My mission: Travel the globe and find the best countries to retire for under $1000. What made me start? I started this thought in 2016 when I decided to leave my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This was way before Covid. I love tasty food, great gyms and learning new cultures. I hate bugs, bad wifi and rip off cabs. It seemed to me that I was spending 70% of my life working so that I could enjoy 30% of my life. My hope is to find a place where $1000 a month lets me enjoy 100% of my life.
Where does that leave me as digital nomad? I'm not going to be "retired" anytime soon, but work for me is 99% online. When you work online you can make that $1000 income stretch way further than you can in Canada.
My accommodation is roughly $300 a month, and this includes wifi, housecleaning and aircon.
It's gotten even cheaper now, because Covid has nuked the tourist trade. The same $300 place is now $150.
Food? I budget $5 a day, which is really easy to do in most of the countries I've lived in. It only gets pricey if you want imported western food. A can of Campbell's soup? $3. A full rice meal in a local eatery? $1.
Gyms! I work out when I can, because it's really easy to get expat beer gut. When beers are 50cents, it's tempting to just by the pool and drink. Most gyms are actually pricey from what I see around the world. They'll charge the same or more than in Canada. The main reason is competition. Gyms aren't that popular, so there are relatively few of them.
Transport: It's great! All around the world there are companies like uber, you've got Grab, Passap, Go, and tons of other local options. A trip around town usually costs $3.
Fun? With Covid. Most of the world is locked down in straight curfew. But if you look around you can find a speakeasy flouting the law. Remember in the places I travel, money talks.
Follow me for more tips, tricks and descriptions of the countries that I travel to and lots of information. Most of it will be old, pre covid stuff. But hopefully will still give you lots of inspiration.