[quote=FlyerInHi]living abroad is for the culture and the excitement. Otherwise you can live pretty cheap in a small beach town in Florida, Alabama or Texas (and other places that are insourcing destinations).
Some countries don’t allow easy residency unless you are married to a local citizen. So I think it’s better to marry a local who knows how to navigate the local culture.
I grew up abroad near the peak of American power. Back then for my parents being American conferred some extra status. It’s different these days….. But these days you can live abroad and easily stay in touch with American culture. You can watch American movies on first release dates, chat on the net, read online papers, etc… Decades ago it cost a fortune to make long distance calls even inside the country, so overseas phone calls that would last 1/2 hour were out of the question. Now, you have skype and vonage.
I agree that having a foot in both worlds is the best. It opens up your mind. One of my classmates was the daughter of the ambassador of Iran. She would bring us pistachios after every trip home. They even had parties at their residence for the kids So I always thought that Muslims were just like everybody else. I had lots of interesting friends. Too bad that there was no Facebook at the time to keep friendships going after we moved.
It I had kids I would want them to have extensive overseas experience. I would work hard to make it happen. I think that immigrants who still have roots in their home countries are lucky. Their kids will grow up to be the truly globalized generations able to easily move between cultures.
There are lots of new exciting cosmopolitan cities around the world these days. So it’s hard to pick one. I personally wouldn’t want to live in an enclave of American retirees.
Latin culture is warm and fun. I don’t think there are downsides to at least trying it out. You can always decide to go back home stateside.[/quote]
Great post FlyerinHi and I agree. Amazing how technology really changed living abroad and keeping in contact. These days with the technology like Voip phone lines you can have a phone number in most major cities in the world. You mentioned Vonage.com which is GREAT. I have a local # in several cities where we own properties and have family. So they only call a local # and it rings me in San Diego…both them and us with no long-distance charges.
I TOTALLY agree with you about exposing your kids to extensive overseas experiences. We totally agree and we expose our kids to many cultures and travel to many countries. Our kids each have 3 passports including a USA passport.
Having kids born abroad is a GREAT way of automatically having them get residency and a passport in another country plus they can automatically get citizenship and USA passport from the parents.
You’re right that some countries make it VERY difficult to get permanent residency in them. And marriage isn’t a good option for many. LOL. But there are typically ways to gain it. Some countries are easier than others.
[quote=deadzone][quote=davelj][quote=moneymaker]I was at some ones house a couple of weeks ago when the misses gets a phone call and starts freaking out. Evidently her god son (who was kidnapped in TJ 2 weeks earlier) was found dead. Now I didn’t know this guy but she said he lived here in the USA and had just gotten a job right before going down there. Sometimes life sucks![/quote]
This would be a pretty big news story. Even if the family kept quiet during the kidnapping (by order of the kidnappers), the actual murder of a SD resident in TJ would be front-page news. And there would be virtually no way to hide it. Any further information?[/quote]
Exactly Dave, this incident probably didn’t really happen. There is a lot of fear monguring about going to Mexico but not many actual documented cases of American tourists or expats being murdured in Baja. As I have before, I challenge somebody to provide a link to an actual case. Last time I challenged the piggs to do this the crickets were chriping loudly.[/quote]
I have NO way of knowing if this was true or not. I do agree there is a lot of fear mongering. Typically if something happened to a USA citizen you will hear about it. However, there are MANY times when bad things happen to locals and you do NOT hear about it.
You will find many times when families get members “express kidnapped” they don’t dare tell anyone. Why? Because they don’t want to signal to other thieves that they paid the ransom. Because then all you will see is all their family members getting kidnapped over and over. If they are wealthy, they typically move out of the country, like Eduardo Saverin’s (Facebook) parents did.
If you aren’t wealthy you just don’t tell anyone and try to keep a very low profile. But a LOT of crime is NOT reported. But I don’t buy into USA citizens getting murdered and no one hearing about it.
But I think maybe what the OP was talking about was that someone here originally from Mexico that moved to San Diego and had their family members in Mexico were murdered. THAT I can easily believe. Tons of murders in Mexico and other places that you would never hear about.
In fact, I can speak from experience as my wife’s uncle was murdered down South (not in Mexico). He was NOT involved with the drug trade or anything else shady at all. He owned a business. The police couldn’t do anything.
