Kiplinger's 8 Great Places to Retire (You've Never Heard of) (restaurant, opinions, government)

[Teak]

Actually, we have heard of some of these places, but this is still an interesting article highlighting some out-of-the-usual places:

great-places-to-retire-youve-never-heard-of: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

1. Calitri, Italy
2. Chiang Mai, Thailand
3. Coronado, Panama
4. Cuenca, Ecuador
5. Istria, Croatia
6. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
7. Punta del Este, Uruguay
8. Buenos Aires, Argentina

There was erroneous info on Kuala Lumpur given. The amount of money to desposit for the retirement program is NOT $150,000, but rather RM150,000, which is equivalent to ~US$45,000 now.

Any other opinions regarding these places. I have only been in Kuala Lumpur, and I like it other than for the face it is not close to the ocean, and traffic is bad.

[joey2000]

Financially appealing I guess, but offers little appeal to me otherwise. Interesting though.

[earlyretirement]

Punta del Este is a beautiful place but besides the 2 months of the year when there is tourism in the summer the town is fairly dead. It's a shame as it's a beautiful city. But keep in mind although it's safe, there is lots of petty crime like home break ins. You see, many of the people that have homes there live in Argentina, Brazil or Chile and they are only there in the summer. And the thieves know that so they break in. We all have alarms on our homes but these thieves can break a window and get in and out and steal LCD TVs, etc.

I had my house broken into twice even though I live around the block from a police station. Had a few LCD TV's stolen.

Also, the biggest negative there is that it's expensive. A nice house is not cheap but the biggest complaint is the utility bills are sky high. If you have any type of yard or a pool, your water bill will be insane. I'm talking like $500 US a month. Sometimes in the summer my electricity bills would be $600. Internet is like $100 a month. DirecTV is high as well.

In the summer if you have a nice place close to the ocean, you can rent it out for lots of money. I used to rent my house out for $8,000 a week! People basically own homes and even use it those 2 months or they rent it out during high season and it covers all the expenses for the entire year.

Buenos Aires used to be a really affordable city after the financial devaluation but with 25% to 30% a year inflation..... it's not so cheap anymore. Grocery stores are about the same price as the USA now, restaurants are about the same price. Taxis are still cheaper but they have gone up tremendously. Still, it's a fun city to live in. If you already own a property here you can live VERY cheap because utilities are subsidized here by the government so you get these insanely low utility bills.