Personal Finance (Not Investing) • Retiring abroad

My wife and I retired in 2022 and now travel abroad full-time. Prior to retirement we lived in Washington so that is what we use as our state of residency. We did sell everything we own, including our home which has been kind of liberating and somewhat surreal.

We are currently in Kuala Lumpur living in an upscale fully-furnished apartment that costs about $1250/month. We just visited a dentist in a modern office and had an exam and our teeth cleaned for about $65 for both of us. We also had very comprehensive medical exams which included a bone density scan, pelvic ultrasound, a heart stress test, an eye exam, a hearing test, and a whole lot of blood work, plus an exam with a doctor and meeting with a dietician. It was nearly a full day of exams which were followed up in the afternoon with consultations with the physician. Those test were about $380 each. Fortunately we are both healthy and do not take any medication. We have medical insurance, but it is really only for catostrophic events. All of the services I mentioned were paid out of pocket. It's just so inexpensive overseas, and there are plenty of countries where you can find very high quality medical services at very reasonable prices.

Last year we spend around $45K traveling around low-cost countries in Europe.

It is very possible to use geographic arbitrage to make your retirement dollars go considerably further. Plus, living in low cost countries reduces our personal inflation rate. We were eating nice meals in Vietnam for $4-5 dollars.

There are also downsides of moving from country to country.

Bottom line is you don't have to permanently move abroad to live abroad. In fact, I would encourage anyone thinking about moving abroad to first try traveling abroad for a year.

What low-cost countries did you travel to during your initial year? How long did you stay in each one? How long are you planning to stay in Kuala Lumpur? Do you ever envision moving back to the States -- what about family here? (We are very interested in doing something like this but worry about missing people and things about home.)

We stayed in following countries during our first year:

Scotland (90 days)
England (30 days)
Spain (90 days)
Türkiye (60 days)
Montenegro (30 days)
Albania (30 days)
Serbia (30 days)
Latvia (30 days)
France, Germany (30 days)

Not all were "low cost," but we found reasonable accommodations in the higher cost countries and then balanced those costs against the very low cost countries such as Albania. Accommodations in Scotland were a bit on the high side, but groceries were inexpensive. We cook our own meals and selectively go out to enjoy good local cuisine. Albania was very low cost and the produce we were able to buy from a local vendor just outside our apartment was outstanding and super fresh.

We like to stay about 30 days in each location so we can really get a feel for the location. In Scotland and Spain, we moved around a couple of times so it was closer to 45 days in each location. By the time we leave a city, we can navigate and use public transportation without a map. We are staying in Kuala Lumpur for 35 days.

We started a YouTube channel to document our travels and that helps keep family and friends we make along the way more involved with our lives. Traveling overseas helped us accelerate retirement. Our current plan is to travel for about 5 years in low cost countries, spending significantly less than we would have in the States. Additionally we can do aggressive Roth conversions during this time since our income requirements are minimal. We do envision returning to the States at some point, but we haven't decided exactly when that would occur. Full-time travel can become stressful because you're always planning the next location. At some point we will want to slow down a bit.

Sometimes we miss good pizza, but mostly we miss family. We are considering returning to the States twice a year so we have a little more time with family. That decision depends on market conditions since international flights tend to be one of our biggest expenses. I can honestly say we don't miss too many things back home. The biggest challenge is that we have to reset each time we move to a new location which can make it difficult to build a routine. Since this is all relatively new for us, we are still writing our playbook.

If you entry into Euro region with US passport, you can stay 90 days out of 180 days and no more than 180 days in a year. Hoe did you manange this?

Statistics: Posted by MangoSmoothie — Wed Apr 17, 2024 1:46 am — Replies 63 — Views 8171