Anyone thinking of retiring abroad?

[SueEllen]

Just need to shout loudly and slowly in English.

Nah in most countries you attempt to speak their language (badly in most cases) and if they can they will answer you in English.

[mattster]

Australia for us, but we are lucky and all have citizenship having lived there for ten years in the early 2000's, and both our kids were born there (we couldn't get in now - too old).
We've done what many expats there do which is to return for family reasons after having kids, but the weather and general sh*tness of the UK are really starting to get to us now so thoughts are turning to returning - sooner rather than later.

[Zigenare]

Yep, Anglesey.

[DealorNoDeal]

Edison was talking about parts other than the Algarve but you seem to have fixated on that one word and tarred the entire country. The Algarve to Portugal is like Benidorm to Spain. It's completely unrepresentative of the rest of the country. It's like saying the entire UK is exactly the same as Blackpool.

Does the country you move to have to have English as its first language or are you willing to at least put in a bit of effort to learn the language of a country where English is widely spoken and you can easily get by?

Outside of the Algarve, English is not widely spoken. Lisbon may be ok, and you can probably get by on the Silver Coast. However, if you go inland in central Portugal, in most rural areas hardly anyone speaks any English.

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I was just making the point that I hear a lot of people raving about the Algarve but I don't get the attraction over some of the nicer parts of the Spanish Costas. Especially when property is about twice the price.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Yep, Anglesey.

Twll din pob Sais. .

How about St Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cuhna, or the Falklands?

[Zigenare]

Twll din pob Sais. .

How about St Helena - Too warm
Ascension - Too many satellite dishes!
Tristan da Cuhna - Too many penguins!
Falklands - Too many penguins!

Someone has to keep the Welsh economy afloat!

[jamesbrown]

Someone has to keep the Welsh economy afloat!

Send MF there on holiday, he'll purchase all the snacks.

[tazdevil]

Australia for us, but we are lucky and all have citizenship having lived there for ten years in the early 2000's, and both our kids were born there (we couldn't get in now - too old).
We've done what many expats there do which is to return for family reasons after having kids, but the weather and general sh*tness of the UK are really starting to get to us now so thoughts are turning to returning - sooner rather than later.

Australia nice but with lots of stuff out to kill you including the weather The communications infrastructure is also rubbish outside urban centres (could have improved recently though). Lots of woke these days and stuff isn't cheap as well as its a bit remote

[mattster]

Australia nice but with lots of stuff out to kill you including the weather The communications infrastructure is also rubbish outside urban centres (could have improved recently though). Lots of woke these days and stuff isn't cheap as well as its a bit remote

Weather is probably the worst of it - nothing else really came close to killing me in the years I lived there, rather an overblown fear IMO.

Comms getting better whilst we were there but they missed a once in a generation chance with the NBN roll out - scuppered by Murdoch as much as anything. Starlink an option now I suppose but frankly get me as far away from the internet as possible once I retire.

Woke stuff - this really depends on where you live. We were in Sydney for most of our time and it is pretty right on. Outside major cities then it is more redneck than woke.. each has its appeal and drawbacks.

Not exactly sure where we'd go back to - Sydney nice but housing so expensive probably a non-starter. Brissie OK from what I've seen. One nice thing about Aus citizenship is recipricol with NZ which is also a pretty cool place.

[DealorNoDeal]

Australia would be quite appealing. Not the cities, or coast, but the outback. I wouldn't mind trying my hand at a bit of gold, or opal, prospecting.

I doubt we'd stand any chance of getting in though with just savings + the proceeds of our house + state pensions due in a few years time.