Life of an international expat

In 2012 the prospects for most Americans are grim, and they don't look to be getting any better. The future holds almost no job opportunities for graduates, and the casual estimate is that by the time you are 30 years old you are roughly $300,000 in debt when you factor in a car, home mortgage and school loans. But what if you could trade all of that and retire early simply by expanding your horizons? Wouldn't it make sense that if you could have a better life through living abroad that you would take that opportunity and run with it?

The life of an international expat is not a difficult one, nor is it dangerous or risky in the least. Global Internet has antiquated the concept of local, and with instant communication around the world it is very much the entire planet that is your sandbox...if you know how to play your cards. And unlike what the news may have told you, you don't have to be a millionaire to enjoy an early retirement overseas. You just have to be a savvy expat willing to think outside the box.

Look at Colombia, for example. While in the past the country may have had a violent history, in the 21st century it is emerging as a leader in the South American economic push. Property values are ridiculously cheap, with three bedroom homes in all of the major cities ranging in the $35,000 to $40,000 range....nearly $150,000 cheaper than the average home in the U.S. that costs around $200,000 used, and $225,000 or more brand new. And when you combine that with the fact you can retain your Western salary while enjoying a cost of living that barely reaches $12,000 a year for upper middle class amenities and creature comforts, not to mention universal healthcare, you have a situation where a $40,000 a year salary could very easily see you fully retired in as little as two years.

Two years to retire versus 40+ years in the U.S. When you lay it out in simple mathematical terms, even a child can understand the potency, and it's easy to see why so many people are choosing the expat lifestyle every year over one where you are locked into suburbia as a prisoner and wage slaver for the rest of your life.

Opportunities abroad as an expat

The number one benefit of living the expat lifestyle in countries around the world is that you are no longer limited by a local mentality. When you stop believing in the lines that other countries and governments draw on a piece of paper to try and define who you are or what you can believe or how you can act and what you can do, you free yourself from all that propaganda and can truly indulge in absolute freedom. With the entire planet as your playground you can go anywhere you want, invest anywhere you want, enjoy a cost of living anywhere you want, and see and experience anything that you want to explore, all of it on your time and at your pace.

Absolute freedom is a dream to most people, casually living their day-to-day grind, going through the motions of waking up to an alarm clock, driving or commuting to work and then spending eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 40+ years as a slave to a society who tries to define them as human beings. But as more and more expats are waking up to realize, this is nothing more than a dream, very much as portrayed in the movie The Matrix. And when you can unplug from that matrix you will suddenly find that there is a great big world out there, full of opportunities. Countries like Chile and Brazil are experiencing economic booms in the 21st century, with an actual shortage of people and an excess of jobs, but you don't hear about it on the nightly news back in the U.S. The only way you find out about global opportunities is by tuning in to the expat channels where other expats are traveling abroad and relaying that information back to the savvy few who are intelligent enough to listen. And if you are one of those who can manage to unplug from the system, you will find yourself with a panoramic field of opportunities laid out in front of you, all of them global in nature.

Once that happens, there is a whole different world to explore beyond the boundaries of what you were told were the limits before. Once you cast off the shackles of modern society to explore the benefits of a free and nomadic lifestyle roaming wherever you want...you'll never be able to go back. It's the expat lifestyle at its finest, full of potential and adventure and excitement. It's Indiana Jones in the flesh. 

Major reasons for expats to live abroad

Arguably one of the major reasons so many expats choose to live abroad is the reduced cost of living, but what many people don't realize is just how many options are available. While it's easy to say "you have an entire world's worth of opportunities available!", many people have no idea where to start. It's kind of like taking a child and placing them in the middle of a candy store totally unsupervised. With so much candy to choose from, it's an impossibility to single out just one, at least without having a game plan to begin with. But when you know which candies you like in the first place, it's easy to make your selections.

Developing countries are the best first choice if you are looking for a cheap place to live as an expat, because you can retire at an early age in a place where the amenities and creature comforts are already in place, without the high price tag attached. Some developed countries can count as well, such as France or Italy, because they have countryside residencies that come with all the benefits of a first-world country...without the price tag of places like the U.S. where you are expected to shell out $300,000 for a lifetime of "first world living".

Other places, such as Brazil and Chile, are considered developing countries by the rest of the world. However, when you look at their major cities (Rio and Santiago), you are talking about first-class cities that have everything anyone would ever expect to find: opera, theater, IMAX, high definition television, first-class medical care, excellent public education systems and beyond. In essence, as long as you are doing a little bit of research in advance, you can choose just about any country on the map to retire to as an expat, so long as you are choosing those which already have an infrastructure in place.

There's a lot to be said for coming onto developing cities as well, ones which have high-speed Internet and modern medicine but maybe not a lot of malls and plazas yet, but they are coming within five years or so. When you can get in at the ground level like this you can often lock in a bottom-of-the-barrel price for a lifestyle that rivals the elite back in your home country, and when the amenities start to roll in you have a piece of investment property you can unload as the real estate prices skyrocket. It's all in a day's work as a professional expat. 

The lifestyle of a professional expat

There are well over a million expats living in Mexico as of 2012, and the numbers keep rising every year. It's an easy place for most Americans to utilize for their retirement, simply because of the fact that it's close to the U.S. so they can visit their families on the cheap, but more importantly it has all the amenities and even name brands they are comfortable with, such as Home Depot or Wal Mart. But what many people don't realize is that it's not just retired expats who are choosing to live in Mexico; it's also those who are keen on an early retirement.

Professional expats are individuals who choose to live and work abroad rather than stay back in the U.S. They have jobs which allow them to draw a salary from all over the world, with their money being deposited directly into their bank accounts through wire transfers, or via PayPal. With this option you can literally go to any country in the world, utilize the cheaper cost of living and walk away with the majority of your salary back in your pocket because you aren't spending it on needless accessories.

A perfect example of this is to look at the average cost of living in the United States. There, you are expected to spend around $25-$30,000 a year just to make ends meet as a lower middle-class individual. But if you decide to live in Mexico as an expat you can have an upper-middle-class existence on a mere $10,000 a year, and if you still have a job back in the United States where you are receiving around $30,000 a year after taxes, rather than spending that on the cost of living you can instead take roughly $20,000 of that income and put it straight into your bank account. This is the reality that so many other expats are choosing rather than spend 40+ years trying to get ahead in a system where you are continually barely breaking even.

The freedom to do what you want, when you want, how you want, where you want is the type of freedom that every human being has a human right to. We are the masters of our planet. We have the born right to be able to go anywhere on our home planet that we want to. No one should be able to dictate terms to us, and that is one of the major reasons why the expat lifestyle is so appealing; you can be free at the most basic level to go anywhere you want, when you want. For more information, you can visit http://www.theexpatguidebook.com/2012/06/25/safety-while-traveling-abroad-as-an-expat-part-one/

Medical tourism for expats

In the 21st century more and more American citizen are starting to look for answers of their government isn't providing them with. Every year the cost of living rises higher and higher, and every year you are expected to spend more and more of your hard earned income on things that other people in other countries are receiving for practically nothing in comparison. A perfect example of this is modern medicine and healthcare. While people living in the United States are expected to spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on health insurance, expats choosing to live in countries such as Bulgaria or Colombia are receiving medical coverage for as low as $250 a year.

This is the reality of medical tourism. When you can choose to live where you want out of a list of hundreds of countries in the world, you have the option of deciding which country has the best medical plan for you and your needs, rather than being subjected to a system that demands you pay tens of thousands of dollars per year on top of doctor visits, prescription medication and beyond. As an expat, you can choose to go to a country like Mexico where once you establish residency you can have access to the unlimited universal healthcare system for around $250 a year, provided that you keep your residency in good standing and pay Mexican taxes (which are significantly lower than those in the United States).

Every year more and more expats are choosing to live abroad and other countries where the cost of medicine is practically nothing in comparison to what is back in the U.S. And when you do the basic mathematical comparisons it's easy to see why, because you can have the exact same standards of care that you are used to having back at home, but for a fraction of the price which allows you more financial freedom to live your life as you see fit rather than on someone else's terms.

Medical tourism for expats is a major reason why you should be considering living abroad in another country. There are countless tens of thousands and more worth of savings, such as the difference between a live transplant in Taiwan for $90,000 compared to the $300,000 it costs you for the same surgery in the United States. When there is that kind of money on the line it makes sense to go where you can get the best of both worlds.

The life of an expat abroad

Most people avidly watch programs on channels such as National Geographic or the Travel Channel because it allows them the opportunity to let their imaginations escape reality for even the briefest of moments, transporting them into a life of adventure and exploration around the world. And for most people this is as close as they will ever get to living a life of absolute freedom, because their reality is defined by 40-hour work weeks and a society that tells them that the only way to be successful is to stay at home, work your way up the corporate ladder rung by rung and eventually retire at the age of 65. It is at this point that you are finally able to travel abroad and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Unfortunately, most people don't realize there is an alternate reality available, one that you can choose to experience for yourself simply by unplugging from The Matrix. It's called the life of an expat, and it is a life of continual travel, making your way country to country and enjoying all the benefits that come along with a life of professional nomadism.

There are millions of expats living in countries around the world, and they all share one thing in common: a love of travel and a passion for exploring new cultures and seeing all of the things that most people only experience through the television on the aforementioned channels. By choosing the life of an international expat you can actually go to these places that you see on the television and the live there for extended periods of time, even setting up residency if it ends up being a place that you decide you want to live in permanently. Granted, the expat lifestyle isn't for everyone, but for those of you who crave continual adventure and excitement, there is an entire world of experiences just waiting for you to tap into.

Just remember that no matter where you go, no matter what part of the planet you are in and who you are hanging out with, we are all of us human beings along the same Human Experience. The only way to truly appreciate the expat way of life is to indulge yourself in cultural immersion at every step of the journey so you can make those personal connections with people that are so important. You can also check out http://www.facebook.com/MarginalBoundaries for more information.