Why Ecuador?
It's taken about 10 years for me to realize that my quality of life in my native country--the United States of America--is quite poor and getting poorer, and that I have zero chance of being able to retire comfortably here, especially after COVID ate up all my savings. So I knew that I needed to take some kind of drastic action, and sooner rather than later. So that's what I did, and after a year of research, I determined that living abroad is the answer for me. But which country? On the list was Belize, Canada, Mexico (specifically Ajijic), Thailand (Chang Mai), Ecuador and Costa Rica. I considered things like weather, ease of visa application and income requirements, crime and safety, land ownership, politics and government, public transit and walkability, among others. I whittled them down one by one. Mexico was out due to the crazy cartel violence that's out of control there. Canada was out because the visa requirements are too stringent, and, of course, brrr. Belize wa...