I will never pry Señora out of St. Louis, and I am very fond of her… If not for that, I would definitely see this as a possibility. I thought Costa Rica was a wonderful country with very friendly people. Panama I would have to visit to get a better feel for. The thought of living in Spain has always intrigued me. I hear wonderful things about Portugal. While Italy is not on this list, it has a warm spot in my heart. My Spanish is passable enough that it would not be an issue in 3 of the countries, although English is widely spoken in those three too. My main issue with Central America is that golf courses are few and far between, and not particularly cheap. Of course if my back continues its downward journey, that will cease to be so important. I know that four of the six countries on the list have large ex-pat communities. The other two might, but it would need some research. I am sure he does not really mean it, but I have a long standing offer of housing in Honduras.
I just cannot get over the fact that 71 million of my fellow citizens voted for the monster that is tRump, especially with every sane, main stream Republican screaming at the top of their voice that the Emperor is wearing no clothes, please vote for for the Democrat. There is something fundamentally wrong with the soul of this country. I won’t bore you with a rant about what I think that is.
I may be an American, but I am not a proud American, in fact I am the complete opposite after this election.
Pre-retirement, pre-grandkids, we visited Panama as we’d considered moving there. Nope. Not in 2011 for several reasons, but a big one is that I hated Panama City and in 2011 you had to drive there to fly back to the states. It’s probably changed since then. The 2nd reason was walking into one of the grocery stores, was an exercise in grossness. The meat section was in the back and I could smell it from the door. Nope. Not a chance in holy hell I could ever shop there. Again, it’s probably changed since then.
Portugal sounds intriguing. I know someone who moved there. They’d originally been in Panama – in fact, I’d learned a lot from them before we went. They were house-sitters in several countries. They’ve now settled in Portugal.
Bottom line: with family here, things in the US would have to go considerably downhill for us to move overseas.
Or I could take you to some country grocery stores in Arkansas that were not that dissimilar to what you described…
I’d move to Aruba. It’s out of the way of hurricanes, and it has long beautiful beaches and great restaurants. It’s also got a steady climate, in the low 80’s, and friendly people as I recall. The only drawback in my book is too many tourists.
Then again, with our son, moving is out of bounds. So we’ve got to suck it up even if it sucks.