Moving Nationally or Internationally

[BIG_DADDY]

If you were going to move would you consider an international move ever? If you were going to pick another spot in the good old USA where would you like to be? For me I could see Austin in my not too distant future. If our country goes hard left I would have to look at the options at that time but I am going to start the process next year. I would love to look at Panama. I have seen several clients and friends move over the years. The most popular places have been Costa Rica, Philippines, Equador and Brazil but I know a lot of Brazilians. i can't forget Monaco for those with a lot of cash.

[Buehler445]

If humidity ranks at all for you, Lawrence and Manhattan are a no-go, Rain. Humidity is the ****ing devil out there.

Let's be real here. If you have a 4-500K house budget, you can build a house in the midwest. Especially if you don't need a giant square footage.

I'd probably look at smaller towns around the larger towns. For instance Junction instead of Manhattan, LeCompton instead of Lawrence. You could really stretch your budget that way.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

If humidity ranks at all for you, Lawrence and Manhattan are a no-go, Rain. Humidity is the ****ing devil out there.

Let's be real here. If you have a 4-500K house budget, you can build a house in the midwest. Especially if you don't need a giant square footage.

I'd probably look at smaller towns around the larger towns. For instance Junction instead of Manhattan, LeCompton instead of Lawrence. You could really stretch your budget that way.

Yeah, I've traveled back to the Ozarks in the summer and don't know how I ever survived there as a youth. I'd deal with humidity if it was a great financial deal, but in my formula it's a notable penalty.

I've got a few small towns in my equation, mostly Colorado towns that I know well but also a few in other states that showed up on "best places to retire" lists. I'm interested in affordability, which is helped in the smaller towns, but I also want walkability and convenient health care, restaurants, etc., which favors the bigger communities.

Building would actually be a lot of fun, though. I've just been looking at existing homes, but now that you mention it I should consider building in some of these locations. I really like that sort of thing.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah, Jackson is an odd place. I did a study in Wyoming about housing once, and something like 20 of the 23 counties had below-average costs for the state. I figured I'd screwed up a number somewhere, but I hadn't. Jackson is so expensive that it drives the statewide average cost up to the point where nearly everywhere else in the state is below average. And it's not like Jackson is a big town, either. It's just ludicrously expensive.

I finally visited it last year, and it's a really charming town. It's near the Jackson Hole ski resort, Yellowstone, and Teton National Park. And the tax structure in Wyoming is really, really friendly for retirement. But I'd much rather live in Laguna Beach given the weather and the access to stuff. And I'm usually a guy who like the mountains more than the ocean.

Laguna Beach is a pretty awesome place, but there's just no way to retire there on a reasonable income. You combine the cost with California's tax structure, and it's so infeasible that it has to be at the bottom of the list.

Yeah, that's nuts. I'm sure several places in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and more in Wyoming will show up as less expensive and with plenty of wilderness and outdoor things.

Flagstaff actually sounds pretty similar... small town with only so much land for housing, so housing cost is crazy. Sits in a national forest and has skiing, etc.

[Coochie liquor]

If I’m moving out of Florida, it’s gonna be to the Caribbean. Jamaica is destination number 1 for me. After that I’d take in no particular order

Trinidad/Tobago
St Lucia
Barbados
Belize
Antigua
St Martin

[tatorhog]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

That's an unusual retirement destination, but it would be interesting.

I went to Easter Island for my 50th birthday, and I think I could live there. It's a small population, but with the tourist economy there were good restaurants, and the island is beautiful. There were some big roaches, but maybe you get used to those.

It's such a small island, as is Ascension, that I don't know if it would eventually make me feel boxed in, though. You can't do much of a road trip in those places.

Easter Island would be such a cool place to visit. I know its a "destination" place, but to me its still so far off the beaten path I would love to go there and spend time. There are a number of cool remote islands that really have no services, but are still tourism based, and you truly vacation. You are disconnected from the internet and everything else. Just seems like a perfect vacation. At the time of my divorce, I was just wanting to leave. I don't remember how Ascensoin landed on my radar, but I started looking into it more and more and it seemed like a great place to start over in.

I'v never spent substantial time on an island, so that boxed in feeling very well could kick in. But as far as a retirement place, I would still consider it. My wife now would say no, so it won't happen. But just being in your own little remote, peaceful corner with nothing to really worry about seems like a paradise to me.

Originally Posted by scho63

Sounds like your a hermit, anti-social or the Unibomber.

You're not writing any manifesto's at this time are you?

I'm not a hermit or antisocial, but I do like quiet and remote. No manifesto here, but I did work with a crazy lady at my former job who did write one. She sent it out to the entire company via email. That was a fun little trip down loony lane. They canned her for it, and then I think she went on to get canned from her next job for false imprisonment and domestic abuse. Rumors were she somehow tied her husband to a chair and beat the shit out of him.

Originally Posted by stumppy

Going out on a limb but I'll guess they don't have an extradition treaty with the USA.

No clue. Its a territory of the UK, so I wouldn't be so sure of that. I never actually looked into that....maybe I should have?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Yeah, that's nuts. I'm sure several places in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and more in Wyoming will show up as less expensive and with plenty of wilderness and outdoor things.

Flagstaff actually sounds pretty similar... small town with only so much land for housing, so housing cost is crazy. Sits in a national forest and has skiing, etc.

Flagstaff is in my model. Look for it to come up at some point.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by tatorhog

Easter Island would be such a cool place to visit. I know its a "destination" place, but to me its still so far off the beaten path I would love to go there and spend time. There are a number of cool remote islands that really have no services, but are still tourism based, and you truly vacation. You are disconnected from the internet and everything else. Just seems like a perfect vacation. At the time of my divorce, I was just wanting to leave. I don't remember how Ascensoin landed on my radar, but I started looking into it more and more and it seemed like a great place to start over in.

Easter was pretty awesome. It's a tiny island, only maybe a dozen miles from tip to tip on the longest axis. But it's very pretty and you'd see those statues all over the place, which are way cool. There'd be a farmer's pasture with grazing animals, and it would have a moai on it.

If you want an exotic vacation, it's actually not as hard to reach as one would think. It never even occurred to me to try, but when I was planning a trip to Peru I happened to see an airfare from Lima, and it was only about $900 and a four or five hour flight. I couldn't resist.

[tatorhog]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Easter was pretty awesome. It's a tiny island, only maybe a dozen miles from tip to tip on the longest axis. But it's very pretty and you'd see those statues all over the place, which are way cool. There'd be a farmer's pasture with grazing animals, and it would have a moai on it.

If you want an exotic vacation, it's actually not as hard to reach as one would think. It never even occurred to me to try, but when I was planning a trip to Peru I happened to see an airfare from Lima, and it was only about $900 and a four or five hour flight. I couldn't resist.

Thats not as bad as I thought it would be. But see, the problem is, if I'm at Easter Island already, then I would feel obligated to then fly on over to French Polynesia (since it would be relatively close) and spend time on Moorea and/or Bora Bora....then to NZ and Aus (always wanted the experience of digging for an opal at lightning ridge and visiting Ayers Rock.

Before long, I'm broke. I'm out of a job for being gone for months. All I can hope for at that point is total global anarchy as I flee to King Island so my creditors hopefully can't catch up to me.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by tatorhog

Thats not as bad as I thought it would be. But see, the problem is, if I'm at Easter Island already, then I would feel obligated to then fly on over to French Polynesia (since it would be relatively close) and spend time on Moorea and/or Bora Bora....then to NZ and Aus (always wanted the experience of digging for an opal at lightning ridge and visiting Ayers Rock.

Before long, I'm broke. I'm out of a job for being gone for months. All I can hope for at that point is total global anarchy as I flee to King Island so my creditors hopefully can't catch up to me.

Yeah, Tahiti and those places is on my wish list. I really want to see the Marquesas.

[Rain Man]

Rankings 61 through 65. See picture for scoring.

Sample houses:

61 69.18
Laguna Niguel (CA)
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-25452?view=qv

62 67.6
Boise (ID)
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-62549?view=qv

63 67.54
Cambria (CA)
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-53586?view=qv

64 67.03
Grand Junction (CO)
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-11606?view=qv

65 66.95
Camdenton (MO)
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-11815?view=qv

My summaries (lower to higher rank):

Camdenton is on the Lake of the Ozarks, so my impression is that it’s THE place to be in Missouri. There’s a nice housing selection there, as you’ll see with the sample lake view condo. I could definitely live in that condo and like it. The area's not inexpensive in total due to taxes and stuff, but would still cut half a year off of my retirement timeline. The winters get little snow and are slightly warmer than Denver, though still cold. Summers are similar in temperature but more humid. It’s actually not an unreasonable option, though I have little desire to move back to Missouri for unrelated reasons. The small community also has drawbacks in terms of service access.

Grand Junction is reasonably affordable, so it would cut a year off of my retirement timeline. It’s hotter than Denver in the summer with slightly more humidity, and just as cold in the winter, but with a lot less snow. It leans pretty far right politically so I'll get covid. It gets penalized at the moment for pretty weak housing selections, but I’ve seen some nice houses for sale there in the past. Find the right house and the score would move up a lot, so I wouldn’t give up on it. I like the town overall.

Cambria - It’s California so the cost is higher, and would require another half-year of work for me. But oh, look at that climate. Mild winters with no snow and mild summers. It’s humid on the coast, but with those temperatures it probably doesn’t matter. It’s a small and remote community so there’s not a lot of community options, and the big downside is the housing supply. It would be hard to find a decent-sized place in my price range, and the sample house seems to be an outlier, which makes me suspicious. I have a feeling that a more in-depth investigation would discover obstacles, but oh, that climate is nice.

Boise – It’s a lot lower in altitude than Denver (under 3,000 feet), so even though it's further north the climate is warmer than Denver by a few degrees, with similar humidity and one-third the snowfall. It’s a nice big city with a decent housing selection. The affordability is similar, but in part that’s because I picked a condo in downtown Boise that’s close to a lot of stuff, so it’s expensive for the area. Nice condo, though, and more affordable options are likely that could bring the cost down. I don't know that it's a big enough difference to warrant a post-retirement move.

Laguna Niguel. We can’t afford Laguna Beach, but what if we move up the hill and slightly inland? Laguna Niguel is still more expensive than staying in Denver, but not by much. The climate is pretty much ideal with mild winters and mild summers, even if the humidity is a bit higher. We’d have to live in a much smaller and kind of nondescript home, though, and single story homes are hard to find. Other than the great weather, there aren’t many boxes checked. My wife loves this area, but moving inland would negate a lot of the things we like there.

[Rain Man]

My wife just informed me that she would accept that Laguna Niguel tradeoff in a heartbeat. Maybe my scoring algorithm isn't reflecting her perfectly.

We always thought that Grand Junction was a strong contender, but this exercise is valuable in that it shows us that there are a lot of other places that would better meet our goals.

[Brody Wa]

I would love to live in the Bahamas where there is golf all year round.

[Rain Man]

Rankings 56 through 60. See picture.

Sample houses:

56 Gunnison (CO):
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-23823?view=qv

57 Palisade (CO):
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-58136?view=qv

58 Kansas City (MO):
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-80054?view=qv

59 Billings (MT):
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-50844?view=qv

60 Spearfish (SD):
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...-98715?view=qv

Summary (starting from bottom)

Spearfish – South Dakota is superb in affordability. Moving to Spearfish would lower my retirement age by a full 1.5 years, which is perhaps the best of all the cities I’ve looked at. The downside is that there’s no climate advantage. Spearfish has essentially the same climate as Denver. There’s a pretty nice townhome as the sample house, though, so it's intriguing in many respects.

Billings – Another highly affordable place that would cut a year off my retirement calendar, and it’s a nice big condo that would be low maintenance. I like the place. It’s a big enough town to have good resources (restaurants, health care, etc.), too. The climate’s not a win, though, as the winter is slightly colder. There’s a bit less snow, but still quite a bit.

Kansas City – Go, Chiefs! Oh, but the other stuff. It’s slightly more affordable than Denver, and gets a lot less snow. Winter is slightly less cold, though the summer would be just as hot and more humid. The sample house is a very nice condo, and it’s a big metro area with lots of good housing choices. Not enough of a win to consider, in my book, but not bad.

Palisade – We really like this little town. It's full of peach orchards and lavender fields. It's slightly more affordable than Denver, but has some challenges. Summers are hotter, though winter has a lot less snow. The housing market is very limited, which would be challenging. It would come down to getting lucky on a house search.

Gunnison – Affordability is good as it would move retirement up a year. The summers are nice, but the winters are absolutely brutal. The housing market doesn’t seem to have many (any) good choices in my price range. The town is nice, but I’m not feeling it.

[BWillie]

What is cheapest, and what is the best place to live out of these options:
Bangkok
Costa Rica
Thailand
Peru
Vietnam

[jdubya]

Bonners Ferry for me....