I wasn’t necessarily singing praises, it was just another suggestion. I think any place outside of the U.S. will have areas that the locals are used to but we would find unsavory.
I was south of Hopkins and found it very third worldish. Many of the highways weren’t even paved. The infrastructure of some areas in Belize is seriously lacking. But quite nice in other areas.
Don’t know about the health care, but it is only about a 2 hour flight back to U.S. soil.
Yes, Japan is beautiful, safe, and no longer expensive after 25 years of no inflation. But if you don’t have any prior interest or experience with the language or culture, a move there would be a massive culture shock, even to Tokyo.
I am really surprised nobody has mentioned the Canary Islands yet. Subtropical weather all year round (they are proud of their bananas and have turned to cultivating mangos and avocados in recent years), but no malaria, dengue and similar plagues so far (might change with climate change). European in culture, medical care, food standards, etc. etc., very good infrastructure, great and mostly cheap connections (to Europe at least), amazing nature (volcanoes, mountains, deserts, jungles…). Every island is different, so you can choose from rural backwater to hippie colony to full tourist trap and everything in between, with the full range in prices. In most parts English is spoken or at least well understood, they make a living of that. They enjoy a special tax regime so that booze and tobacco are very cheap, if that is your thing. Food is very good (that is: I like it). Diving is amazing.
I suspect that’s good advice even if it’s a place you’ve visited frequently and spent a lot of time in - renting like a resident has got to be a very different thing than renting like a short-term visitor. You’ll likely have to deal with things like utilities, finding doctors etc. that you wouldn’t have had to if you were staying even for a month or more as a tourist.
Some parts of Eastern Europe supposedly aren’t bad. Decent standard of living at a lower cost, good health care, fairly stable societies. But it depends on where you go.
I’d bet English is kinda limited in former Eastern Bloc countries. So you’ll need to learn Czech. Polish, Slobovian, or … . However challenging gaining a new language is while approaching retirement age, it’s got to be a bunch harder if they use a different writing system. Be that Cyrillic, Chinese, Hangul, etc.
That’s guesswork on my part; if anyone has actual knowledge I’m happy to be edumacated / corrected.