Funny enough, we are currently in Mexico exploring potential places. It is a definite possibility, but we need to look beyond beach locations - thus why we are going to Mexico City and San Miguel De Allende (SMA) in a couple of weeks (SMA is very high on our list). I will definitely keep everyone updated.
1 Like
You are wise to avoid jumping on the Portugal bandwagon. Itās lovely but everyone and their brother is trying to do the retirement/visa thing there. Lisbon and Porto are super expensive now and if you try to work there the salaries are incredibly low. Turkey is great but a bit unstable now due to lira falling and locals being a bit desperate. Erdogan is a POS in general, easier to ignore if you just visit as a tourist but once you live somewhere long term and become embedded in local culture/make local friends you start to have issues with these authoritarians. But if you can ignore that itās peachy and cheap.
1 Like
Mexico is phenomenal. I canāt say enough good things about Mexico City where I have previously lived. Absolutely fantastic arts and culture. Any questions PM me.
1 Like
Havenāt been in Turkey since 1979, Portugal since 1982, or Mexico since 1985, so not much useful to add- they were nice then.
1 Like
do tell
We are finishing up our 5 weeks in Mexico City and I must say that I could absolutely live here (assuming my terrible bout with allergies the first week we arrived was an anomaly)
SMA is on the small side. Is there really not any similar sized town in Portugal that is still affordable? Something in the Algarve or in between the west coast and Lisbon?
1 Like
Were you there when uber was not around?
I assume that now that uber is operational (albeit only with taxis) itās a lot harder for them to scam.
Itās like the place young people go. There is lots of cheap accommodation and generally a hippy vibe. The beach has lots of dreadlocked backpackers. Weed is generally everywhere. At night there are lots of parties and in that day there are lots of cafes with bean bags and stuff. Not too disimilar to places in Thailand, but less seedy and 65% of people are locals .
Cool place though
Tree house camps
2 Likes
Okā¦that sounds pretty tame compared to what I was imagining.
But yeah perhaps I would have enjoyed it when I was younger. Not really anymore
2 Likes
Hi, I know this isnāt relevant to the topic but can you pm me? I wanna ask about an old post.
A big part of the appeal for myself and my wife for SMA is the (very active) arts and music scene there. I am very actively pursuing classical guitar again, and she has been going further into visual arts with painting now as well (in addition to her previous crafting business).
That, combined with the moderate weather year round, the charming nature of the town itself, and other expat families (and homeschooling resources too), make it high on our list. But, we will see what we think once we go there.
The rents are pretty high in Portugal, as is the cost of food. The Euro makes costs high pretty much across the EU. Portugal has never really been high on our list. Currently it is comprised of Mexico, Turkey, and Taiwan (there are some others as well). All of this depends on what we think after visiting, though. We will likely make a decision after summer.
2 Likes
I never took a cab there. I took the trams/tube/walked almost everywhere in Istanbul (the walk was extremely unpleasant as everywhere was jammed as fuck and the general driving conduct was a nightmare). I canāt imagine how cheap everything must be now. I thought it was crazy cheap when Lira was 1:5 in 2019, now itās 1:2.
Cheap and functions just donāt go together. Functional countries will always be expensive and cheap countries will always be dysfunctional.
1 Like
I would say Taiwan is relatively cheap in terms of cost of living and pretty functional.
1 Like
Thailand is another one.
The islands around (?) Istanbul are also pretty cool for day trips. Kinaliadia is probably the best.
Thrace is also great if you like history (Troy, Tekirdag etc)
The Blue Mosque in Istanbul is breath taking.
Iām in Sicily. I could easily live in Ragusa or Siracuse. Iād rather eat my own eyelids than return to Catania though.
This straight out does not work on so many levels, and sounds very much like a type of a cultural/economic superiority complex. What is functional exactly? That they have better infrastructure? In what way? The economics of a country are a million times more complex than this.
It also assumes something that I find hilarious - the assumption that if a country is more expensive in an area, it is more functional (better?)? The USās health care system is a perfect example of how this is not true, especially where other countries have equally functional health care systems at often half the cost (to the user). There are multiple other examples where this assumption is also not true (Canadaās lack of public national transit infrastructure, anyone?), but this example is only one.
Whatās wrong with Catania?
