One of my main passions in life is investing. I am passionate about investing because I value freedom. The average person does not have freedom because they live paycheck to paycheck, and they are drowning in debt. They have so many obligations that they are forced to work until they are old.
This is why I believe in financial independence. I believe in lowering your expenses, staying out of debt, living a minimalist lifestyle, investing your entire salary, and living off your investments.
When I speak to others, they always ask me about the best place to retire. Is it better to retire in the country or the city? Is it better to retire in Thailand? What country is best for retirement?
My recommendation is to not think about this. I would not bother with committing to a place to retire because the easiest strategy is to simply try out a place, and if it turns out that you don't like it, then move.
It's impossible to know a place fully until you try it. Once you are somewhere, you will pick up on things you never expected.
My recommendation is to focus instead on saving up, and then when you can build up a reasonable passive income, e.g. $1500 per month in dividend income, then try out different places to retire by taking small holidays there. For example, go somewhere and try to live there for e.g. $1500 per month, and then try out other places, e.g. Thailand, Bali, etc. In fact, Bali (image below) is a beautiful place to retire, and you can live a very comfortable and pleasant life for very little in Bali (more on this in an upcoming Steem article).
This is one of the reasons why I believe in investing in stocks over property. If you buy property somewhere, there are obligations on you to check in to your property every now and then to see if the tenants are behaving, etc. With shares, everything can be done online, and you are not beholden to any one location, so you can try different places to see if they suit you, and if they don't then simply move.
Another potential investment option that I am still exploring is cryptocurrency, and I am a latecomer to the cryptocurrency world, but based on what I've ready, cryptocurrency is potentially a great investment. Cryptocurrencies are global. You can invest in bitcoin in one country and use it easily in another country without difficulty. That being said, I will need to research cryptocurrencies more before I give any advice, and cryptocurrencies are very new and potentially very risky.