interviews, digging deeply into the visa, banking, legal, real estate, language and all the other considerations which are part and parcel of such a move.

The problem comes when we make the assumption that the rest of the world is America Lite, as though we’ll find the same life there that we have in our home country with only minor inconveniences.

If a huge move overseas is the first time you have ever experienced other cultures, you could be in for quite a shock. Some do well, many don’t.

It’s like climbing Kilimanjaro. Lots try. Many bonk. Those who bonk didn’t take the conditions and challenges seriously.

In particular this is affected by politics, which we are fools to ignore.

Let’s talk politics

All countries (and counties and cities and towns) change as politics change, as more outsiders move in and change the culture. That of course is the complaint that many have about the US’ immigration issues.

Those same people don’t see the irony of heading overseas and doing precisely the same thing to other countries and cultures, as though it’s a uniquely American right. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, in other words. That attitude isn’t welcome overseas, just saying. Your money is, but not that entitled attitude.

During the summer of 2022, I seriously looked at Colombia. The drug cartels still have powerful sway, and they are spreading, because demand in our own country and the world is through the roof.

For most expat communities for now, unless you insist on living along drug supply lines (like pretty beach towns and port cities), you’re probably all right. But watch the trends.

Photo by Johan Mouchet on Unsplash

If you’re planning to move, consider the political mood.

If you can’t be bothered to be well-informed about US politics, you are going to be seriously compromised living where you are a guest no matter how solid you think your citizenship status is.

If you think otherwise, look at America right now, with legal residents and green card holders being kicked out or sent to jail overseas even when they did everything right.

An entire expat community could be raided and emptied overnight. Learn how to read the tea leaves. One new president could mean you lose everything. Happening here.

Wherever you go, there we are

Please don’t be foolish enough to think that by moving overseas to an immigrant community that you’re not going to find angry right wingers or crazy leftists. We all bring our political extreme views- or not- with us.

One expat even went so far as to state, baldly (not making this up) that “Leftist Liberals are not welcome in Ecuador.” I dunno who made him Dictator-for-Life where he is but a guest. You cannot escape it.

Those are the same folks who, in Boise, for example, want to bar more Californians from moving in. It's this way in every corner of the world.

By the way, there were plenty of No Kings demonstrations in expat communities all over the world. There’s that, too.

Learn the language

Learn the damn language. It is exhausting to hear so many complaints by fellow Americans about immigrants to the USA who struggle with English but they themselves can’t be bothered to learn basic everyday pleasantries if they move to Mexico. The arrogance is breathtaking.

In the more mature communities, there are constant courses, lessons and tutors for hire.

You will find out that “English-speaking” comes with a big caveat because ESL isn’t the same as native-spoken. Plenty of service providers speak English, often broken, and most certainly not like a native.

You also need to be prepared for how labyrinthine laws in other countries do not match our expectations and most assuredly do not provide the same protections we assume in our home country. Nobody cares if you are angry that you can’t sue someone whose driving totalled your car. It’s not America.

Police and traffic authorities do not behave the same. Politicians? Well.

Once past the charming honeymoon of a new culture, our inability to conduct the simplest of business in another language day after day after day goes from mildly irritating to hugely annoying and for some, an impassable roadblock.

Even the mundane becomes a monument to impossible.

We assume straightforward access to a driver’s license. That’s not always so easy. You might face a huge test in another language, with all kinds of idiot questions (to you) which make perfect sense to locals, such as setting out all kinds of shrubbery in the road to mark a car with engine problems.

For example, in Ecuador, you only need to get sixteen of twenty questions (in Spanish) correct, but they are selected at random from 330. So you need to know all 330.

If you’ve driven or been driven around in some of these countries you can understand the desperate, if clumsy, desire to get people better qualified to operate a two-ton weapon.

Imagine trying to take such a test in Thai or Vietnamese.

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Let’s talk money.

There will be income requirements. They will change, most likely, and they will go up. If your retirement income is at risk right now, and from here on out all bets are off, you need other steady sources to prove your viability. Or, investigate other kinds of visas, such as investors.

In Mexico, the income requirements, according to Leffel, are now up to sixty grand a year. You have to prove you’ve been at that level for some years.

But WAIT! That could change depending on where you applied in country, and whether or not the visa official is in a good mood.

Most countries will not allow you to work without the right visa. As regular Facebook posts underscore, you’d better show up with the appropriate income (which a visa lawyer will require) and/or established clients in hand.

Expat Facebook posts asking for work are common, and they garner the same responses:

Do your due diligence before coming over. You need to bring your clients with you. Your host country is happy for you to spend money but not happy if you compete with the locals for jobs.

The fact that this comes up so often speaks to how little people bother to ask such questions beforehand.

Whatever you do, don’t become a begpacker. If I see your Western butt begging anywhere in the world I am shaming you and reporting you posthaste.

Just imagine, the poorest of the poor being asked to give money to someone who clearly had the funds to fly to their country. But I digress.

The ever-shifting visas

There are often visa requirements in terms of how often you leave the country and for how long, especially if you want to become a resident. Break the requirements and sometimes the fine is a lot more than money. You may have to wait a year just to get back into the country.

You must know the law to the letter, and do NOT get your information off Facebook. Meet with a visa lawyer. Do it in person. Take this seriously. It IS serious.

During and after Covid, lots of countries courted digital nomads. Some of those outreaches are long gone, or radically changed, after countries like Indonesia got tired of ill-behaved asshole influencers flauting their laws and culture.

Visa rules are constantly changing. Leffel addresses these in his book if you are motivated to WFH, which in this case can mean Work From Hostel.

Photo by Tom Byrom on Unsplash

Parting thoughts

In some of these countries, such as Portugal and Spain, there’s a growing backlash against Western tourists and expats for the same reasons that all the pretty small towns in America hate the influx of rich city folk.

Same thing, just writ large. People show up, buy up, build massive homes, change the culture and suddenly the locals can’t afford to live in their ancestral town or city any more.

We Westerners still think like colonists, that we have the right to just barge in, buy up and own the place. We think it’s our God-given right.

It isn’t.

If you were around in the 1970s, that’s what happened to Santa Fe and Taos. I’ve written plenty about this in America. We are now exporting it in bulk overseas, like Coke, KFC, the NFL, guns and bad manners.

I’ve spoken with plenty of successful immigrants in Ecuador who have spent five years or more in country. They learned the language, are still studying it, settled in and found a way to blend with the culture.

They don’t bitch about the cost of a can of Jif at the big stores. They deal with the power outages, hire local, and learn to be damned grateful for their chance to start over. They laugh at roads that wash out, light a candle or start a generator where necessary and learn workarounds like everyone else.

That’s immensely appealing to me. Not to everyone. But that’s why most folks won’t move. Or if they do move, they won’t stay. It’s too hard, too inconvenient, too uncomfortable. It’s hard work.

We Westerners are addicted to our comforts. We don’t want to get too far from family, Coney Island hotdogs, Fourth of July parades.

Perfectly understandable. But it means that an overseas move may not be the right one.

However if you are seriously considering a move, please start with asking the hard questions and reading the right resources.

Tim’s research is far more comprehensive than mine. I strongly advise signing up for his Facebook and personal services if you are genuinely interested in this option. It isn’t for the faint of heart.

It’s for people still fearless enough to consider a big adventure.

Let’s play while we still can.

Photo by Doan Tuan on Unsplash

Thank you all my readers and subscribers. This is a work of real love, and I hope you get value.