Thread: Where do you choose to live and why?

For over 15 years I was going to retire in a small town in Baja California, Mexico. I had fished there on many occasions and it had everything I needed to go fishing every day if I wanted to. Then around 2000, things started changing. Too many tourists, too many large resorts, too much of everything that ruined the nice little fishing village. Prices on everything went up and the police began hassling the gringos. By that time I already had my Dodge diesel truck and a large 5th wheel trailer. All I needed was a nice palapa to park it under. That along with Mexico's cartel violence, I pulled the plug on that idea. Then it was time to seek out a new retirement location. I looked at all the Latin America locations where fishing was good like Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Venezuela, Honduras and some of the Caribbean islands. Having traveled quite a bit, I remembered that Thailand was not a bad place and I visited it often while working in Saudi Arabia. I knew the fishing was not all that great, but I decided to take a look. My first trip back to Thailand since 1986 was in 2003. I went to Phuket first since I had really enjoyed it in the 1980s. It had grown too much so I hopped a plane over to Samui. It was not yet overcrowded, so I spent some time there. On my second visit, I wound up purchasing a place in Bophut. After a couple of years, I noticed the entire island had become a construction zone and the writing was on the wall. While in Samui, I met a sister of one of the waitresses I knew who lived near Udon Thani and I ultimately took a trip up there for a look. It was much quieter, not crowded and things there were much cheaper than Samui. Long story short, I sold the place in Samui and wound up moving in with the sister to see how everything went. Three years later we were married and I purchased some land, which seemed to be the natural progression of things. We started building our house in 2012 and am now living in it with no intention of moving. I have settled for taking holidays to beach destinations within Thailand and in September plan to visit Vietnam. This is my home base and traveling until I am no longer physically able makes more sense to me than moving. Places I have thought about moving are primarily in Europe, like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, but I will be lucky to make a trip to those countries before I leave this planet.
Each to his own and one just needs to find a place where they feel comfortable and at home. Even though I was not raised in Thailand, I feel comfortable here. I have no intention in returning to my homeland, but never say never.