I’ve been to 70+ countries and lived in 4 (Cape Town, London, Toronto and Lisbon).

I’d choose where I am now: Lisbon

Perfect little city and lacks in nothing. Amazing quality of life and no matter how busy I am you sort of always feel like you’re on holiday.

Not too big or too small
Loads of history, art and culture
Affordable
Excellent weather
Cracking weather and excellent for outdoor sports
Super beaches with great waves for surfing
Safe
Pollution not and issue
Traffic not an issue
Wine farms and hour south or north of the city

Easy living. Perfect city to enjoy the simple things in life but with a sophisticated offering should you want that too.

comment by MMaaxx (U9506)
posted 16 minutes ago
I’ve been to 70+ countries and lived in 4 (Cape Town, London, Toronto and Lisbon).

I’d choose where I am now: Lisbon

Perfect little city and lacks in nothing. Amazing quality of life and no matter how busy I am you sort of always feel like you’re on holiday.

Not too big or too small
Loads of history, art and culture
Affordable
Excellent weather
Cracking weather and excellent for outdoor sports
Super beaches with great waves for surfing
Safe
Pollution not and issue
Traffic not an issue
Wine farms and hour south or north of the city

Easy living. Perfect city to enjoy the simple things in life but with a sophisticated offering should you want that too.

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How did you find Toronto? I don't hear good things to be honest. And the winters must be brutal!

Also Cape Town? One of my colleagues just moved from there and said the crime levels made him want to get his family out.

I have travelled extensively, but I wouldn`t want to live anywhere bar London.

I love London but would not want to live anywhere near the city. Not that I could afford it!

comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 9 hours, 11 minutes ago
Nobody choosing France Spain, Portugal, America, Canada, Scandinavia where the happiest people in the world live. No Germany, South America. Come on lads, surely some like them.
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I’m very happy here, MU52; don’t get me wrong.

But I think despite efforts to curb development, by the time I reach retirement, this little corner of Europe is going to look and feel very different.

(And I did choose Brasil as the country is move to if I left Portugal above!)

Love your part of the world too. I might swing by one day and knock you up

comment by Robb Pochettino - 🧢 Make United Great Again (U22311)
posted 11 hours, 5 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 2 minutes ago
comment by Robb Pochettino - 🧢 Make United Great Again (U22311)
posted 6 minutes ago
I already live in the best city in the world. But if visas weren’t an issue and neither was money and I was banned from Sydney for my numerous crimes I’d probably choose to live in Italy near Lake Garda
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Been to all the others Robb?
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No, but my city has everything you could ever want and pretty much every foreigner I speak to is in awe of it and these are people who’ve been all over the world .

It’s all subjective of course but I’m sure most people who’ve been to Sydney would put it right up there with others
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I find that Sydney is great for tourism, and going on holiday but not great for living. Melbourne is a far better city for liveability.

comment by Melbourne Red’s Sharpey Shuffle (U5417)
posted 18 minutes ago
comment by Robb Pochettino - 🧢 Make United Great Again (U22311)
posted 11 hours, 5 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 2 minutes ago
comment by Robb Pochettino - 🧢 Make United Great Again (U22311)
posted 6 minutes ago
I already live in the best city in the world. But if visas weren’t an issue and neither was money and I was banned from Sydney for my numerous crimes I’d probably choose to live in Italy near Lake Garda
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Been to all the others Robb?
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No, but my city has everything you could ever want and pretty much every foreigner I speak to is in awe of it and these are people who’ve been all over the world .

It’s all subjective of course but I’m sure most people who’ve been to Sydney would put it right up there with others
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I find that Sydney is great for tourism, and going on holiday but not great for living. Melbourne is a far better city for liveability.
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I did used to live in Melbourne - in Black Rock. A great city but just hated the weather.

comment by RedLeyland (U3775)
posted 12 hours, 16 minutes ago
England , Lancashire , best people in the world other than that maybe parts of Kent , or the Sussex coast beautiful round there , people always willing to chat.
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Queen’s Head, Seven Stars or The Gables??

Benidorm for me is up there too. Great weather and fantastic local cuisine like egg and chips and a good roast on a Sunday.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Good shout for Lisbon, fantastic place to visit and could easily live there.

Genuine question, how affordable would London or NYC be for retirement? Let's say you were middle class and sold your current house in Europe for 200k-250k and your pension income was around 1,5k each month (or double with spouse).
I think living in USA the medical bills would F you up eventually. Barcelona seems doable atm, but 10 years back property was even more affordable (<150k).
Australia seems lovely, but I would defo not be able to cope with the weather, spiders and snakes, lots of snakes

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Skye.

Good housing, incredible views, nice women, peace and tranquillity.

comment by Lerradinho (U21557)
posted 50 minutes ago
Genuine question, how affordable would London or NYC be for retirement? Let's say you were middle class and sold your current house in Europe for 200k-250k and your pension income was around 1,5k each month (or double with spouse).
I-----------------------------------------------
i can only speak for myself, and for work reasons i ended up living in the posher parts of each city - upper east side and marylebone - but the last time i rented, decent apartments, 2 beds, though not huge, i was comfortably paying £2k+ in rent alone a month, and that was 10-15 years ago.

so even if i downsized a bit, with rental appreciation over that time, i would budget on £2-2.5k in rent a month. and before anyone says "oh don, you're such a tedious snob", it looks like it would cost you £1600 a month to get a 2 bed maisonette on camberwell:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/83819938#/

so "not very" is, alas, the answer.

comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 52 minutes ago
comment by Lerradinho (U21557)
posted 50 minutes ago
Genuine question, how affordable would London or NYC be for retirement? Let's say you were middle class and sold your current house in Europe for 200k-250k and your pension income was around 1,5k each month (or double with spouse).
I-----------------------------------------------
i can only speak for myself, and for work reasons i ended up living in the posher parts of each city - upper east side and marylebone - but the last time i rented, decent apartments, 2 beds, though not huge, i was comfortably paying £2k+ in rent alone a month, and that was 10-15 years ago.

so even if i downsized a bit, with rental appreciation over that time, i would budget on £2-2.5k in rent a month. and before anyone says "oh don, you're such a tedious snob", it looks like it would cost you £1600 a month to get a 2 bed maisonette on camberwell:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/83819938#/

so "not very" is, alas, the answer.

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Fack me

You’d only have needed to save three years of rent at £2k to buy - outright - our two bed detached house, just under 150m2, 250m2 of garden, walking distance to five beaches, sun 300-and-odd days a year, five years ago.

London is mental.

comment by rosso - it’s not good enough to be right; you have to be effective (U17054)
posted 2 minutes ago
comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 52 minutes ago
comment by Lerradinho (U21557)
posted 50 minutes ago
Genuine question, how affordable would London or NYC be for retirement? Let's say you were middle class and sold your current house in Europe for 200k-250k and your pension income was around 1,5k each month (or double with spouse).
I-----------------------------------------------
i can only speak for myself, and for work reasons i ended up living in the posher parts of each city - upper east side and marylebone - but the last time i rented, decent apartments, 2 beds, though not huge, i was comfortably paying £2k+ in rent alone a month, and that was 10-15 years ago.

so even if i downsized a bit, with rental appreciation over that time, i would budget on £2-2.5k in rent a month. and before anyone says "oh don, you're such a tedious snob", it looks like it would cost you £1600 a month to get a 2 bed maisonette on camberwell:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/83819938#/

so "not very" is, alas, the answer.

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Fack me

You’d only have needed to save three years of rent at £2k to buy - outright - our two bed detached house, just under 150m2, 250m2 of garden, walking distance to five beaches, sun 300-and-odd days a year, five years ago.

London is mental.
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Ridiculous ain't it

comment by rosso - it’s not good enough to be right; you have to be effective (U17054)

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Fack me

You’d only have needed to save three years of rent at £2k to buy - outright - our two bed detached house, just under 150m2, 250m2 of garden, walking distance to five beaches, sun 300-and-odd days a year, five years ago.

London is mental.
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i know, these days i spend £700 a month, and my property is nicer than any i lived in in london. even by capital city standards london is eye-watering, i've looked into moving to rome, and reckon that rents there are c. 30-50% lower, even with sterling being weak against the euro.

curious thing, as far as i recall, is that most other things in london are no more expensive than elsewhere - food, drink, clothes etc, so it's probably a great place to be homeless.

So come on, if you prefer Pontefract, let's be having it.
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Don't knock West Yorkshire until you try it.

London is crazy for prices. When I lived there I paid around £1050 a month for a small 2 bed in the lovely Tower Hamlets.

In Sydney the rent is priced weekly which makes it quite scary - I pay $570 a week which is around £1300 a month. I’ll never be able to buy here unless I move into Western Sydney which is fairly shiiiit so my options are the Gold Coast or Perth. First world problems, I know.

comment by Lerradinho (U21557)
posted 2 hours, 14 minutes ago
Genuine question, how affordable would London or NYC be for retirement? Let's say you were middle class and sold your current house in Europe for 200k-250k and your pension income was around 1,5k each month (or double with spouse).
I think living in USA the medical bills would F you up eventually. Barcelona seems doable atm, but 10 years back property was even more affordable (<150k).
Australia seems lovely, but I would defo not be able to cope with the weather, spiders and snakes, lots of snakes
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Depends what area of London.

I know somebody who rented a top floor flat in West London (about the W4 area) not too far away from Kensington. The top floor flat, just the top floor (which was a tiny kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom) was £625,000 to buy outright.

£625,000 up here I could buy potentially 4/5 reasonably sized houses and rent them out, for comparison.

Thanks for the input guys. It's basically as I assumed, that even if you have a decent windfall due to inheritance and/or lucky investments in stock (both which I might end up with), its still not very feasable to retire in good/decent parts of London or NYC.

Let alone nobody has talked about the elephant in the room, which is climate change! One of the big reasons I like it here in The Netherlands/UK and always assumed I would retire here is the moderate climate. But the last few summers in which we saw long periods of 30-35c and even 40c made me reconsider, especially when living in cities (smog alerts...). Southern Spain and Italy are basically becoming nightmares with 40c and very dry weather the entire summer, so it's hard to pick a place...

I loved both the Causeway Coast and Howth in Northern Ireland/Ireland. Green, peaceful and with amazing cliffside scenery. Somewhere like that, for me.

La Gomera - Nice climate, minimal tourism, great hiking.

Alternatively, The Azores, climate better than UK, again minimal tourism, and they grow their own tea