The world's best places to retire?

The September edition of International Living magazine includes their annual Retirement Index and I am glad to see that two of my top choices are ranked near the top.  Now, as IL readily admits, the rankings are based on a weighting of eight factors and then totaled, but the various factors and how important they are to you is what is most important.  Would I make a decision based on this index?  No way -- but it does provide interesting indicators of how countries compare against each other.

The index categories are:  real estate, special (retirement) benefits, cost of living, culture, health, infrastructure, safety/stability and climate.  The scoring for each of these items is based on data provided by multiple sources including international and individual government abstracts.  Each of the categories have huge areas of interpretation and giving a single number to a whole country clearly is not meaningful since every country, even tiny little Belize, has wide fluctuations within its borders.  For example, giving a single number to "real estate" regardless of whether you plan to buy or rent and regardless of where within that country you intend to live is a bit absurd.  But, as already noted, the comparisons between countries still warrant a look.

The top five countries by total score are:  Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Spain and  New Zealand.  The index only lists 23 countries but does include many of the other destinations I have under consideration such as Costa Rica, Columbia, Brazil, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. 

An example of the difficulty I have with some of the scoring is in the area of climate.  Mexico is assigned a score of 99 while Belize is assigned a score of 62.  I don't get it.  The two countries are right next to each other; both have highlands with more moderate temperatures and both have Caribbean coasts that are warm and humid.  Is it the Pacific coast that is so much better?  Honduras is just to the south of Belize and rates an 83.  Again, something seems amiss here.  Another area I have a problem with is assigning a number to "culture."  Granted, France (with a score of 100) has a great culture -- a great history, amazing food and wine, widely acclaimed museums, etc.  But to assign a 75 to Uruguay seems a bit much for a country that has great colonial architecture and is frequently referred to as "little Europe."  Anyway, you get my point.

Since IL provides the annual Retirement Index to subscribers I won't reproduce it here, but you can get a copy by subscribing to their Postcards, an email teaser to their magazine and special reports.  It doesn’t cost you anything and before becoming a subscriber myself, I found many intriguing articles and information about locations I had not really considered before.  Yes, they occasionally try to sell you special seminars and other information, but just ignore those if you are not interested and let your mind wander to exciting new places with each email you receive.