The Best Expat Country Just Got a Massive Economic Boost.
How many countries would you need to sample living in before you could claim one of them as the ‘best?’ I’ve lived in about a dozen and completed the legal immigration process in four of them.
But none of those four (US, Belize, UK, Ireland) is the best for expats.
Neither are any of the others I’ve lived in for months or years at a time.
Instead, I spend every day here, where all these statistics are true:
- The annual economy is over $3-trillion and has a steady 10-year growth rate better than any other country, including China
- It’s teeming with middle-class consumers who are spending at an accelerating rate every year
- It has far less business regulation than laissez-faire countries like Singapore and Hong Kong
- It is a totally equal opportunity country for women, minorities, the disabled, very young or very old persons, and everyone else
- It has over two billion English speaking people
- 100% of the people use a computer, a smartphone, or both
By now you’ve guessed — my favorite country in the world is The Internet!
Here’s a podcast from The Expat Money Show where Mikkel and I talk about safely leaving the rat race by starting an online business!
Expats Like Having Options
Generally, people who are expats or considering becoming expats don’t like living with a lot of restrictions.
Where other people will tolerate ever-increasing levels of regulations, taxes, social engineering, property infringement, general crime, and a long list of other decaying standards of living, expats are eager to exercise their options to find somewhere more suitable to their own priorities and goals.
That’s why the internet is so important to expats. It’s the place where you can start a new online business in one day, while needing nobody’s permission, approval, or authorization.
You can also arrange things so one company owns your website address, another company owns valuable content, and yet another pays you to manage the site. Those are options a regular employee just doesn’t have.
So there’s flexibility in how you structure things, and there are literally thousands of proven ways to generate online income. What’s not to love?
It amounts to a lot of options for a person who wants to live somewhere new and wants to protect his or her financial stability while doing so.
Every COVID Has a Silver Lining
This pandemic is nothing to be casually dismissed. It’s already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, which means it has painfully reached deeply into millions of individual lives.
Even those of us who are least affected are among the several billion who have been significantly restricted by the pandemic. We will also be forced to absorb the painful economic and social realities of trillions of dollars, euros, and yen printed and borrowed during the crisis.
It’s clear this will be an inflection point in our society, just as the Great Depression and WWII were forever made demarkations of “before” and “after.”
However, for those of us who live and work, so to speak, in the world of the internet, this crisis has been a giant boost to our economy.
Why?
Because hundreds of millions of new internet users have:
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- been driven to use the internet as a convenient marketplace
- as a tool to allow them to do their jobs remotely
- as a resource to learn new things
- and to keep in touch with loved ones
Hey, millions of us were already doing these things. But the pandemic has driven hundreds of millions of new customers online.
So our online economy is absolutely booming!
Good News for Expats
Some people become expats when they are already independently wealthy. They are high net worth individuals, or perhaps they have a very solid pension that allows them to sleep well at night. Those people can relocate where they want and never need to think about generating new cashflow to replace a job they left behind.
In my experience, most people who want to be expats are not in the category of having worry-free income for the remainder of their life. In fact, they can’t transition to the expat lifestyle until they find a way to have all the money they need while they live in Timbuktu or wherever they choose to be.
Since most online businesses can be operated from anywhere, the booming online economy has never offered more opportunities for expats. And because of the pandemic, regular consumers are more comfortable than ever doing business there.
Expat Opportunities Abound:
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- using your lifetime expertise as a coach or consultant
- freelancing with a skill you already have
- creating courses, webinars, or training programs
- e-commerce selling of your product or someone else’s
- dropshipping in expanding retail niches
- organizing affinity groups based on interests or location
- offering membership communities in tightly defined niches
- and so much more
All of these online business models have worked for decades. Now they are growing faster than ever because there are millions of new people consuming online products, services, and content.
This is the exact method I’ve used for over twenty years to live all over the world, never needing to worry about finding a local way to get employment or to start a local business.
Plus I basically answer to no one other than my customers or clients.
The internet offers a way to own and control your own portable source of income.
The internet is a multi-trillion dollar economy that doesn’t have a president, prime minister, congress, parliament, or any other gatekeepers or parasites.
You don’t need a passport to participate in this massive economy, and all are welcome without bias or prejudice.
If you want to have a portable income so you can be an expat anywhere, the best country in the world for it is expanding and welcoming.
If Not Now, When?
If this article on Best Expat Countries resonates with you and would like additional information about becoming a digital nomad, please visit me at SafelyLeaveTheRatRace.com. I look forward to working with you!
Here are 2 fun articles I wrote: 11 Reasons For an Escape Artist to Own an Online Business and Why I’m an Escape Artist Enjoy!
