So what do you do to make up your mind? Perhaps it would be best to consider which part of the world you’d like to be in for starters. You could then look at the specific attributes of places in the region of your choice and decide what is really important to you. If you are looking for a warm and mellow climate where you could also have good living conditions and the privileges of domestic help, then maybe you could look at places like Barbados or the Bahamas.
If you are keen on art and culture, obvious choices would be places like Venice, Rome and Florence. But then, there maybe other aspects of life in these places that may or may not agree with you. If it’s the sun and the sand and the laid back lifestyle you’re after, then maybe Cyprus is the place for you.
If all this is getting confusing, it would help to remember that every location has unique advantages of its own, but there are bound to be drawbacks too. If you are trying to weigh one against the other in an effort to make the best possible choice, remember that you may have to eventually face the inescapable fact that in the strictest sense, you can’t have everything in any one location.
At best, you may come close to finding most of the conditions that you would like to find in a retirement location. But you do have to make sure that retiring to this place is a workable idea that will fit in with other aspects of your plans. Remember that if you are going to retire to a different location from the one where you have spent the last few years of your life, however attractive the place may be it’s going to be a major change – one that you must be prepared for. You’ll also have to be prepared to face a period of adjustment and the possibility of unforeseen difficulties.
Of course, none of this minimizes in any way the beauty or splendor of any of the places we learnt about. They are in no way any less attractive than you thought originally. It’s just that once you actually have to make a choice, you’ve come to the crunch. And however much you may have set your heart on a particular location, when you actually have to move, you also have to accept that this is it for keeps.
There’s no disputing the joys and advantages of life in Malaysia or Barbados for example, but would you be able to make the change a permanent one? Many or all of these locations may have been wonderful holiday destinations and you may even have been a regular visitor to the place you finally decided on as a retirement haven.
But do remember that going on a vacation is a far cry from living in a place with unforeseen difficulties day in and day out. Not many people are in the position to reverse their decisions about where to retire if things have not worked out as they expected. So take great care in making your choices – it’s going to affect you for the rest of your life.
And finally, if you are fairly sure that you have managed to find what you were looking for and taken everything into account, consider yourself lucky and then brace yourself to take the plunge!
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