< Index for International Living  > < Subscribe to International Living >   < More Articles On Our Website - Start Page >

From Guayaquil to Esmeraldas: Ecuador’s best real-estate buys on offer right now - Click Here - Giant Pacific breakers crested and crashed on the sand. A damp ocean breeze tickled palms as they swayed over the beachfront restaurant where I sat, enjoying my delicious 72-cent cheese omelet and 38-cent cup of fresh, thick coffee with creamy, hot milk. A boy rode past on his bicycle carrying a bucket loaded with wriggling fish. This was as good as it gets for those who enjoy the beach... by Gary Scott
The 5 best ways to live, retire, or profit in New Zealand - Click Here - New Zealand is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a lot like the western coast of the United States, only turned upside down. The North Island is tropical, like San Diego…the South is cool, like Portland or Seattle.  As a California native, I have a funny requirement when looking for a place to live, work, or “retire.” It’s this: I look to see whether or not avocados grow there. You see, avocados like it warm...with lots of sunlight. So do I. So if they grow there, I know I’ll at least like the weather. Avocados grow very well in northern New Zealand.  by Rick Rule
Secrets of a real-estate developer: “How I built a profitable Roatan resort on a shoestring budget” - Click Here - Six years ago, Frank Canale started Sundancer, one of the most successful small scale real-estate developments on the island of Roatan. "For a number of years, I developed real estate in Arkansas and Colorado... retirement and golf communities mostly. But after my wife and I had children, I knew I wanted to bring them up in a more relaxed, more family-oriented place, and my wife and I wanted to try home schooling. We also wanted to go somewhere warm and I was looking for a place where I could make a living with a small real estate project. With these things in mind we began our search for a place to relocate".  by Frank Canale
Puerto Varas, Chile: The perfect spot for a warm winter mountain hideaway - Click Here - I’ve been traveling to Chile for the past 30 years. And I lived there for more than a year back in the 1970s. This country is a great, but often overlooked, place to start a business, live, or retire. Chile, in fact, has had the fastest-growing economy in the Western Hemisphere over the last 15 years. But because it started out so low on the economic ladder, it’s still got a way to go. This means there are great opportunities here right now for real estate and other investments. by Justin Ford
Affordable living in Panama’s Highlands, where you can rent a home for as little as $350 a month - Click Here - I got off the plane in David, Panama (well west of  the capital, in the province of Chiriqui) & drove an hour inland & up about 4,000 feet to the town of Boquete. There I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn’t expected to like this country so much. Panama certainly looks good on paper: the economy is growing; inflation is holding steady at 2% (lower than in the US); the government is democratic; offshore banking laws provide strict privacy; you pay no tax on income derived outside the country; retirees qualify for tremendous discounts on everything from airplane tickets to groceries; and more. Yet I was never fully convinced that Panama was a place I’d want to live.. by Jennifer Stevens
New breasts, a new nose, or a tucked tummy for a fraction of what you’d pay in the United States - Click Here - Budapest is one of the best places in the world to have plastic surgery. A strong dollar, modern medical facilities, and inexpensive prices to begin with mean you can have common procedures, such as laser treatment, collagen injections, liposuction, breast augmentation, nose surgery, and facelifts, done for much less than what you’d pay in the United States... 40%-70% less, in fact. by Andrew Der
How one reader found a secluded escape on Ireland’s charming southwest coast - Click Here - "I spoke with Jane Liggett a few days ago. She’s been an IL subscriber for years. Jane lives in Tampa, Florida, where she’s in the real-estate business. She manages several rental units, refurbishes old properties, and owns some land. But she spends every spare minute she can in her new home on Ireland’s Iveragh peninsula. This area is one of the most beautiful places in the whole country…there are lovely little towns, high cliffs that drop straight to the Atlantic ocean, the country’s tallest mountains, and crystal-clear lakes and rivers. This is one of our favorite areas in Ireland, and we’ll be going back there this summer." Barbara Perriello
Actualities:  Russian prostitutes in Paris... free cruises (men only)... the safest place in Mexico... pets in Panama - Click Here - Russian prostitutes in Paris. It has become hard to find a good French prostitute. At least that’s what a recent article in the Figaro tells readers. 
 “Russian girls have flooded Paris,” reported the headline, recalling the well-known Baptist hymn, “We’re sinking deep in sin.”   As a happily married man I cannot take on the kind of undercover research required to verify the facts, so I have to rely on secondhand sources. Still, I’m glad to hear about the Russian women. They represent an extension of the division of labor and hope for the future. Not that the local girls didn’t provide a quality product. But they couldn’t compete with the Eastern Europeans on price. The Russians brought deflation to an industry traditionally marked by tumescence, if not actual price inflation. (This observation and much more)
A French golf course for US$125,000... apartments in tax-free Andorra... J. Paul Getty’s house... - Click Here - Tax-free apartments: Andorra has no taxes, no army, no poverty, virtually no unemployment, and one of the lowest crime rates in Europe. It’s small, covering only about 464 square kilometers between France and Spain. Andorra is also the shopping mall of Europe because, although duty-free status ended in 1993, the country is still exempt from the EU’s value-added taxes. About 10 million people come here every year to shop. (This observation and much more)

< More Articles On Our Website - Start Page >

.