Should I consider retiring abroad in the United States?

Many retirees have boldly made the decision to retire in a foreign country that has the weather, lifestyle, or lower cost of living than their current home. Unfortunately, many of these expats return to the States after seeing that they might have found similar environments within the borders of the US.

Having lived abroad several times and traveled to 30+ countries, I have no problem with considering a foreign country to retire. Since I’m comfortable in Spanish speaking countries and I don’t like cold weather, some of the locations I’ve thought about are Panama, Spain, Uruguay, and Colombia. My spouse, who is less averse to cold weather, added Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland to our wish list (It’s not hard to figure out which one of us is the penny pincher).

We took the next step of crunching numbers and gathering data though sites like numbeo.com, talesmag.com, travel.state.gov, and weather.com, among the myriad of sites on the internet. As we were counting the pros and cons of each location it struck me that many of the pros were available within the US, where we didn’t have to live with the types of cons we remembered when we lived abroad.

We haven’t tossed the idea of retiring abroad; instead, we’ve added areas in Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas to our list because of our new perspective. However, many Americans, actually – most Americans, would struggle living in a country where English is a foreign language, and where conveniences like at home are harder if not impossible to find. So, here a few considerations I’ve heard about from others who chose to live abroad that might be available a few hours away from your current home by car:

The omnipresent cost of living – This is normally the first thing expats mention when they explain why they retired abroad, and chances are that if they live in a major city in the US, they are correct that it is cheaper to live abroad. But, isn’t it also likely cheaper to live in an exurb of a US city or maybe in a less populated region in the States?

Health Care – For good reason, this should be on the list for retirees. Through our research we’ve read a lot about good health care options abroad. However, based on my experiences gathering detailed information about medical care abroad, my opinion is that it’s situational. For context, I live within an hour of Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, George Washington, and Howard Universities hospitals – is it realistic to think if I lived two hours further west that the medical care would be the same? With this context, how does one compare medical care abroad?

Affordable activities for seniors – Many seniors have led active lives and want to continue having access to similar activities into retirement. How about flagship university towns like Gainesville, Florida; Charlottesville, VA, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Oxford, Mississippi; or Tucson, Arizona? Arts and museums (check), transportation (check), hospitals (check), sports (check), cost of living vs a major city (checkmate).

Warm weather – While many seniors aren’t focused on warm weather, a lot are. Beaches are spread around the US in Delaware, North Carolina, the Florida panhandle, South Texas, and other locations that are not in high cost-of-living parts of the States. These might not have reputations as being tourist locations but the weather is the same.

Ease of emergency travel – How easy is it to get a flight to where relatives or close friends are if there’s an emergency? I was living in Florida when I received a call about an emergency about our home in the DC area, and about twelve hours later I arrived to the house. Had I been in nearby Jamaica or the Bahamas, this would have been a challenge.

This blog isn’t to argue where to live in retirement. It’s simply to remind Americans who would consider moving if they were confident they could mitigate some of the risk, speak in English, and maintain cultural norms they know well, that the US is a large country that has lots of options. Most options don’t sound as glamorous as living internationally but for day-to-day lifestyles, might work well for your purposes.