Spain next year in my beautiful Finca.

Well, I know a couple of people on this forum who live in multinational relationships where it is impossible to live in both partners' home. I also know a couple of people who told me that they had a worse "reverse culture shock" when they went back to "their" country than when they moved abroad. That might vary on the culture and where they moved of course... as well as the question how long they have been away.

And then are there misfits like Phil reading this shit on some geeky mobile device...

As well as the reverse culture shock scenarios, I've also met people who have moved abroad to their foreign paradise which they've found wonderful.

But, after a visit back to their home country and then a return to their "paradise", they've realised how awful their "paradise" really is.

I can see somewhere like Hong Kong fitting into this category.

I think Spain is a good option. Any safe country in Latin America good also be good.

But are there any of those? OK, maybe Chile....

Definitely Tenerife-Spain, a great place to live when you retire.
low taxes , great climate (12 months of summer), good food, excellent low cost private healthcare (free for UK pensioners), cheap rent (rent a bungalow with garden and communal pool for 600 Euros a month), very low cost of living (food ,drinks, transport, electricity, phone etc.) a pint of beer cost 1 Euro during the day in most places. There is no place like it in Europe if you want to escape the winter weather .

We will retire right here, in the Neuchatel Jura. But we are lucky to have a daughter in Tenerife - and we intend to spend more time there in Winter- not buying for long-term holiday rent - 1 or 2 months at a time. And another daughter and lots of family and friends in Surrey and East Leics, where we also like to spend time.

Friends is another point to consider. Several anecdotes here in Geneva of people who moved out to nearby France (for bigger house + pool + pension stretches further), so not far away, but away enough to have to drive 45 minutes every time they wish to catch up with their friends, only to realise that as they got older it became harder and harder, as hard as it had been for them to make new friends of similar age in their new home. They now wish they had never left but can no longer afford to move back to Geneva.

Excellent point Taveau. I also know people who retired to Spain and after a few years just couldn't stand it anymore and yearned for 'proper' seasons. And 1 family who went to live in rural Tuscany and just hated the hunt and shoot everything + sexist mentality, and were bored to an inch of their lives, and extremely surprised by the bitterly cold winters. Alcoholism is rampant among expats in Southern France and Dordogneshire too. What seems wonderful on holiday can be lethally boring when you live there ... and people are never prepared for the very cold winters (which are great in CH if you like to play in the snow, as we do, and if you have houses built for the purpose).

For retirement definitely Switzerland. If not, under-rated and beautiful Austria.

Tuscany is full of half renovated farms, from Brits mainly who, after a couple of years, realised that sunshine and dolce vita did not always equate with true, deep friendship.

Bangkok. Where things have a happy ending. If you know what I mean

I don't have any friends, so not an issue for me

Does your daughter know that?

My retirement vision is simple:
- warm place and 75% of sunshine in a year (good for tennis ),
- hefty pension and profit from other investments (can afford living in house with tennis court ),
- live nearby enough to see or visit my close family (in free time slots from tennis )
- retire early (so that I can still play some decent tennis ),
- decent health care (in case need to treat injuries from tennis ).

Btw, did I mention that I would enjoy playing some tennis when retired?

Don't suppose she'll care either way given that she doesn't live there anymore.

As I am not looking forward to my retirement, to being old and poor, my priorities are that it is somewhere warm so I don't have to spend too much on heating.

Good point - retiring 'to be near the children' is a risky proposition in these days of a global economy.

MIL and FIL wanted to retire someplace sunny but close enough for easy travel to be near us. We were globe hopping in those days, so they kept putting the move off, wanting to wait until we returned to the US.

But a year abroad became two, then ten, then 17... and MIL and FIL are no longer here.

It breaks my heart that their dreams of sunnier climes never came to fruition.

Moral of the story: Make your retirement plans based on your lives, not your children's. Yours is the only life over which you have some measure of control.

Frankly, I was expecting message similar to mine re: swimming

I also understand that the heated swimming pools are not cheap

In addition to good food & wine, decent healthcare and low cost of living, I want warm sunny summers so I can walk and moderately cold winters with lots of snow for skiing. And mountains. And no in-between, so that I go to bed one day in the summer and wake-up to perfectly groomed lists the day after.

I've come to accept that my preferred retirement spot is actually 2 places. One for summer and winter (Switzerland fits the bill except for cost of living) and one for autumn and spring, the seasons I spend looking at the calendar and wishing it could be colder/hotter. A culturally interesting place with good weather and food. Marrakech is on my list, or Kyoto, or Kochi... I fell in love with Sanaa 10 years ago, but I doubt it will be possible to live there in my lifetime. Possibly I could just travel 4 months/year and be "home" the rest of the time.

The Troll has already decided that he wants to live everywhere in the world, I might hitch with him a few months every year.