Recent content by martyp

I live in Thailand. The healthcare system here is great! There are no primary care physicians. You just book an appointment with a specialist directly. 3 months ago I needed to see a dermatologist. I logged onto the website of my regular private hospital in Bangkok. I requested an appointment...

This is still true. Our property is in my Thai wife’s name. Don’t buy anything you can’t walk away from. In my US divorce my ex-wife kept the house too. I didn’t want to force a sale so I just got what she could afford to pay me for my equity share. Foreigners can buy a condo in Thailand in a...

Five years after I retired I got divorced and moved to Thailand. The significant part of that was selling off everything except 2 suitcases and a couple of boxes I stored at my sister’s house. I had read about people minimizing their possessions but until I had done it myself I couldn’t realize...

Another Boomer here. b. 1956 There is an interesting book, recently published, titled, "Generations", by Jean M. Twente. It defines the Boomer generation as 1946-1964. These were the first babies of the returning WWII GI's. The boom peaked in 1957. I guess 1964 because the birthrate started to...

Maybe you need to reconsider this position. Consider it an opportunity to go somewhere that you would enjoy and that she might not have enjoyed if she came along. Maybe a hiking trip, fishing trip, visit to historical sites, visit old friends that live elsewhere. Maybe a foreign country?

I’ve used Agoda for 7-8 years. Mostly for travel in Asia. Never had a problem with Agoda. I recommend it.

Foreign language translation is something early versions of AI have been doing for a long time. I live in Thailand and use Google translate for Thai/English translations. It is useful but far from fluent. That is because the written language training set is limited. Since AI is adept at making...

I do think today's AI will have a significant effect to some parts of the job market. In the past digital technology changed film photography and the music and movie industry. They are very very different than they used to be. I don't think AI will replace lawyers but it will greatly reduce the...

When I retired I lamented the loss of my work provided laptop. Then my desktop began dying. I settled for a new MacBook laptop because I actually needed one for some tasks I was doing in retirement. I found that I could plug it into my former desktop screen and keyboard. By "desktop" we really...

Every year I meet up with friends I met in our dorm at the University of Connecticut in 1974. There are 5 of us. We are spread out around the country and we have met in various cities such as Las Vegas, Miami Beach, New York, San Francisco, Scottsdale, Houston, and Atlanta. This year I...

I don’t know about 5 lifetimes but I lived in the US for 60 years and actually have experienced most of those exact things. BTW, my trip rafting down the Grand Canyon is still one of my best experiences. The rest of the world though is pretty interesting as well. Some of us equally value...

Well sure . . . moving overseas or anywhere is not about one thing but some countries have a very favorable exchange rate and this is a big part of the decision. I definitely wouldn’t recommend that someone move overseas just because it appears to be less expensive. You should like the place you...

Americans love to say this. However, this is a thread about countries to retire to. Financially secure foreigners are not clamoring to retire in the US. Plenty of desperately poor people are trying to come to the US. Plenty of people that want to get a top notch education, start a good...

I have been living in Thailand since 2017. Yes you have to pay US federal taxes. No you don’t have to pay state taxes if you are not living there and have no assets or income in the state. That would also be true if you moved to another state in the US. I paid California taxes the first two...

Sixty years in the US was enough for me. It was time for something different. I visit the US for a couple of weeks each year to see friends & family. I fell in love with the culture, the weather, the food, and the people. It is affordable living, superior health care in many ways, modern in the...