Sometime last spring Linda and I sat down to discuss what we wanted our retirement to be like. We were inspired by a book by Ernie Zelinski – “How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free”. We both worked through a visioning exercise about what our ideal retirement would be like and then compared notes. We were profoundly aligned on a number of issues. We both wanted a retirement that met most if not all the following criteria:
- It is adventuresome and challenges us to live life fully;
- It enables and encourages continuous learning;
- It enables us to be physically active daily and enables healthy living;
- It allows us to travel, to explore and to discover different cultures;
- It creates an environment where we can pursue other passions such as music and wildlife photography; and
- It gives us plenty of time and resources to connect with members of our family.
From this analysis, we think that a location that encourages us to get outside walking daily is a good start (we are no longer wild about Canadian winters). The idea of living in a country with a different language appeals to our need to learn and a location with a fundamentally different culture satisfies our passion for discovery. We calculate that it will help us travel to other parts of the world and to come home to visit our families if our cost of living at our base location is less than what it would be in Canada.
As I indicated in our first post, we began researching various places for our base location early last year. A healthy environment with a temperate climate and a reasonable cost of living seemed like a good baseline. We considered many locations in North, Central and South America and finally settled on Cuenca, Ecuador. Cuenca’s characteristics are a good fit with our desired retirement lifestyle. That is not to say the Cuenca is right for everyone. There are pros and cons to every location.
Cuenca offers us a year round temperate climate and a decreased cost of living. In addition, it met our criteria related to language and new cultures. The biodiversity of Ecuador gives me opportunities to pursue a passion for photographing new birds and wildlife. The quality of the infrastructure in Cuenca: water, health care, transportation, security services, universities and cultural opportunities is also a good fit for us from an environmental perspective. We chose a large city for some of this infrastructure despite the appeal of more rural settings. One down side is that travel to and from Cuenca is not as easy as it could be if Cuenca had a true international airport. One big upside in Cuenca is the size and connectedness of the expatriate community. There is clearly a supportive community of likeminded people in Cuenca in addition to the native Cuencanos.
Suffice to say, we see Cuenca as a good fit for what we hope our retirement is like. Others may seek locations with different or similar characteristics to fit their lifestyle choices.
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