The Best Places To Retire Abroad In 2024

Fed up with high living expenses and toxic politics, more Americans are looking to move abroad. Here are the top 24 countries, and 96 recommended spots, based on costs, amenities, health care, climate risk, language, crime, and whether they welcome U.S. retirees.

_{By William P. Barrett, Senior Contributor}

Colleen Kennedy is a child of Southern California. Born, raised and educated there, she spent most of her professional life as a high school special education teacher in Manhattan Beach, a tiny enclave wedged between Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. “I love Southern California,” she declares. So where did the divorced, 65-year-old mother of three grown children decide to settle for retirement? Spain. Earlier this month, she moved from Los Angeles to Mijas Costa, along the Costa del Sol west of Marbella, to a rented apartment just a 10-minute walk from the Mediterranean.

Despite the region’s swank reputation, she figures her basic cost of living there will be a third of what it was in Los Angeles. In LA, she rented an apartment in the working-class San Pedro neighborhood near the beach (and the port), that cost about twice as much as her new Spanish digs. Plus, in the U.S. she paid to keep a car, which she won’t need in Mijas Costa thanks to mass transit and stores that are within walking distance. She’ll also be able to make frequent, more affordable trips to other European countries by train. “My money will go so much further,” she says. Kennedy picked Spain after seven years of methodical research and a two-month trip to the Iberian Peninsula in 2022 to check it out. She’s learning Spanish via Zoom from another retired teacher who taught the language and has also retired there.