20 Places to Replant Your Roots

Hamoukar, Northern Syria, 2001. I’m inside a deep trench with four other dust-covered archeologists, scraping away centuries of topsoil in search of ancient palace walls.

Above us, six Kurdish children squat in a ring along the trench edge. For hours, they watch the odd Americans dig away with small, funny looking shovels and dental tools… only to turn up broken bits of pottery and live frogs who’d rather have been left in situ.

With the recent overthrow of the Assad regime, Syria has been on my mind. Even before 9/11, I’d gone there with trepidation, expecting Americans to be despised.

I found the opposite to be true. On one not-so-rare occasion, an 8-year-old in rumpled pink pajamas ran up and beckoned me into her home—not much more than a mud hut—for tea. ​Syrian teenagers coveted American clothing labels and loved to talk about Hollywood films. Villagers who lived in poverty by Western standards hosted elaborate dinners for us.

And what they wanted to hear about most was what it was like to live in America. To have the freedom to choose how—and where—to live.

It’s perhaps the greatest freedom we possess: Choice. Though often it seems it’s only in retirement that we have the chance to take advantage of that choice. To slow down, take stock, and replant our roots.

And here at IL, we’re deeply focused on helping you find the right patch of earth to meet your needs.

In our December Global Retirement Index, we released our annual ranking of the top countries for retirement. And in this month’s issue, we have a brand-new “regional roundup,” which dives deeper than the “country” level. After all, what matters most is the community where you make your home. So we’ve turned a spotlight on 20 communities worth your attention.

Working hand-in-hand with our people on the ground around the world, we point you to these proven towns, villages, and cities in no particular order—where expats have found rich soil for a better, more fulfilling life… plus we bring you six “hidden” retirement havens that promise untapped potential.