Our annual Overseas Retirement Index features the 10 best countries for retirement, and for 2024, it highlights three south-of-the-border hotspots to consider…
How do we come up with these rankings?
We’ve identified the 14 most important factors for retirees to consider when sizing up a potential expat haven.
We call these our Key Relocation Criteria, and we use them to measure the performance of the havens included in this index and produce the final ranking.
The Key Relocation Criteria include:
- Cost Of Living
- Climate
- Health Care
- Entertainment
- Recreation
- English Spoken
- Expat Community
- Infrastructure (including Internet, Electricity, and Domestic Access)
- Access To North America
- Environmental Factors
- Crime
- Real Estate Restrictions
- Residency
- Taxes
With that in mind, following are some of the most beautiful, welcoming, and safe havens that offer compelling lifestyle opportunities in Central and South America…
#4: Colombia, The Best Health Care In Latin America With Diverse Lifestyle Opportunities
Colombia lies where the Andes converge with the Pacific and the Caribbean, providing a dramatically beautiful country with two coasts and lots of geographic and cultural diversity along with strong regional identities. It’s considered the second most biodiverse country in the world after Brazil.
With a population of about 50 million, Colombia has the third largest economy in South America, after Brazil and Argentina. The World Bank ranks Colombia as the #1 country in Latin America and the #6 country in the entire world for investor protection (that’s better than the United States).
This country offers great diversity, from the world-class colonial city of Cartagena to smaller Spanish-colonial towns… from international-class cities, including and especially Medellín, to mountain villages and fincas… plus great beaches, too.
Health care in Colombia is world-class, but it’ll cost you only 1/4 or less of what you’d pay in the United States… and, yes, plenty of English-speaking doctors can be found in the cities.
Plus, the strength of the U.S. dollar (as well as Canadian dollar, to a lesser extent) is adding even more bargaining power to the already low cost of living… you can lock in the historic rate by purchasing a property or opening a bank account.
The visa process is quick and cheap: You can qualify as a pensioner with an income of only $810 a month… or you can invest as little as $27,700 to obtain an investor visa. The clincher? You don’t even need to hire a lawyer.
To retire in Colombia is far from the obscure idea it once was. Escaping from its “drug renegade” reputation, Colombia is now considered one of the world’s top retirement destinations.
With miles and miles of beautiful coastline, quaint colonial cities, awe-inspiring mountain ranges, and some of the best weather in the world, Colombia offers something for every retirement lifestyle.
As a retiree living in Colombia you can spend your days relaxing by the pool, strolling through the park, sipping coffee at one of the many cafés, or just about anything else you could imagine.
This is one of the many joys of retirement in Colombia… you have the freedom to get out and live life on your terms, even on a limited budget.
The low cost of living in Colombia is one of the most attractive aspects drawing in retirees.
Whether you are on a social security income and need to stretch your retirement dollars or you’re looking to live out your savings in a life of luxury, you can live a happy retirement in Colombia.
Everything from groceries to prescriptions are likely to cost much less in Colombia. Exceptional health care is another reason retiring in Colombia is so alluring.
In short, your dreams of retiring in Colombia may just be getting started, but one thing you are sure to discover is that you can have the retirement you deserve at a price that you can afford.
#3: Belize, The Ultimate English-Speaking Caribbean Paradise
The search for land, water, gold, timber, and oil have led people from around the world to Belize since the Maya first settled in the region thousands of years ago. With its forests, coastlines, and rivers, it boasts an embarrassment of riches in life-sustaining natural resources. These resources once supported an agrarian population of nearly 500,000 Maya and continue to provide for a range of lifestyles.
Today, Belize is a safe, welcoming, and unassuming country where the population values personal privacy, self-determination, and freedom. And it’s one of the quirkiest places we know…
Belize City’s roadways are built around a system of roundabouts (thanks to her British colonizers), but shops alongside them sell rice, beans, and tortillas still ground by hand.
Everyone you meet speaks English (it’s the country’s official language), but this belies the stories of their origins. The 350,000 people populating Belize today are descendants of migrants from Britain, yes, but also and more so the surrounding Central American countries. You’ve got Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans mixing with current-day generations of the Maya who originally inhabited this land, the pirates who came later, the Mennonite farmers who began arriving on the scene in the 16th century, the British who ruled until 1981, and each other.
Belize is undeniably one of the best places in the world to hang your hat…
Only a 135-minute flight from the United States, Belize is a tax haven, an investment haven, and a premier retirement destination.
This is pure, classic Caribbean… With 250 miles of white-sand Caribbean beaches and more than 400 islands, plus expansive rain forests with huge networks of rivers and caves and Mayan ruins.
You could settle in Belize quickly and comfortably with rents starting at around $650 a month. Double that rent, and you could make your home on the popular, sand-fringed island of Ambergris Caye.
Belize is a country of freedom-seekers. The pirates came to ply their pirate trading out of view. The Mennonites came from Germany and the Netherlands so they could be Mennonites without anyone bothering them. The British came so they could bank in private. And the folks from the surrounding countries who’ve sought out Belize over the past few decades typically have made their way across this country’s borders in search of safety.
Belize is also one of the easiest places to become resident—and offers many tax and investment benefits to the retiree.
Since Survivor and Temptation Island put it on America’s radar, sleepy little Belize has been attracting attention for its white-sand beaches, coral reef, Mayan ruins, and virgin rainforest.
This under-the-radar, sand-fringed, English-speaking country in the Caribbean offers a warm climate… an affordable cost of living… lifestyle options from sandy beachfront to quiet inland retreats… safety… stability… privacy… independence… freedom…
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Stay tuned next week to discover #1 and #2 on our list of top choices for an affordable, fun- and sun-filled retirement in Latin America…
Happy trails,
Kat Kalashian
Editor, LIOS Confidential
P.S. Colombia and Belize are just two of the 15 countries we’ll cover in our upcoming Retire Overseas Virtual Conference.
At this online event, we’ll show you the best places to live in the world for access to modern amenities, the best places for health care, and the best places to live the Good Life on a world-class, powder-sand beach on a modest budget…
Let us reveal which countries roll out the Red Carpet for retirees, which offer entrepreneurs special incentives, and which are ripe for bargains on your next investment or new home.
Bottom line, we’ll teach you everything you need to claim your piece of paradise overseas.
