Guess what, you're either about to reach that magic age or you already have. The days of being over 60 are here for me and if you are reading this page they are probably here for you as well, or getting close.

So, what will you do for your retirement? Where will you live?

Most people never give this any thought, they simply retire where they have lived and usually even in the same house. That's the way it was for our parents and their parents back before them for time immemorial. Ours is really the first generation where most of us will have the serious option of looking for our own special best place to retire.

Oddly enough many of us are almost being forced into this by simple economics.

You have earned good money for much of your working life, and have gotten used to a nice lifestyle. You are used to living well and modern technology has opened up the world to you. Now, you are about to stop working and your income will go down significantly unless you either have a really great company pension plan or have managed to squirrel away something close to $1 million.

Yes, that number is not a joke. Simple reality is that even with $500,000 or more in funds your retirement income, including government pension, will be considerably less than what you were earning.

What can you do about this?

Get a little adventurous. You can't easily change the amount of money you have so find your own best place to retire where your money goes further.

Go to the "Financial Reality" section of this site for a rudimentary look at some numbers about retirement income and basic living expenses. For North Americans and many Europeans those numbers can be a little depressing.

The latest surveys in the United States indicate that about half of all baby boomers have little or no confidence that they will be able to retire comfortably. A goodly chunk of them fear they will never be able to retire at all. The reality is that if they think about it then they really can stop working and live the good life in their own best place to retire.

As someone once said: Lets focus on the solution instead of the problem.

Right off the bat one thing stands out:

That is good news because many of those tropical countries are really great places that people enjoy as vacation destinations and pay good money to visit. One of them could easily be the best place to retire for you.

I'm going to focus on what I think are 6 retirement places that all have a cost of living significantly lower than what it costs you to live in the USA, Canada, the UK, or most of Europe.

Some of them cost much less than HALF

These include the three that seem to be currently the most popular for North Americans --- Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama.

To these I have added 3 from South-East Asia that I think are even better retirement options --- Malaysia, The Philippines, and Thailand

There are complete tables and graphs comparing the cost of living of all those countries to each other as well as the USA, Canada, and the UK in "Best Places".

I found 5 points of comparison that were statistically measurable and the graph below shows how our 6 countries compared to each other in those 5 areas. In each of the 5 areas the best was given 6 points and the worst was given 1 point.

This graph by itself is not terribly meaningful -- all of these countries are terrific retirement destinations -- but it does reinforce what I said early about the 3 South-East Asian countries being very strong alternatives to the ones most people will consider.

A couple of these 6 countries are places I have actually visited for vacations and I have some feel for what life would be like in them ---- they are very nice places with a whole lot to offer beyond just being cheap places to live.

So, why are not more retired people becoming expats and going to live overseas?

Friends and family are incredibly important and if you can't bear to be be away from them then you will simply have to stay where you are.

However, in today's world keep in mind that you can both see and talk to those people every day for free on the Internet.

Services like Skype. Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and others are completely free ways to talk to and even see your loved ones in real time as often as you want. Web cams come with most new computers or cost very little to buy.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you reduce your monthly living costs significantly then you should have lots of money left over to fly back and visit regularly.

You may also find that your new home in your own best place to retire becomes a favorite vacation destination for your family and friends.

Most of us have been on vacation somewhere outside the country that we live in, and possibly to one or more of these countries. But how many of us have ever been to South-East Asia? What about a place like Ecuador? Your personal best place to retire could well be a country you have not yet visited.

Thinking of retiring to a place we have never even visited is daunting and scary no matter how cheap those places are. Many people think of these as "third world" countries. They just don't realize that large parts of these countries are every bit as modern as North America or Europe.

For example -- there are malls in the Philippines that are both bigger and more modern than anything in the USA, Canada or Europe, and that includes the Mall of America and the West Edmonton Mall.

One thing I will suggest to you is this. ALL of these countries are lovely places. If you are considering one or more of them then go and visit for a vacation as soon as possible.

There are other reasons people are reluctant to retire overseas and there certainly are other things that you should think about beyond cost of living to determine what is your best place to retire.

I addressed as many of these as I could think of in "Best Places".