From Empty Nest to European Adventure: Reimagining Retirement with Kathleen Peddicord and Kat Kalashian

Is your empty nest feeling a little too empty? Ready to trade your quiet suburban street for a charming café-lined boulevard in Europe? Join us for an inspiring conversation with international living experts Kathleen Peddicord and Kat Kalasian. Kathleen has spent over 35 years helping people reimagine their retirement abroad. Together with Kat, who has traveled extensively solo throughout Europe, they have guiding countless empty nesters from dreaming to doing. They share her insider secrets on how to transform your next chapter into a European adventure - without breaking the bank.

Discover budget-friendly destinations where your retirement dollars stretch further, learn how to build a vibrant social life in a new country, and explore practical strategies for making the leap from empty nester to sophisticated European resident. Whether you're fantasizing about writing your novel in a Tuscan village or sipping coffee in a Portuguese plaza, this episode will give you the confidence and know-how to turn your retirement dreams into reality.

Perfect for: Empty nesters, recent retirees, solo female travelers, and anyone ready to write their next chapter in Europe. Get ready to unlock the secrets of living abroad and creating a retirement that's anything but ordinary.

This week's episode will help you:

• Identify the most affordable and welcoming European destinations
• Navigate practical concerns like healthcare and housing
• Build a new community abroad
• Transform your empty nest years into your best years

Transcript

From Empty Nest to European Adventure: Reimagining Retirement with Kathleen Peddicord and Kat Kalashian

Nicky & Heide: [00:00:00] Are you dreaming of spending your golden years on sun soaked beaches or in charming European villages? Today, we're diving into the world of international retirement with someone who's not just living it, but wrote the book on it, quite literally.

Our guests today have turned Their overseas retirement dreams into reality and penned the ultimate guide to help others do the same. Get ready for insider tips, surprising challenges, and inspiring stories that might just have you packing your bags for your own retirement adventure abroad.

Welcome to Untethered and Wanderwise, where adventure has no age limit. We're your co host Heide Brandes and Nicky Omohundro, and we're here to inspire and celebrate women over 45 who are embracing their independence and want to explore the world on their own terms.

I'm so excited for today because we have with us a true pioneer in the world of international living and overseas retirement. Please welcome Kathleen Peddicord, a Baltimore native who has spent over 35 years covering the live and invest overseas beat. 

Kathleen has called Ireland, Paris and Panama home for more than 25 years, traveling to over 70 countries, investing in real estate in 24 of them and establishing businesses in seven countries. She's the go to expert for major publications like New York Times and Money Magazine when they need insights on affordable retirement destinations abroad.

She and her daughter Kat Kalasian join us today. Her daughter Kat is based in Paris with her family and actively travels solo throughout Europe. Kathleen has just published a new book called At Home Abroad. Retire Big on Little is a how to book with firsthand knowledge and stories from expats who made the move from the United States and are enjoying their lives.

So without further ado, welcome Kathleen and Kat to the podcast. 

Kathleen and Kat: Thanks for having us. 

Nicky & Heide: Kathleen has been to more than 70 countries. You've lived in some pretty amazing places like Belize, Ireland, Paris. Kat is currently living in Paris with her family. I can't think of a better place to be. 

How did these experiences shape your perspective on international living?

Kathleen: Each experience builds on, where you've been before. Any place you spend a lot of time becomes part of you, and you carry it with you. It all runs together now in my memory. It's hard, to distinguish after I've been traveling for decades and I've spent time in a lot of parts of the world has changed me dramatically. 

If I were to have been able to say to myself at 21, which is when I started out on this path, what was to lie ahead, I don't think the 21 year old would have even been able to process it. And if I look back now at how differentI am than I was at 21 to now 40 years later it's the best education you can have.

And not in the traditional ways, but I guess in this will sound a little bit corny maybe, but the best education and you know just being a human. How to be a human and how to get along with other humans. The best way to become good at that is to spend time among as many different kinds of humans as you can.

And Kathleen, you mentioned you're currently in Paris. Kat, you are based in Paris and you've recently had a baby.Congratulations. 

Kat: Thank you. Yep. I've had two girls now in Paris and the older one goes to French school. The other one will start in January. So we are fully integrated and hope to get citizenship eventually. So we're in it for the long haul.. Fantastic. 

Nicky & Heide: What do you think the biggest misconception is that people have about retiring abroad? 

Kathleen: So people worry that it's not possible. They worry that it's hard and they worry that living in another country must be more expensive. We talk all the time about how that is not true at all. Even places that you're sure must be more expensive. Like Paris can be more affordable than you'd ever imagine.

One question we get even now after, almost 40 years, and I used to get this question a lot, but even still get the question in different forms.

Is it actually possible? Some people worry, is it illegal? Will I lose my U. S. passport? Is it illegal for an American to own property in another country? Will I lose my social security if I move to another country? If I'm no longer living in the United States, will I still receive my social security benefits?

So those kinds of starting questions, if take a big step back and for some perspective, None of that is a concern. There's no reason you can't do this. And the really good news is it's easier than ever. Imagine, decades ago, and even, 10 years ago, people doing this before the internet, WhatsApp voiceover internet video chats and all the ways we have of staying connected today.

I talked to people. In a dozen countries every day in real time friends and business colleagues, imagine trying to make a move to another country before the Internet before things like WhatsApp.

It was much more complicated. Just, think about practical things like credit card bills. How did you pay your credit card bills before you could do that online? How did you receive your mail 20 years ago living in another country? It was a much more complicated thing. So all these practical Logistical considerations are so much easier now.

That's the really good news. And they're easier all the time and they're cheaper all the time, 

Nicky & Heide: what's been the biggest reward to living internationally for you.

Kathleen: I left the United States coming up on 30 years ago, and travel sure does open your mind and heart. Looking back at the 21 year old, I was when starting out my worldview was pretty small. I grew up in Baltimore. I was a small town Baltimore girl and now I don't see boundaries anymore.

And living in another country takes that to a next level, I would say. And for me, that's been the biggest payoff of the lifestyle my husband and I have pursued over the past 30 years. It isn't easy to build a new life in a new country.

But the reward is enormous and it has to do with ever evolving and deepening idea that while every place in the world we've spent time and lived is so different. There are important commonalities and those override the differences. 

Although living in Ireland is nothing like living in Paris where I happen to be right now, and neither of those places is anything like Panama where we spend a lot of our time I feel very connected to people in each of those places. We have built the infrastructure of home, and I feel when we arrive in each of [00:07:00] those places, we're arriving home.

We're coming and going as local residents, which is a very different experience than as a tourist, and an even deeper experience than as a traveler. For me, it's been a great experience in seeing the world as really a small place way smaller than you might imagine. I don't see lines anymore. To me, the world is a big open space and not so big anymore I have trouble thinking in terms of borders and boundaries at this point.

Nicky & Heide: Can you tell us a little bit about the criteria you used for what makes a European destination truly budget friendly? 

Kathleen: Of course, budget is a relative thing. It's a tough thing, right? Because what's affordable to one is not to another. And what's expensive to one can be a bargain to someone else. It has to do with your perspective. 

If you're living in Manhattan most of the world is going to seem affordable. If you're living in a small town in the Midwest, much of the world's going to be legitimately more expensive. So you have to take all of that into account. We, have come up with a template that tries to strip away as much as possible all of the variables in putting together a budget and what it costs to live in a place.

We call them starter budgets because there is so much stripped out that depends on What's important to you, how you live, how you want to spend your money, how local you want to go, that's a big factor in what your cost of living is going to be in another part of the world. 

If you're going to live like the locals, your cost of living is going to be much less. If you're going to live in a local neighborhood where you shop at the local markets and spend your time in the way that the locals do, your cost of living is going to be very controlled. 

If you move, say, to Panama City, Panama where you have the option of living a more imported lifestyle, you could live in Panama City, Panama in much the same way as you're living in the United States right now, because that standard of property, oceanview penthouses are available that standard of furnishing that standard of clothing, you can shop, the malls have Chanel and Dior, and you can buy those kinds of products.

The grocery stores have Aunt Jemima and Duncan Hines. You can buy all those kinds of products. Steak from Argentina and wine from France, but you'll pay for it. So your cost of living is going to be much greater. 

We try to strip all of that away and go for a middle of the road. This is a minimum what it would cost you to live in this place. We look at what it would cost to rent typically a two bedroom apartment. Most retirees don't want more than that. Some retirees don't even want that. They want just the one simple bedroom, simple place, part of this whole idea can be downsizing and simplifying your life as you reinvent it.

We look at a modest budget for groceries, a very modest budget for entertainment and transportation, utilities, what your cost for your internet package is going to be, for example.

[00:10:00] Then we look at what the cost of a car would be, but that's again another choice. Not in every place would you need or want a car and some people just don't want to make that investment. And then you've got to layer on things like travel back home.

If you want to, visit the grandkids or stay in touch with, other connections back home, business, family, et cetera. That's another budget. It's a complicated question. What does it cost and how do you budget what it costs to live somewhere else?

Nicky & Heide: What are the top three countries you'd recommend for women over 45 looking to retire overseas if they're looking to do it on a modest or medium budget?

Kat: So I start with Spain. Spain was actually the number one. Valencia, Spain specifically was the number one retirement haven for 2024.

And although Valencia is the prices are creeping up a little bit in Valencia, it's still very affordable, especially compared to most costs in the US. So for example, the Bureau of Labor. This is the last year available was 2022. But what people were spending was an average of 4, 818 per month. And that could get you a very nice lifestyle in, in Europe.

Probably I would say, a little bit more luxurious than the lifestyle that you might be living back home. So in Spain, you could really take your pick, even Barcelona or Madrid, which are the two most expensive cities in Spain. You could live in those. For that amount for about 4, 000 a month and be quite happy.

I have another pick for France, which is called La Rochelle. It's on the Atlantic coast. So it's a nice, Sea, sea focused city. Lots of boating, lots of seafaring activity. Really gorgeous little city with great transportation, walkable boatable, obviously if you're into boats and water sports.

And just a very cute nautical town that is a bargain for what you're getting there in terms of a like gorgeous sunny, nearly I think nearly 300 days of sunshine per year, very [00:12:00] sunny part of France. And much cheaper than you would get, for example, on the Mediterranean coast.

Although it would be a bit cooler, because it's a bit further north. Budapest is my number three pick definitely another city where you could go carless, where you can walk a lot, there's plenty of public transportation it's a river city, the river runs right through it, it's an absolutely gorgeous city and the food, the beer especially, is extremely cheap if you're into happy hours to go out and meet expats, that's a good way to do it in Budapest. 

Nicky & Heide: What are some of the major expenses people needed?

Kat: First I think Kathleen alluded to the fact that the car can be a really big question. In much of Europe, you're living in a city with excellent transportation, public transport buses, trams, metros biking and walking are viable options for commuting.

They're actually a way to get from A to B. The fact that Europe is so compact on so many levels can be a shock to Americans who are so used to driving everywhere. And, an hour away doesn't really feel like that long of a drive.

You here, an hour away could get you across two countries in some places. The fact that you don't need a car can be a really big budget saver. Add to that the fact that public transport and cross country travel often has discounts for those over 60 or 65, depending on the country.

Generally speaking, phones are much cheaper here, so that's not a big budget factor. I'm living here in Paris, which is an objectively expensive city, but I, for the record, an expensive city can actually be more affordable than you might think. Kathleen also made the comparison to Panama City, where I lived for seven years before moving here, and we spent less coming to Paris than we did in Panama, mostly because of a car.

Our rents are basically the same because we lived in a luxury high rise on the bayfront in Panama city, here that's just an average rent. It was a neutral, budget change for us specifically for this list, what we look at is definitely the ability to get around without a car will make a big difference.

Food is generally a lot cheaper here going to markets. Market life is a much bigger part of Europe across all of the countries we cover in depth. Avoiding supermarkets and going to the market, you'll get really good deals. You're buying locally, you're buying in season, and it can make a really big difference.

We also of course look at rents, the number one thing that you would spend money on in your monthly budget is either rent or a mortgage. So if you're looking to buy your new home, we always recommend rent first because you don't want to dive into something without knowing and experiencing it a bit first.

But if you buy in Europe, your expenses monthly would be a lot less than they would be if you're renting. Some good tips for those who might want to take a half step and not fully rent a place and not quite yet ready to buy a place. A lot of people that I know go around the continent house sitting or pet sitting.

So there are many services that do this and you can live for free in a city that you really like for a little bit, get to know it see if it's for you long term and then maybe look into an actual rental.

Heide:[00:15:00] I was really curious about Panama because it's top of my list of places to check out to live. That and Belize. I fell in love Dangriga area. Oh, that's interesting. I'm a huge fan of Belize. I'm writing something about Belize right now.

Kathleen: I visited Belize for the first time almost 40 years ago. I was writing about how it's evolved, how it's changed in all this time. Back then no one had heard of it. Today, it's become so popular and one of the world's biggest expat communities is based on Ambergris Caye.

But that's what most people think about for Belize, Ambergris Caye. And increasingly Cayo. No one talks about Dan Griega, but I love Dangriga as well. 

Heide:I remember it was the first article I ever did for BBC Travel. It's about the Garifuna culture. It was so fascinating. We had this amazing boat captain named Doggie and Doggie had a big scar across his neck and down his face because he got into a machete fight with somebody.

He had sharp teeth and he was our big brother. He took care of my friend and I because we're just two little white girls had no idea what's going on in Belize and he just adopted us . And the Garifuna are, very cool.

Kathleen: Really interesting population and I love their dancing. They have great dances. I've been to see them and it's one of my best memories of spending time in that part of Belize. . Did you try the cashew wine? No, I never have. I don't. Even the locals, everybody we talked to, because I had to find it.

Heide: It would sound so interesting. And all of them are like, don't drink too much. Don't drink too much because apparently it gives you the worst hangover you have ever experienced in your life. I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I get a headache if I drink even nice red wine at this point. 

This is a question for both of you, but I know for a fact that Nicky is really excited about your recommendation because Italy is her dream, right? The goal for me is three years.

What led to this decision that living abroad was the right decision for you? How do you choose to do that and choose the location, especially if you've never been to these places?

Kathleen: For me, it was very organic. It wasn't that I had a driving idea to live overseas, but from an early age I landed with a company. I wanted to be a writer. That was my driving ambition. Out of school, I landed with a company in Baltimore, which is where I grew up and went to school, a small publishing company at the time that had an interest in this international living lifestyle. And so it was my introduction to it. It was where I, my eyes were open to this idea that, wow, there's a big world out there. Beyond being a traveler, there's a deeper way to experience it.

And so organically year by year, I traveled more and more. I was reporting on these places, spending more and more time. The company offered me a chance to move to Ireland, to open an office for them, an EU office for them in Ireland. And I just took a leap of faith. It, my, everyone in my life thought I was crazy.

My parents, my sister everyone thought it was just ridiculous because it did come out of nowhere on one hand. As I say, it wasn't like I'd been for years talking about, so Nikki has this, has a plan. In three years, she wants to be in Italy. I had no plan. I wasn't working toward this.

Just all of a sudden, I was moving to Ireland. But then, the first step is the hardest. Then, once I was in Ireland, everything from there continued to evolve organically, but it was easier. 

Nicky & Heide:  What are some practical tips on how to live abroad?

Kathleen: The first step is the hardest. And you're right to say, how do you do this? Have no experience of this, you didn't grow up spending time in different parts of the world.

Maybe your experience of the world is limited to vacations for a week or two in the Caribbean but you have an interest in this idea. You're intrigued by it. You just have to take it step by step.

How do you eat an elephant? As they say one bite at a time. You break it down step by step. That's a big part of what we try to do is to offer as much hand holding as much. Okay, do this step and then this do this and then this as possible and all kinds of forms through our letters are subscription services, the books conferences because everyone needs a different level of support.

But everyone needs support you don't know what you don't know when you set out but you soon begin to realize if you, have no experience of this, if you're coming at this idea for the first time, you quickly realize, oh my gosh, There is a lot I don't know. How do I figure all this out?

And then ultimately, the answer is you just have to take a leap of faith. You have to get on a plane and go somewhere. I, don't recommend you get on a plane with a one way ticket. Okay, I'm going to Argentina. I live in Argentina now. 

[00:20:00] So you want to do some, reconnaissance. You need a budget for scouting. You need a budget of time and money to take some trips and, make a short list. Prioritizing what's important to you. One way I like to help people focus at this very early getting started point is if you could have any view from your bedroom window every morning when you woke up, what would you most like it to be?

Kat: I think a lot of people cite the weather as the number one reason they want to move from wherever they currently live. So many of our readers say it's the snow.

I don't want to deal with ice or snow. I never want to see it again in my life. I don't want to ever own a shovel again in my life. And, that leads you to a part of the globe that you're never going to see snow in. So I think weather can play a big factor. We also hear from a lot of people who say everybody is talking about hot weather places.

All you talk about is living on the equator with year round sunshine. I don't want that. I want temperate. I want low humidity. I want it to be the same, comfortable 70 degrees year round. Weather often is a spur [00:21:00] for people that want to move someplace.

Kathleen: That's one of the ways people sometimes make a decision. If you have a driving agenda, it makes it easier. The more restrictions on your move, the better in some ways, because then you have all these filters. If you're moving with Children, which is happening more and more as I did, then schooling is number one priority, and that takes a lot of places off the list.

So that can be helpful. If you're moving and you're older or you're younger, And or you have an ongoing health concern, then health care is a driving priority and that takes a lot of places off the list. There are a lot of places probably don't make sense if you need quick access to international standard health care.

So if you have something like that. That helps to filter. But if you know if you could go anywhere, then you are almost throwing a dart at a map, but you'll start with asking yourself these questions. Does Kat suggesting what kind of weather do I want.

What do I want out my bedroom window when I wake up every morning. What kind of food do I like? How do I like to spend my free time? What's my favorite thing to do on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon? Another important question as you're choosing where is how local you want to go. This is a question that you should address very early on and it sets you on one path or another and they're very different paths.

And what it has to do with really is how much of a change of lifestyle are you up for? How much culture shock are you comfortable with? Because going completely local in a place like the interior of Panama, not in Panama City, which is almost like any real city in the world, it's become a bonafide city.

You can live in Panama City as though you're living anywhere in any city in the United States, but in the interior of Panama, anywhere else, really, if you choose to live in a place among locals, then your life is going to be very different than if you choose to live in a private gated community built specifically for foreign retirees and expats, where the standard of construction will be different. The infrastructure will be different. The quality of the roads, the quality of the electricity, a lot of things that you might take for granted. They'll be very different in a very local neighborhood versus in a gated community, specifically targeting foreigners.

Nicky & Heide: How do you balance the practical aspects of managing finances and health care?

Kathleen: I think Americans, especially retirees, healthcare and health insurance are a number one concern for anyone of that age, understandably. Americans are, I think very concerned that the health care is of a lesser standard outside the United States, and they just don't know what to make of the cost. They don't imagine that it could be cheaper. 

The health care is of a greater standard many places in the world than in the United States. On the World Health Organization's annual survey of health care around the world, the United States, Doesn't rank number one, it doesn't rank in the top 10. It ranks somewhere in the thirties or the forties, the high thirties.

Yeah. . It puts things in perspective. And then the other factor, it's a huge breakthrough of perspective when you really let this sink in. The cost of health care, which again can be better many places we talk about around the world, the cost is a fraction of what it is in the United States.

The health care is more expensive and health insurance is more expensive in the United States than anywhere else in the world. 

Nicky: That's probably why we're seeing an increase in medical tourism. People from the United States are going to other countries, they're going south for dental work.

They're going to Eastern Europe for full body scans. Your full annual physical work, rather than paying eight, nine thousand dollars, you're paying a few hundred dollars and you're getting everything done in a day.

Now, if I'm living abroad, how do. Do you maintain connections with family and friends back home. Home while embracing your new life abroad without a monster phone bill.

[00:25:00] Heide: Yeah, that's a great question, Nicky. I've got so many friends here and my family's here. 

Kathleen: WhatsApp is a valuable, useful tool and it's free. It allows you to stay in touch with anyone, anywhere in the world at zero cost.

Heide: WhatsApp is a fantastic app to stay in touch with everyone. I use it a lot, especially when I'm traveling. I also use it domestically with friends on a big group chat. 

My brother and I, when I'm traveling or he's traveling, we'll use Facebook Messenger. It's easier. Even when we're both home, because he lives in New York City, I live in Oklahoma City, we do virtual happy hours with each other over Facebook video. Oh, that's fun.

Nicky: Yes. I actually, with WhatsApp, like sending photos and videos. For people that have an Android, it doesn't come through the same quality if I just send a text message. So WhatsApp is a much better option. 

Heide: What's your best advice for women who want to travel more, but they're hesitant to take that leap?

Kat: You could move for a month, six months, a year, on the digital nomad visas that are now so popular throughout the world, especially in Europe, you can easily live somewhere for a year. If you have your own income, if you don't like the place that you initially settled on, you could move on, find another place.

Once you're in the region and you find another place you like better move on to that one. You can move back. You can go back home. If you say, this isn't for me, fair enough. Just be honest with yourself and say, I had a great adventure and it's a story I'll tell till the day I die, move back home and it'll all just become a funny anecdote at cocktail parties.

This is another thing that, I think Canadians are very familiar with this idea of snowboarding. Going somewhere for the snowy months or the really cold, miserable months renting your home out if you can, or, finding some way of mitigating that cost and then spending a few months overseas, whether it's in a place that you own and rent out for the rest of the year or a place that you just rent for three months, six months, whatever it is 

Most of our readers are retirees. So it is usually a retiree that's asking this but a lot of people ask this, you know The digital nomad, trend has been picking up over the last four or five years And so women of all ages are thinking the world is much more open than I ever thought it was But can I really do this alone?

And is it safe for me to go there alone? Of course, there's crime everywhere in the world. You just need to keep your wits about you a little bit and take normal precautions. You don't leave your cell phone out on a table in a cafe.

For example, I've been pickpocketed a few times here in Paris, but there's never any violent crime here. It is entirely possible to do this as a single female. I travel almost exclusively by myself to do my scouting trips, to write our reports and to find new places.

And I've never felt unsafe. I've never had the feeling that I was in a bad situation, unless I was really in a bad situation, like I got stranded because I missed the last metro and I thought, oh, I'm out at a stadium outside of the city. I don't know where I am. I don't know what to expect. 

But as Kathleen was saying, it's so much easier now to get connected with the local community or the local environment. You can call a taxi, call an Uber a lot of those ride sharing apps are universal now you have Uber on your phone, you can still use that overseas to call a ride really quickly.

And what's funny is that we get this question so much, and yet, it's the majority of people that we see overseas, if they're not couples, they're single women. We see more single women than single men doing this for whatever reason. In some cases, it's almost as if there's become this new feminist community.

And not feminist, maybe that's a strong word, but feminine community, where there's So many single retired women living in a certain city, there are all these great groups that you can get involved with very easily. And they all kind of support each other and we've never had anybody write in to say, it was a mistake.

Usually what people say is I'm so glad you encouraged me to do this. I should have done it sooner. Regardless of their situation. I, we have a few reports out there for, and a few Essays about single women overseas. It's a little bit scary, but take the plunge. It's worth it.

Nicky & Heide: You've written extensively on this topic and you keep, mentioning the blogs and the reports. Tell us about your platform, how people can find you, and what your platform in your book is about. 

Kathleen: Live and Invest Overseas is the overriding platform liveininvestoverseas.com is the website and we publish every day, a free e-letter, and if you're interested in these ideas, that's the way to get started. As we're discussing, just take it one step at a time organically. And if you're intrigued, if you go to liveandinvestoverseas.com, there's a place on the homepage where you can enter your email address and you'll be signed up for the free daily e-letter. It comes from me. It's called the Overseas Opportunity Letter. And we cover the whole world of interest. Geographically, it's completely diverse. And also categorically, it's completely diverse. We talk about, finding a rental and making friends. We talk about buying a home and opening a bank account.

[00:30:00] We talk about how to bring your dog and cat with you. How to furnish your home, how to shop for health insurance. So all the different ideas that come into play here. And when you get tired of reading it, just unsubscribe. So that's a very painless way to try this idea out for a little while.

If your attention is kept by the idea and you'd like to take it a step further, shop around on the website. We have a lot of affordable resources, some is $4.95 for little reports, and then we do subscription services, which are regular monthly, they're magazines online, e zines and one is specifically on your best options for where to live overseas, the overseas living letter.

So there are all those subscription services and we've got books. The most recent book is called At Home Abroad, Retire Big on Little. I've written a number of books on living and retiring overseas. Some books with Penguin, some with Wiley, and others. This one we published ourselves and we took a different it is prescriptive.

And so half of this new book, it's in two sections. And one section is devoted to those real life stories of expats of all descriptions. Some are retired couples, which is the conventional face of this, a retired couple moving to another country together, but increasingly single men, single women and younger people with children.

Nicky: It's funny you say that during COVID, I had two good friends and they moved their entire family to Portugal two totally separate families, two different regions, and they didn't know each other, which was really interesting. And now, I have friends that are in Portugal. I was just talking to a good friend I went to Finland with. She and her husband are moving to Spain. 

I'm looking, like we said earlier I'm looking to go to Italy. I really liked the idea of what the government was proposing with the digital nomad visa. You can apply if you make a certain income opt out of federal health care show that you had a place to live, and they would give you a resident visa for one year. 

Kathleen: It's easier now than it's ever been to try this idea on for size and go live in a place for a year thanks to those kinds of residency visas. If you want to be able to stay in a place indefinitely, you need to get permission from the government to do that basically. That's what a, residency amounts to. And a couple of decades ago, these programs were not so common, and there were just a few options.

Today, a lot of countries offer different visa options, including the kind of digital nomad visa you're describing where, if you qualify the requirements are not complicated or onerous, and some are very affordable. You can come and stay for 12 months, 18 months and, get a real taste of the place, not as a tourist or a traveler, but really dig in and become a resident.

Nicky & Heide: You did mention expat communities. Are there any destinations on your list that have a thriving expat community that you would recommend?

Kat: For sure. Any large city and any capital city. Part of that is just that those are the nice places to spend time. Retirees will target them as well. But a lot of it also comes from workers. Whether it's a digital nomads that choose the city for its business amenities or people working for a multinational, half the expats I know here, probably more than half live here in Paris, who I'm friends with.

It's that they're their husbands work for a multinational based in Paris, and they're on contract here so any capital city is going to have the highest rate Paris has probably more than a million expats living here. 

Madrid and Barcelona, both Milan is huge, they say that there are more foreigners in Milan than Italians and that no one is actually born in Milan. They all just go to Milan. So it's a completely foreigner based city, even among Italians. 

Budapest surprisingly does have an expat community. And really you'll find them anywhere. If you're looking [00:34:00] for really high concentrations, go for the big cities, Facebook is the best resource here and you can type in any number of variations.

So for example, we know an ex pat couple who live currently in Montenegro. So Montenegro isn't a big country. It doesn't have a big city. You might think you'd have time finding the other fellow foreigners there. But I guarantee if you type into Facebook, expats in Montenegro, English speakers in Montenegro, English speaking families in Montenegro, English speaking retirees in Montenegro, any variation you can think of there will be a group for it.

And that's the way to find people. So a lot of people, get together based on their interests. There's hiking groups, dog walking groups, painting, groups that like to cook together book clubs, really any interest that you have, you will find expats practicing it in almost any corner of the world.

Even if you're in the countryside, they might live a little spread out but they will be there.

[00:35:00] Nicky & Heide: Can you recommend any resources or apps or communities for women who may be interested in exploring this idea of retiring internationally? 

Kathleen: Kat, I'm going to let you go first because you're much more technologically adept than I am.

Kat: I actually would say Google Maps. It's a great resource you can zoom in find the busiest areas, tourist zones, hotels, restaurants, everything. It works around the world. There are a few places, maybe if you're really going off grid that you might not be so lucky, 

When I am looking, for example, I last summer we went to Apulia, Italy, and it's a big region. Where do we want to go within that region? Mostly what we did was just look at the map, look at towns, where there's a concentration of towns that we can visit. Where the Airbnb is best, how long it's going to take to get there from the airport.

The driving distances between the places that we would want to go. I think that's true whether you're going to the countryside, which we were doing in Apulia, or if you were coming to a city like Paris, you can check out the different hotels, see what's near them, see the sites that you want to see.

See how easy it'll be, how far they are from you. You never want to pick a cheap hotel just because it's a cheap hotel. You want to pay a little bit more to not have to travel an hour to get into the city, for example, that's just going to eat into your time there. And waste your time and money in the end.

Honestly, it's a very simple process. Google Maps is a great resource. 

Nicky & Heide: That's a great one. And recently I found out that with Google maps, if you open up your map while you're still on wifi, if you go to a place where you no longer have service, as long as that app is open, it will work without wifi or data service. Oh, yeah I can't even function without having my maps app open, even in the United States, in a different city.

I can only imagine if you're a place where you can't read the street signs as well. 

Kathleen: I would second that. That is the one app that I do use and Uber. Kat already mentioned Uber, but Uber is a lifesaver because you can use it in so much of the world today, 

Nicky & Heide: well, Kat, Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us we are going to have you back next week and talk about some of the best budget friendly European destinations.

So for those looking to slow travel and take a couple of weeks, even a couple of months, or even fully commit and retire overseas, we're going to talk again.

We'll have links in the show notes to Kathleen's books and the website. Definitely check them out. Thank you so much for explaining all this to us.

I'm Nicky Omohundro. I'm Heide Brandes. Get ready to pack your bags, plan that trip, and go on an adventure.