See post 40 of this thread.
A thousand apologies, I missed that!
I lived in Central Florida (Ocala, to be exact) for 10+ years. Stay far away from Florida in the summer. It’s continually hot, humid, and it thunderstorms most summer afternoons - which (somehow) makes it even more humid. That, and the cockroaches are as big as your thumb, and they fly. 
Winters are…ok, I guess. Chilly but not cold, dank and gray for much of the time though.
Actually, to be on the safe side, stay out of Florida entirely 
There’s warm places much nicer than there. Wretched place.
We went to Disney World in September. Seemed plenty hot.
At first yes, then after all it sounds lovely. Spans two seas, a continental divide and bio diverse ecology.
Just be aware that Brazilian Portuguese is very different from European Portuguese. My training was from Brazilian native speakers prior to my posting to Lisbon, and I had a really hard time understanding native Portuguese people. Brazilians and Portuguese can understand each other, but not always easily. It’s largely because of the difference in pronunciation for someone who is not a native speaker. Brazilian Portuguese is full of dj- and sh- sounds, while the Euro version has a much harder edge. Also, Brazilians are much more effusive when they speak. Anyway, best of luck with it.
Has anyone mentioned Belize yet?
They have a special tax program for retirees.
As a former British Colony almost everyone speaks English
Government is stable
Crime is low/moderate and only higher in certain areas not unlike everywhere else in the world.
Warm, tropical weather.
Lots of expats down there.
On the previously posted link, the Netherlands has a higher percentage of “total English speakers” than the UK. 
I just did a quick googling. Every bit as beautiful as Costa Rica, plus fascinating Mayan ruins and a big barrier reef that’s a popular scuba diving spot. I’ve always wanted to learn scuba diving (yes, I hope to be that active of a senior).
Would still need to look up the boring necessities such as residency reqs for Americans, cost of living, medical care quality, etc.
If nothing else, it looks like a fantastic (extended?) vacation destination someday. From Wikipedia:
A combination of natural factors—climate, the Belize Barrier Reef, over 450 offshore Cays (islands), excellent fishing, safe waters for boating, scuba diving, snorkelling and freediving, numerous rivers for rafting, and kayaking, various jungle and wildlife reserves of fauna and flora, for hiking, bird watching, and helicopter touring, as well as many Maya sites—support the thriving tourism and ecotourism industry. It also has the largest cave system in Central America.
There are some countries that actually want immigration and offer incentives. I had a buddy (actually ethnic Chinese, Thai national) who took a RIF package at work. He got a relaxed visa to NZ and I think a bit of cash to go live over there. He started a Chinese restaurant but idk if it was a visa requirement. Stayed 2 years, moved back to the US into the exact same job. I always regretted I didn’t do the same thing.
In rural Japan there are depopulated rural areas that offer generous incentives to resettle the very beautiful Japanese countryside. When I lived in Hokkaido, if you were willing to move there and enroll a kid in elementary school, they would straight up give you a house, a few hectares of land, and a cow.
Most people’s retirement plans don’t include cows or school-age kids, but I just put it out there to mention that there are some interesting immigration incentives out there.
Small nitpick, Maltese is in the Central Semitic language family. AFAIK the only living languages in that family are Maltese, Arabic, and Hebrew.
As you said it’s overlaid extensively with Romance languages and the signs are in the Latin alphabet, so it should be pretty manageable to live there (I guess).
Nitpick back, my understanding is that both Maltese and English are on the signs.
They drive on the left-hand side like the UK, so that’s an adjustment.
I really need to plan a trip to Malta & Sicily sometime in the next few years if I’m going to be at all serious about this. But I would rather go to Italy proper.
Aramaic is still a living language.
Thank all of you for the great information! I’m always blown away by the depth and breadth of knowledge and helpfulness from the members on this board.
My actual retirement may be 10 years away, but in the short term, following up on all these great suggestions has been a fantastic antidote for winter / pandemic cabin fever, shut indoors 24/7 with 2 teenage boys. Someday I will be free, I keep telling myself…
I spent a month there a few years back. I consciously avoided Ambergris Caye – The Place for Expats – because I wanted a sense of the rest of Belize.
I found places like Placencia and Caye Caulker to be idyllic and charming but small and very limited. If water sports is your thing, though, these Cayes may well be hard to beat.
I covered a fair amount of ground on the mainland. Belize City felt very ‘third-world’ to me. Some of the less well known places, like San Ignacio were more culturally interesting, but still had a bit of that ‘expat infrastructure still under development’ feel – not necessarily a bad thing, but a thing to know.
I eventually hung for a few days at a town on the remote border area adjacent to Guatemala where I met a vacationing Yank and a Canadian who lived in Belize for years, and were in real estate and relocation in the more popular areas. After a couple of Belikin beers (in vino veritas), they told me that – since I can get around (and nothing more) in Spanish, expat life would be infinitely better in some of the more popular areas of Guatemala.
In other words: there was a rather steep premium to pay for the English speaking part of life in Belize.
That’s not to say that a place like Ambergris isn’t worth a visit, and shouldn’t be in the consideration set. I think it is. But places like that, and Caye Caulker, and Placencia (technically, a peninsula) really should be thought of as islands in the sense of their limitations.
A budget that allowed you to avoid island fever would probably be important.
I hear you, my friend. I hear you. At least one of my three will be headed off to Knoxville in the fall.
I hadn’t thought about Belize. Dunno why. My sister did a summer internship there several years ago, and they were heavily recruiting me to teach there back at the beginning of my career. I probably would have taken the job, if I had not been about to enter into my first marriage. Off to research Belize more.
My understanding is that the Japanese language is not easy to learn, and the society is very insular, so that outsiders have a hard time fitting in. The population is aging, though, and this presents a long-term problem for the country. And I’ve heard of these rural towns with very few kids in the schools. I think it would be easier to relocate to a more multi-cultural country.
I’m planning to leave Japan soon. It seems like every 25 years or so I get bored/fed up with where I live. So I’m thinking of moving and eventually retiring in Florida, USA. I want to get one of those places with a jetty on the back yard that sits on the river/canal that eventually runs to open ocean. Pool would be a bonus too.
As other have mentioned, getting resident status may be hard. I may have to get a tourist visa and make a run for Mexico to renew it every three months, at first. This is looking ahead five years or so, so I have time to research the ins and outs.
Was there two years ago. It’s rather barren/brown, especially coming from central Switzerland. But that’s a matter of taste. Easy to get around, even has public transportation. Had some really good food there.
As an American living in Switzerland I would recommend to really think about the consequences of not knowing the local language. Learning how to order beer and food is well enough for tourism. Describing to a doctor what hurts and what kind of treatment you need for a serious illness either requires finding medical care in English, or spending a lot more time learning the language. And in the case of emergency treatment, the patient may not get to choose.
Daily tasks like calling a plumber or getting the house painted becomes more complicated. And I know it’s not on the table, but almost no one would choose German-speaking Switzerland for retirement. Too expensive and the spoken language is too different from standard German.
Taxes. Not just the IRS, but the local taxes. Many countries also charge wealth taxes and even the income tax rate is probably going to be higher than the U.S.
Foodstuffs. Grocery stores in many European countries are a lot smaller than the U.S. standard. Favorite cereal that you’ve been eating for the previous 20 years may not be available or has to be shipped from the U.S. One of the first questions here is “where do I find brown sugar”. Restaurants are different. Yes, Italian food is good. But forget getting Chinese or Tex-Mex like you’re used to, unless you make your own.
It’s so much better than 20 years ago. When we moved here, we heard from coworkers (who were here 30 years ago) how difficult it was to adapt as they missed getting the news (internet takes care of that), tv shows (even we have access to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+) and peanut butter (I think there are 2-3 different choices now, as compared to just 1 when we moved here). But I still have to order chipotles in adobo sauce from a specialty shop and forget buying fire-roasted diced tomatoes in a can. I have a friend from Texas who’s been here for 25 years and is still complaining that he can’t buy sweet and sour mix at the store. He doesn’t want to make his own.
Do not underestimate how different it will be and definitely try before you buy. And after living very close to a popular tourist destination, I would avoid living in a tourist area. Luzern is so small, that the periodic influx of tourists can almost overwhelm the city.
As this thread is about retirement then, yeah, Japan is the wrong place to retire for non-Japanese-speaking people who want to retire cheaply. I don’t even know what kind of visa you would need to get. It would probably be something that involves you investing money in Japan upfront. I’m a permanent resident of Japan but it cost me years of hard sweat and taxes to get that.
Having said that, if you have a visa status to live in Japan then you can live really cheaply, comfortably and experience so many cool things.
You need that visa though.