Retiring soon, just need to find the place.

[MadMorf]

The girlfriend and I are both in our early 50's and will be retiring in about 4 years.

We're starting to look around for where we'll go when we've retired so, we're trying to narrow down the entire world into a short list...Maybe 6 to 10 places to check out...

I have traveled the world a bit, but she has been stuck in the US.

Our lists look like this, but we're both good travelers and very adaptable...

Me:
------
Italy, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Thailand, India, Canada, Germany, France and recently Croatia and Bulgaria.

She:
---------
Italy, Spain, Greece, France, India, Central America

Not planning to "work" per se, but I am a painter and would prefer places that can inspire me to produce...

At this point, since we don't have an unlimited amount of time or money, we're looking for suggesstions of places to start with good likelyhood of success...

It's also likely that we'll bounce from place to place a bit, 6 months to 2 years in any one place, unless we're just completely smitten...

Because we'll be on mostly fixed incomes, cost of living is important, but not the only factor...

So, any suggestions?
Any place you've been that just blew you away or that you couldn't bear to leave?
Any places you wouldn't go back to again if someone paid you?
Any surprisingly bad or surprisingly good places?

Thanks in advance!
MadMorf

[Markw511]

Originally Posted by MadMorf

The girlfriend and I are both in our early 50's and will be retiring in about 4 years.

We're starting to look around for where we'll go when we've retired so, we're trying to narrow down the entire world into a short list...Maybe 6 to 10 places to check out...

I have traveled the world a bit, but she has been stuck in the US.

Our lists look like this, but we're both good travelers and very adaptable...

Me:
------
Italy, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Thailand, India, Canada, Germany, France and recently Croatia and Bulgaria.

She:
---------
Italy, Spain, Greece, France, India, Central America

Not planning to "work" per se, but I am a painter and would prefer places that can inspire me to produce...

At this point, since we don't have an unlimited amount of time or money, we're looking for suggesstions of places to start with good likelyhood of success...

It's also likely that we'll bounce from place to place a bit, 6 months to 2 years in any one place, unless we're just completely smitten...

Because we'll be on mostly fixed incomes, cost of living is important, but not the only factor...

So, any suggestions?
Any place you've been that just blew you away or that you couldn't bear to leave?
Any places you wouldn't go back to again if someone paid you?
Any surprisingly bad or surprisingly good places?

Thanks in advance!
MadMorf

Bulgaria is fabulous from what we've seen in the year we've lived there. Haven't traveled the entire country, but Plovdiv is beautiful and Sofia is chaotic and fascinating. It's also about the most affordable place in Europe, I'd guess. We live and work in Blagoevgrad, smaller city in the southwest. If you're up for the adventure, you could do a lot worse.

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