Trying to choose which country

GetOutOfDodge · 2013-04-24T02:47:07+02:00

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GetOutOfDodge

New member

Member since 23 April 2013

Huntsville, Alabama

GetOutOfDodge

24 April 2013 02:47:07

GetOutOfDodge

24 April 2013 02:47:07

Huntsville, Alabama

As soon as my BBQ restaurant gets to where it needs to be financially, I plan to retire to one of the following countries: Belize, Ecuador, Panama or Costa Rica (in the order of my current preference, based on my research). I've set a target date of next March first. I am married, however, my wife says she will not be moving with me because she doesn't want to be that far away from our grandchildren. I explained to her that they will only be as far away as the nearest airport, but that still did not persuade her (we were high school sweethearts and will be married 54 years this December).

If anyone has decided between those countries, please explain why you chose Belize over the others.

Also, I'm very interested in investment property (not sure at present what type of property). I plan to visit Belize for at least 6 months before deciding if I'll stay and which type of property to invest in. Health care is very important to me because of my age (72 this September) and the fact that I have a permanent ileostomy.

I would like to find a guy to email back and forth with because I may want to ask him some personal guy stuff.

James

ViP

Member since 20 June 2010

Macaé

Brazil & Canada Expert

James

24 April 2013 04:01:04

11272

James

24 April 2013 04:01:04

11272

Macaé

Hi GetOutOfDodge,

As a Canadian who's been living in Brazil for over eleven year now I can tell you that the public healthcare systems in almost all Latin American countries is in chaos and that the level of care given is (too us) substandard to say the very least.

Also a bit of advice from my experience here in Brazil. The single largest difficulty and biggest mistake expats coming here make is not learning Portuguese long before their arrival. We English speakers for some strange reason seem to think that we should be able to get by anywhere in the world speaking only our own language. While that may well be true in some parts of the world, it certainly is not true in Latin American countries especially if you're anywhere but the main drag in the most touristy spots; here you will be hard pressed to find any English speakers. If you don't already speak Spanish with a decent level of fluency then enroll in a crash course and crack the books big time!

If you have health concerns then you should arrange for international healthcare coverage before "high noon" arrives.

Hope this has given you some food for thought. I hope too that you will be able to convince your wife to join you. I'd really hate to think that you'd just abandon her after so many years.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team