Top Soft Landing Retirement Places Overseas
In this report, I will explain how to have a soft landing when you first retire overseas.
Problem: Taking a 1 or 2-week holiday overseas is not the same as retiring overseas. During a vacation, if you can’t find your comfort foods from home, or you can’t understand what the locals are talking about, or you can’t read street signs, you’ll probably be okay, because you know all the confusion ends as soon as you board your flight home.
But if you move or retire overseas, your frustrations may overwhelm you, and you may decide to move home after a few months. The sad part is, that if you could get past this frustration phase, you may find out that living overseas is the best thing that ever happened to you.
But you have to get past the frustration phase before you will fall in love with the world.
Solution: So, the way to get past the frustration phase most easily is to pick a soft landing location in the world for your first station overseas. Some places will just seem less foreign to you when you move overseas, so you won’t be so frustrated.
But after you have your living overseas leggings under you, it will much be easier to adjust to new places overseas which would have been extremely frustrating to you had you tried to move there first. So, with that background, here is my definition of a soft landing location.
Soft Landing Places Overseas (Definition): A soft landing place overseas is a location where a foreigner from a specific country, who has never lived long-term overseas before, will feel enough cultural similarities to their home country such as comfort foods, language, music, sports, dating rituals, transportation, and other social nuances so they have fewer moment by moment frustrations and are more easily able to adapt to their first experience of living long-term overseas.
So, the soft landing places for people from different home countries are not often the same.
Hard Landings Overseas: There will be a point in your life living overseas, where almost no cultural frustrations will be enough to change your plans and leave early. That level of adaptation seems to occur after you have lived in 5 or 10 different cultures, each for a period of 3 to 6 months. Then you may even begin to enjoy hard landings overseas much more than soft landings because of how much you learn in the process.
Sources Of Cultural Frustrations
There is no perfect soft landing overseas for any foreigners. There will almost always be something missing. But, generally having access to the following things will reduce frustrations in your first assignment overseas. But it is a double-edged sword. The softest landing locations often cost more because business owners who adapt to your cultural needs get paid more for their efforts.
Language: Being able to communicate in the local language tends to reduce frustrations when you first move overseas.
Expats: A place with expats from your home country tends to reduce cultural frustrations when you move to your first assignment overseas.
Locals: If 30 to 40% of the locals in a city or your neighborhood speak your language, it tends to reduce frustrations when you first move overseas.
Food: If there are comfort foods from your home country available, it tends to reduce frustrations when you first move overseas (burgers, pizza, salads, fries, fast food, peanut butter and jelly, ice cream, pop-corn).
Groceries: A soft landing location will generally have brands available in grocery stores that you recognize from home.
Restaurants: A soft landing location will have your favorite foods from home though they rarely taste as good as when you eat them in your home country.
Accommodations: Having an apartment or house that feels like you are still living in your home country will reduce your frustrations (but may cost 2 to 3 times as much as local-style accommodations).
Entertainment: If you hear the music you recognize, see sports on television you love, see people wearing clothes you like, hear people telling jokes you like, and see menus with food on them you recognize, you will feel less frustrated when you first move overseas.
Socializing: If you find socializing behavior that feels more like your home culture, you will be less frustrated in a new country. Things like dating apps, wine tasting, beer gardens, bar hopping, and singles hangouts, or whatever you have at home will make adaptation easier.
Transportation: If you can move about a country or city more easily in ways that seem similar to your home country, you will be less frustrated about your first overseas experience. If online apps like Grab and Uber are available, you will be able to move about the city with fewer language or cost negotiation challenges. Or if Google Maps shows subway locations and bus routes with directions in English, living will tend to be less frustrating.
Dan and Qiang’s Recommended Soft Landing Locations
But remember, these are just suggestions for getting your living-overseas-leggs under you. You do not need to limit yourself to these locations as your level of experience increases. These are just recommended for soft landings to start your overseas adventures.
These do not include expensive soft landings for English speakers overseas such as Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, etc. These are just from our retire cheap in Paradise reports with links provided to the associated reports below.
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Country |
Dan |
Qiang |
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Mexico |
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Philippines |
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Portugal |
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Thailand |
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Malaysia |
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Guatemala |
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Indonesia |
Bali (Ubud, |
Bali (Ubud, |
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Panama |
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Costa Rica |