In this report, we discuss 8 Reasons to Retire in SE Asia over Latin America.
Safety: SE Asia feels safer to us than Latin America. Although nothing bad has happened to us in either, we just feel slightly safer in SE Aisa. We only rent places with bars on the windows in Latin America, but we are not as concerned in SE Asia.
But we have never had any problems in either SE Asia or Latin America, so it is more a feeling of safety because they both have been safe for us in fact. But after traveling all over the world for 15+ years I have learned a thing or two about remaining safe overseas.
Here is my full report on how we remain safe all over the world.
Internet Connectivity: Again, some parts of Latin America have great bandwidth and some parts of SE Asia have poor bandwidth. But overall, I would say that SE Asia wins the Internet bandwidth contest.
As I travel the world and write retire cheap in paradise reports, wifi bandwidth is one of the factors I measure as an important livability factor. The truth is, many parts of Latin America have more than adequate internet bandwidth, but there just seems to be better connectivity overall in SE Asia.
By the way, here is the link to the more than 100 reports I have posted on my webpage about the pros and cons of living in various parts of the world.
Food: Both SE Asia and Latin America have amazing food. But in terms of price and healthiness, SE Asia wins the food game overall in my opinion. I don’t seem to have to work as hard to keep my weight under control living in SE Asia. The foods are not as fattening.
But I am particularly suited for SE Asian food because most of SE Asia caters to vegetarians in one form or another. Since I am a vegetarian, SE Asia is a natural favorite for me.
Health Care: Both SE Asia and Latin America deliver a bigger bang for your buck with respect to health care. My home country, the USA kind of sucks when you compare its healthcare to other parts of the world when you take costs of services into consideration.
If you have or expect a life-threatening illness, make sure that you pick a place overseas that has adequate health care facilities within a reasonable distance to your home. Many rural parts of SE Asia and Latin America have only rudimentary facilities.
It is in the larger cities in general where there are hospitals that will have the immediate specialized services that could save your life. So do that research before you pick a place to settle down.
Many of my retire cheap reports talk about the distance and availability of these larger more competent hospitals. Also, review my report that explains “The two biggest risks of retiring cheap overseas.” Health care is one of the topics I cover in that report.
Language: Both Qiang and I speak English. We also know some phrases in Spanish that we have learned over the years. When you are traveling Latin America and you get off the beaten tourist path, there nay not be someone around you that speaks English.
So you will be using Google Translate to try to communicate in those conditions where you indeed to communicate in another language. That is fine, we do it all the time. But we have noticed that in SE Asia, there are very few occasions when we have to pull out Google Translate.
So SE Asia wins the Language game if you speak English. But if you speak English and Spanish fairly well, then language will not be an issue for you.
Age Difference Relationships: At the time of this writing, Qiang is 35, and I am 61. So we are about 26 years apart in age. Qiang is from Malaysia and I am from the USA. We see more age-difference relationships in SE Asia than we do in Latin America.
So if you are in an age difference relationship, you may feel less judged in SE Asia. Also, if you are single and pursuing an age difference relationship, you will find it more easily in SE Asia, in general.
The top three countries where we see large age difference relationships are Thailand, the Philippines, and Cambodia. You will also see them in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, but not as frequently.
If you are curious about age difference relationships in SE Asia, watch this video:
Here is another video about how Qiang and I met.
Here is a report about the best countries to find love if you are looking for someone that loves to travel and has a passport that is easy to travel–meaning, you won’t need to get a visa for them every time you want to travel with them.
Airfares: You can often find decent deals on airfares flying to Mexico from the USA. But once you are in Latin America, and you want to fly between Latin American countries, you are likely to pay 3 to 5 times as much for airfare in Latin America as you will for flying between countries in the USA.
The good news is that both Latin America and SE Asia have fairly cheap ground transportation between countries so airfare should not stop you from exploring Latin America.
For example, we had to pay $600 per person to fly from Guatemala to the Dominican Republic. We had to pay about $300 per person to fly from Mexico to Colombia and we would have had to pay $300 to fly from Colombia to Ecuador which is just one country away, so we decide to take the ground transportation instead.
Cost of Living: There are some parts of Latin America that have cheap costs of living. Those are generally smaller less well-known places. That is also true of SE Asia. But overall, the cost of living seems to be 10% to 25% cheaper in SE Asia than in Latin America. But Latin America can be so cheap that the cost of living may not be your deciding factor.
For a more concrete example of specific costs, for our top 15 retire cheap in paradise destinations around the world, watch our video on YouTube here:
Thanks for reviewing my report, “9 reasons to retire in SE Asia over Latin America.”
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This is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the Youtube channel for VagabondBuddha.com. Thank you for stopping by. The world is your home. What time will you be home for dinner?