One place I’d recomend in Mexico is Merida. I love Mexico (my family is from there) but Merida is my favorite city. It has a unique culture, it was nearly unreachable by land from the rest of Mexico until modern highways were built - its heavily Mayan and the people are very friendly, calm, and frankly there is little machismo, the local diet is healthy, and crime as relatively low (no place is 100% safe of course).
Even though it is deep in the tropics, it also has a strong French influence (from the 19th century), and people of all sorts of European, Afro-Caribbean, and Lebanese backgrounds too. No one will really look too out of place there in a Guayabera shirt, tan slacks, and a pair of loafers. And it has magnificent homes and is still not that far from the United States (it’s probably 5 or 6 hour flight from Miami).
Many Mexicans (and Costa Ricans) are actually fairly wealthy in the bigger cities. The majority in Mexico are poor by American standards, but you can’t really single out Americans for driving up prices. I work in retail along the Mexican border and know Mexican people from Chihuahua who think nothing of spending 150 dollars alone on dinner mints for a baby showers.
Puerta Vallarta would be the second choice, but its much more touristy.
I do believe Costa Rica is probably the best off of the Central American countries. Hell, they don’t even have an army-how cool is that? (They don’t need one, apparently. “Don Pepe” Figureres did away with the military in the 1940s.)
Having done some research into this area myself I recommend Belize. You can actually buy into citizenship there, it is a parlimentary democracy and a British protectorate. English is the official language in Belize and they have some of the best scuba diving in this hemisphere. The permanent exchange rate is set at 2 Belizean dollars for every 1 dollar American.
The life of a ‘king’ in many third-world (or LDC’s in more PC parlance) is probably not all that nice as Guinastasia mentioned. Such ostentatious displays of wealth may well piss-off the locals (and with good reason…much of the wealth that we in the DC’s take for granted has been accumulated by exploiting the human and natural resources of those in the LDC’s). They are LDC’s because we have screwed them over the centuries.
Health Care is an important consideration (as Mondeo) pointed out. Factor in that Medicare only covers services in the United States. So nearby countries (like Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize, etc) may be good in case your health deteriorates. You may wish to bone up on Spanish in these cases.
I’ve lived in Thailand, it can be very nice although it gets very hot. Health Care there is quite good, albeit different in some major respects than the USA, and is normally very cheap ($0.75 hospital visits). Crime is really not much a worry and the Buddhist aspect makes most of the concerns of haves v. have-nots less of an issue. You can’t buy a house if you’re not Thai, so you’d have to rent one or live in a Condo. You can find a decent apartment for about $100/month, a nice on for about $400/mo. but “live like a King” is getting on closer to $700-2000/month in Bangkok. Cheaper in the countryside but probably less regal. Unfortunately the current regime seems to be aggressively xenophobic, which doesn’t refer to a fear of Lucy Lawless. So I couldn’t really recommend the place at this point.
Most lesser developed countries are going to have pros and cons of these sorts. I’d avoid RSA since they should theoretically rebound and since you’ll be on a fixed income then you’ll probably need to relocate.
Things to consider:
Language (ability to communicate in general plus companionship)
Stability (political and economic)
Health Care
Climate
Food (do you like spicy food? do you need to eat Pop-Tarts once a week?)
Crime
Pollution
Activities / Recreation
Transportation (both in country and if you want to visit back home)
Local infrastructure (how often does the power grid crash, can you get a phone/computer/etc?)
i lived in brazil for 10 months in 83-84. the dollar speaks very loudly there. if you played your cards right, you could indeed live like a king.
generally very nice people, and certainly the best of the continent standard-of-living-wise. they have a HUGE case of penis-envy toward the united states, however. they will lecture you at will about the evils of your country, while insisting on picking up the check. they all want to speak english, so you can do real well with a little portuguese. time to go home, so i quite now!
all in all, nice place! (and formula one fanatics)