Last Update: July 24, 2019
The challenge of health care abroad for Americans
Medicare isn't an option when outside of the USA, so what are the strategies to make up the difference?
Story at BenefitsPro
An American's safety increases when traveling abroad
Statistics produce the contrast and it is based on pretty large numbers: 56 million Americans traveled outside of the country last year, and that doesn't even count car trips by Americans into Canada and Mexico, nor the numbers of expats living abroad permanently (US State Dept estimated 9 million or more Americans abroad as expats in 2016).
Story at QZ.COM
The worst?
LAX airport gets pegged as "worst" place to travel through in the world - story at USA Today
Switzerland eclipses Singapore in expat 2019 survey from HSBC
Singapore had previously polled with the highest ranking for expat locations for the last four years in the HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) annual survey. Story at Marketing Interactive.
UAE changes expat investment rules
Details at menafn.
Retirement in Costa Rica
A couple retired and visited forty countries and settled on Costa Rica. Their story at International Living.
The "Best" Countries in the World
A global survey of utilizing information collected by the BAV Group, a unit of global marketing communications company VMLY&R, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Article at US News & World Report
The top five are: Italy, France , Spain, United States and the U.K.
Working overseas checklist
Story at Expatica has a convenient 10-point list for organizing for expat work.
Working in the Philippines
Article at Yahoo Finances profiles a recruitment website and the effort to properly prepare expats for entering the Filipino job market.
Beaches and Expats - Mexico
Ranking article at International Living on best beaches mentions how Playa del Carmen is the site of an expat community, and how other beaches meet Western expectations.
The cost of living in Italy
Above: Atrani town at famous Amalfi coast, Italy
June 27, 2019: A brief article with a comparison (with the EU averages) in the major areas of food, transport, internet, housing, and moreThe Local - Italy
Oman bans expats from new list of business areas
June 6, 2019: story at iexpats
Profile of Kyoto
June 6, 2019: A look at the Japanese city - story at SCMP
What can you do with $2700 in Nice, Florence, and Barcelona
June 6, 2019: Article at International Living with this line: "...at first blush, staying in Nice, Florence, or Barcelona screams “expensive!” But it needn’t be..."
The 20 USA Cities people are leaving
June 6, 2019: Article at Moneywise on the exodus from badly performing urban areas. Particularly mentioned is violent crime as the culprit for getting away/staying away.
Deutsche Bank survey - Zurich is #1
Best cities in the world for quality of living
May 24, 2019: Article at CNBC News - The CNBC article examines the cost of living around the world, the "quality" of life in that locale, and compares the cost of consumer basics in each.
Specific focus on Zurich at Market Watch
Details about Frankfurt at Wall Street Journal
Analysis specific to Athens, Greece at Protothema
Focus on San Francisco at Live Mint
American cities continue to lose population
May 23, 2019: "39% of Americans live in cities" - story at Yahoo Finance gives a statistical breakdown of the top 15 urban living centers.
The best Expat pay in Asia
May 23, 2019:Story at MSN News looks at the
Tourism to USA on multi-year downturn
May 23, 2019: "Tourism is vital to the US economy, representing 11 per cent of the country's total trade surplus of $77.4 billion. Last year, international tourism generated $197 billion for the US economy." - story at UK Telegraph.
Singapore Expat average pay shows increase
May 23, 2019: Numbers and details at Yahoo.
Video "Top Ten Retirement locations" in USA
Concentrates on high investment retirement to these places: 1. Prescott AZ 2. Venice FLA 3. St Augustine FLA 4. Beaufort SC 5. Myrtle Beach SC 6. Abilene TX 7. Austin TX 8. Boise ID 9. Palm Springs CA 10. Salt Lake City UT
Tenting across Europe
List with details at Yahoo
American expats in Ecuador
May 2019: Story at Forbes Magazine
This article examines the point of view of Americans in Ecuador and talks to Matthew Hayes, in New Brunswick, Canada, author of the book Gringolandia, and this is from the interview with the author: "...what showed up was what they were moving from. They wanted to get off the rat wheel."
Expat ideas for finding work in France
May 2019: Tips concentrate on seasonal employment - story at The Local
New tax laws for expats coming in Thailand
May 8, 2019: More detail at The Nation
Expat Canadians voting from overseas
May 2019: Story at The Star
American expats returning home from China
May 2019: Story at Financial Times concentrates on Ford Motor Company
Leadership skills sharpened by expat experience
May 2019: Story at IAMEXPAT
Over 800,000 naturalized citizens added to EU
March 6, 2019: Story at New Europe about the numbers, with details on where the people came from and where in Europe they were able to naturalize into citizens.
Spain has plan to protect UK citizens in BREXIT
March 3, 2019: Issue of residence rights and health care appearsto have been settled - Story at Bloomberg
Greece is "worst for women" in survey - Czech Republic comes out first
March 2, 2019: Story at UK Independent. Survey uses data from 180,000 expats and concentrates on career prospects and view of the overall economy, which unsurprisingly, is rather dark on the possibilities for the debt-laden Mediterranean country where a negative view of the economy is rampant and the current governing party is far behind in popularity as an election cycle is heating up. The alarming headline at the Independent though, seems rather misleading since it implies a working condition problem perhaps reflected by the culture, versus the economy. The story itself is straightforward and is an overview of the data.
Italy came in #2 on the list, which is also suffering a battered economic situation with the EU commission beginning to hover (as it has done over Greece for close to a decade).
HSBC survey on best destinations for Expat Careers
Feb 9, 2019: Story at Huewire mentions the basic reason for Bahrain's being at the top: earning potential.
Here's the HSBC survey incorporating a whole list of worldwide locations compared and ranked.
USA's Fifty worst cities
Feb 8, 2019: "Lists of worst places" and "lists of best places" stories appear regularly in the media. The better ones rely on a mix of statistics and actual anecdotal information from people who live there, the pro forma stories rely only on stats. This story at USA Today is the latter, a list of places qualified as 'worst' by statistics.
The problem with this is pretty clear right from the beginning of the list, which is Beverly Hills, Florida, which is presented as awful by virtue of home cost averages, poverty rate (high at 32.9%) and population total. By way of explanation, USA Today provides this added information: "The city has a far lower concentration of bars, restaurants, theatres, and museums than is typical nationwide."
We can tell by the population size that Beverly Hills, Florida is a town, not a city, and to highlight how arbitrary this ranking is, the issue of lack of museum offerings is only going to impact a certain percentage of any typical American population group because only a minority of Americans go to museums in the first place. (Viewed on a map, it looks like Beverly Hills, Florida may lack the size to have even a movie theatre, let alone museums and 'theatres' of the live staging variety. This makes me ask the question, is USA Today using a system of ranking that should only apply to actual cities?)
Since this USA Today ranking of Beverly Hills, FL, lacks information on violent crime rates (which they do provide for other locations) it seem rather superfluous to concentrate on the number of cultural institutions that do not lie within this small town instead of an analysis of the more obvious: violent crime, crime in general, rate of divorce, numbers of kids (or lack thereof), employment rate, numbers of businesses (large and small) within the commuter range, and how many people own homes, or automobiles, etc. There's so many more factors in play that could constitute a better articulated portrait of a town (or city).
The USA Today ranking system includes fifty locations, the number 1 with the dubious title of "worst in America" is Mendota, California.
Low budget Expat retirement
Feb 2019: Barron's article covers 5 destinations: Portugal, Ecuador, Italy, Bali and Vietnam, with basic numbers on renting or owning.
Challenges of No-Deal-Brexit
Feb 2019: Story on the difficulties facing Brits in Greece at Bloomberg [English]
Software for filing taxes
Feb 2019: Software promotional article describes software MyExpatTaxes and how it can help with filing. Article describes some benefits for getting the paperwork in on time and the problems facing no-filers (i.e., fines).
"Taiwan the best" for expats
Feb 2019: Article at iexpats summarizing data from a internations.org survey . The iexpats piece is full of praise for Taiwan, and goes to the trouble to take digs at some other popular locations, and in particular quotes a survey respondent as saying Malta has extreme corruption at every level of government.
Travails of Swiss expats in France
Feb 2019: Story describes the issues surrounding cross-border education for children of parents who pay Swiss taxes but live in France - at expatica.
Top Passport? Japanese
Jan 2019: Visa-free travel to 190 countries, the Japan passport is ranked number one in power to cross borders, with S. Korea and Singapore next. UK and USA a little further down the list - rankings at MSN News.
Gallup: Most Americans ever want to exit USA
Jan 2019: Top destination isn't far, with many citing Canada as their choice of destination. Gallup attributes the numbers to political issues with Pres. Trump, and refers back to similar numbers (though lower) that manifested under Pres. Obama and Pres. Bush.
Taxes in 2019 for expats
Jan 2019: The Global Times has a guide for tax issues and challenges for expats.
Going to Russia
Jan 2019: Expat experiences examined at Russia Beyond
Residency and passports - 23 countries
Jan 2019: Informative story at UK Standard which lists 23 countries and their requirements for obtaining a second passport/legal residency. The list shows the highest at £2 million (the UK) and the lowest at $15,253 (Thailand) with the other countries listed at graduated steps according to their fees.
Forbes: inexpensive places to live in for 2019
Jan 2019: Survey with the premise of living cheaply (total cost estimates by the month are given for a variety of locations, often the numbers are between $1,700 - $2,500). Emphasis either for retirement or for less stressful working - Forbes Magazine
Best "low wages" - Australia high; Greece low
Dec 2018: Story at European Sting on minimum wages around the globe.
Turkey gets lauded for safety for retirees
Dec 2018: Story at Emigrate UK on the plus side of Turkey as a destination, with places that are English-language savvy detailed a bit, with emphasis on beach areas and cultural atmosphere.
Tax Havens (as listed by the EU)
Nov 2018: In 2017 a "black list" was created of 17 countries that were deemed uncooperative in working with the EU regarding tax evasion, among other financial matters. That list now consists of only 5 countries (Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, American Samoa, Guam and the American Virgin Islands), though some other nations were moved to a "grey list" for lacking transparency. More on this at Reuters.
Singapore listed as "best for expats" again
October 2018: New survey from HSBC (survey here) listing the top thirty-one locations for expat success. Brazil is #31, and Singapore is (again) number one. United States comes in at #23. An analyzes of the results at Forbes discusses how the USA was ranked higher for earning power, but lower for the "long hours." South America and Africa placed poorly, and this is also mentioned in the Forbes piece.
Retiring to Greece
Oct 2018: Generally informative article which hits all the main points, especially what it takes to stay legally in Greece (i.e., a permanent visa). Has cost of living figures (significantly lower than USA or Britain for example) and other bits of information - Story at Smart Asset
That story from Smart Asset hints at the one of the main hurdles of staying on permanently in Greece, which is the bureaucracy. For an older article which covers this in more detail (and describes some of the pain that can be incurred from having to make every form perfect, and then some, see this 2007 article at livingingreece.GR)
Spain and Brexit
Nov 2018: Bookings for holiday travel out of Britain into 2019 is down due to fears about what happens after Brexit - story at BBC.
This UK Mirror article describes general tourism was off for 2018, and expats were leaving out of BREXIT fears, too.
Expat terminations
August 2018
Expat Coach Katia Vlachos Provides Detailed Roadmap for Expat success - Broadway World
There are currently over 57 million expatriates worldwide and research shows that international assignee levels are expected to rise a further 50% by 2020. However, between 4 and 10% of expatriate assignments get terminated early. Such an alarmingly high failure rate begs the question: Why?
Denmark
August 2018
Living in an Expat World: What is Danish summer?
The three topics: temperatures, cycling and ice-cream.
Saudi Arabia
August 2018
More Than 1.6 Million Expat Violators Caught in Saudi Arabia - albawaba.com
"The Nation-Free of Violators campaign announced on Saturday that it has netted as many as 1,625,018 expatriate violators of the systems of residency, work and border security."
Bahrain
August 2018
Expat suicides toll rises to 23 - gdnonline
"...another expatriate employee took his life yesterday taking the toll of reported suicides among foreign workers in Bahrain to 23 this year."
A perusal of Bing or Google news over the last few years shows many news stories about expat suicide rates in Kuwait, UAE, and other countries. Family and money problems seems to lead the suspected causes.
The Expert Expat: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad - Amazon.com