Publisher:
We lived in New Zealand for a year. Housing, both rental and owned, is extremely expensive. Also, insulation and central heat/air conditioning is not the norm. We froze living in Auckland, huddling below a wall heater wearing winter coats is no way to live!
It is stunningly beautiful, though!
I suspect living in various parts of the world is amazing and can be great fun. If one has chronic medical issues, one would need to figure out how to have medical needs taken care of as well. For example, my MDs want to see me every 6 months generally, tho sone are ok with annual visits. It’s also tougher to make any long term commitments to your community.
My dad retired to Thailand after years as an Asian expat. He and his wife spoke the language and he was thrilled with his life there. Every two years they returned to the US and Europe for a short visit to various family members. I never visited after they moved to Thailand, until he had a stroke. He lived for two more years, in a very debilitated condition. Because it was Thailand, they were able to have 24/7 at home help, two sisters from the northeast of the country who rotated 12 hours shifts to care for him. As he had a less than pleasant version of confusion, in the US he would have been drugged into oblivion and stuck in a care facility. He had times of lucidity. My sister, son and I traveled to Thailand at various times to give the helpers time off to go visit their family. I was in attendance in the hospital as well, both during an acute illness as well as end of life. The hospital, one of the private Bangkok hospitals was of a high standard, and the care was by American, British or Singapore trained physicians. I work in hospitals, and didn’t see much that was lacking. There are translators employed in these hospitals and with the language lines available on I pad these days, communication is far better assured than even 10 years ago. Prices are reasonable enough that this was all self pay.
It pays to know where to go for health care should disaster arise. An LPN friend lives in Vietnam in the winter with her H and returns to the US for all their health care in the summer. But last winter there was an issue and she was not thrilled with certain aspects of care in the smaller city Vietnamese hospital, so returned home. I pointed out that Bangkok or Hong Kong would have served them well, but they do have medicare here and they have made a basement apartment in their rental house here in the USA, so can return as needed.
Good point on the tax issues. I plan to rent out my house and do this for a year at some point. Maybe more. But the ability to spend time doing something meaningful with my time is an issue. Here, I’d garden, exercise and take classes. In Thailand or perhaps Mexico, wherever, I’d like to be doing volunteer work, or something to pull me into the local community. I have traveled extensively, and lived abroad. I would want to balance time in the expat ghetto with time involved with the local community.
Just as many in their 80s or even 90s return “home” from Florida or Arizona to be near kids in their more frail years, coming home from abroad may make sense at that point as well. I got to travel to Bangkok, which was a hardship in one sense but a joy and privilege in another. The obligatory travel to Asia piqued my S’s interest and gave him a career as well as a passion.
Filing US tax as an expat is not a big deal, IMHO. Been there, done that. I would be more concerned about understanding the medical care systems as others have mentioned. Our Asia experience is that care can be very good and delivered by US or UK MDs. You do have to do some research, but in these internet days, the info is very readily available.
I’m going out for my daily exercise now…just saying. 
@martharap , your mention of the lack of central heating in Auckland reminded me of something I had forgotten: my family spent a few months outside of Auckland when I was in elementary school, and we were tucked in every night with a hot water bottle at the bottom of the bed. Nothing I had been exposed to before or since. It was cozy but didn’t stop us from waking up freezing in the middle of the night most nights . . . kind of odd in retrospect that we didn’t have better blankets!
“kind of odd in retrospect that we didn’t have better blankets!” @pickledginger – a friend of mine lived in NZ in the early 80s. She was telling me how expensive everything was in NZ then, especially wool and down, which she used to keep out the cold growing up in Colorado. In fact, wool was so expensive, people would comment on how many wool sweaters she had, because in general anything made of wool was very, very “dear” in NZ. (She says many things were “dear” in NZ in those years.)
With all the sheep running around NZ wool was “dear”?
Yes, I have heard and read that prices of food and items in Australia and New Zealand are quite high from a friend whose son was there for a term/year abroad.
Our S lives in an apartment in Sydney that has no insulation or heat. It is winter there now so he always has a blanket wrapped around him and he says that his bath towel never dries. And, his rent is very high. If he gets his long term visa he will probably look for a place with heat and/or insulation.
Re: taxes as an expat/foreign tax credit. Honestly it is not that complicated nor any more of a pain in the booty than normal tax filing. We have done it multiple times; when husband was living/working in Canada and when we lived in The Netherlands.
Re: healthcare. Navigating a foreign healthcare system can be very daunting. Yes, it is completely normal for families, to be responsible for basic nursing care AND food/meals, free is not necessarily “free” in that you do not get to choose who you see, obtaining an appointment is no walk in the park and tests and such that are “standard” here in the US to diagnose/manage a condition are often not even an option. So quality/accessibility of healthcare certainly should be a huge consideration.
If you are a non-native or lack thorough language competency the obstacles to total retirement abroad are steep. We have just come back from staying in a VRBO in Crete. The home was owned by a scottish couple who were living in the basement apartment for 6 months of the year renting out the lovely home they had special built for their retirement (that they had no intention of renting out), suddenly discovered they could no longer afford to live in it 12 months a year when the economy tanked back in 2007. So you have to consider even the best laid plans sometimes hit an unexpected wall. We had dinner with them one night and they certainly made it clear that it is not all sunshine and roses for them; and they have done a fairly good job of integrating themselves into the local community, IMO.m
The more we have investigated it and considered it, the longterm rental while maintaining a home here in the US seems to be the best option for us!
Labegg:
How will you get a residency permit for wherever you decide to live abroad? Or will you stay for 90 days (depending on location I guess) then leave until you can legally return?
labegg, I think the complication re: taxes isn’t filing expat taxes to the U.S., it’s having to pay taxes in a foreign country. In EU countries, taxes can be higher than in the U.S. and I know some tax inheritances and worldwide wealth.
@martharap…good question! We are thinking 90 day stints at this point (whatever the time frame is for a given country, it’s 6 months in the UK btw!) and you have to pay attention to which countries you are hopping too, some are part of agreements that restrict which other countries you can enter after a 90 day stay; there are exemptions for pensioners in some countries. Hoping to swing an expat position in the few years leading up to official retirement so maybe that will satisfy our travel bug!
SIL bought a bungalow in Costa Rica about 10 years ago. She has alternated living in it full time and renting it out. Her last prolonged stay convinced her that while she loves it she found the rainy season too hot and muggy. Owning property for rental abroad has had multiple challenges. I think most of the Americans and Canadians she met travel every 90 days to Panama.
We have another friend who is in the process of getting German citizenship through his father. He is planning along with his girlfriend to move to Portugal. His GF has spent the last 5 years exploring different options as retirement living spots ranging from Europe to Bali outside the US. She also has explored different parts of the US. Our friend does a lot of work already in Africa and would continue to do part time projects.
Also have friends who have parents who retired to Cabo in Mexico. We just ran into them and they said his mother and sister are still there but the condo complex his Mom lives in now has a full time security detail and people no longer feel safe walking on the beach after dark.
@mom60 – people who are so international in their life/background/work are better prospects for expat life, no doubt. Your soon-to-be German friend and his GF sound like they’d be well prepared both logistically and culturally to such a move.
H now has Canadian citizenship because his mother was Canadian. I wasted a huge amount of time today looking at real estate in Montreal. 
@Consolation Oooh… one could do a lot worse than retire in Montreal!
re post #19: I’ve just returned from a week in Vancouver BC. What a beautiful place. It was my third time there but this time I looked at it through “retirement eyes”. It’s a great place to visit if you’re outdoorsy and active. We got in at least 16k steps everyday! I felt it was pricey in the city center but I would definitely keep it on my retirement travel list.
post #50: @labegg, renting abroad while maintaining a home is also appealing to us. It would be more manageable if we could downsize to a smaller home before retiring but the house prices are ridiculously high here. But that’s a whole new thread in itself.
@dragonmom, thanks for the book recommendation. I ordered it and look forward to reading it!