More and more groups like International Living, an emailing promoting the merits of living and retiring abroad, are springing up each month to meet the needs of people who less and less see a retirement in Arizona or Florida as a possibility. This comes as no surprise to the thousands of people who travel to Costa Rica each year.
For those that have visited this Central American country over the last twenty years, most have left with at least the seed of a possible permanent return planted in their heads. The primary reason beyond the lovely people and climate being access to affordable health care.
Over my lifetime I have noticed that fewer and fewer people are interested in dying like they are supposed to do. They seem to possess a feeling of entitlement in their efforts to thwart death. It is almost as if they recognize they are the last middle class America will ever see and will do their damnedest to enjoy what is left of something that will never again be.
Rather than simply dying and affording their offspring a leg up with their inheritances and monetary legacy they seem more inclined to make sure they can have, maintain, and sustain an erection at eighty years old and would sooner spend 200K to live an additional six months than see their children own their own homes.
In a recent trip to Mendoza, Argentina it was near impossible not to notice the amount of Canadians and Americans preparing for their retirements in a foreign land. The relocation business is booming as many see the possibilities of a retirement in the United States less and less likely. I spoke with a Spanish teacher who told me that three years ago 90% of her students were foreigners looking to bone up on the basics in order to travel South America more comfortably. Now, 80% of her students are expatriot retirees enjoying their vineyard homes and full coverage health plans that cost less than a thousand dollars.
Bocce ball communities are springing up from Guatemala to Tierra del Fuego. With the possibility of a semi-retired doctor from Omaha as your neighbor it makes perfect sense.