If you’re sick of paying through the nose for food staples and other basic necessities, you may be thinking about jumping ship and moving somewhere with lower living costs and higher quality-of-life metrics. Cheap places to live can be found all over the world, from developing countries like Guatemala and Laos to enclaves within first-world nations like Ireland and the United States. Read on to find the perfect place for your new low-cost life.
Ireland
True to its name, the “Emerald Isle” is a verdant paradise jutting out into the temperate waters of the North Atlantic. Its pastoral landscape is interrupted by the occasional medieval fortification and a few cosmopolitan cities that offer world-class European shopping and dining opportunities without London’s crowds or Paris’s pretensions. If it’s natural beauty that you seek, inland regions like heavily-wooded Killarney National Park and coastal stretches like the Aran Islands in Galway Bay will keep you occupied for days on end.
Although Ireland is relatively small, it contains a formidable density of historical and ecological points of interest. Accordingly, the Irish countryside is dotted with independently-owned country inns that provide a welcome respite for road-weary travelers. Many of these are clustered in charming small towns whose histories stretch back for centuries.
Thanks to a recent pullback in local real estate prices, many historic houses in these villages are selling for just a fraction of their original values. The Global Property Marketwatch, a service of Live and Invest Overseas, notes that property values in certain parts of Ireland are poised to explode.
Laos
A rugged land to the north and east of Thailand, Laos is among Southeast Asia’s best-kept secrets. It remains less industrialized than neighboring Vietnam and China, with a landscape that is pastoral in some places and wholly wild in others. While it lacks the oceanfront real estate of most of the region’s other states, Laos makes up for this deficit with a pleasant highland climate. Temperatures in Vientiane, its capital, occupy a narrow annual range between about 95 degrees on the hottest summer days and 50 degrees on the coolest winter nights.
Thanks to its manageable size and reputation for safety, Vientiane is a major destination for Western expatriates. The city’s cost of living is low relative to other capitals in the region, including cosmopolitan Bangkok and sprawling Saigon. What’s more, it eschews modern office parks and featureless plazas in favor of ornate Buddhist temples and authentic street markets. As a result, residential real estate near the center of town remains quite cheap.
Utah’s Dixie
Utah’s southern reaches, centered around St. George and the rapidly-growing I-15 corridor, attract retirees and second-home owners in droves. Drawn by the warm, dry climate of “Utah’s Dixie,” these folks are creating a friendly urban agglomeration that may soon rival the state’s Wasatch Front in both population and economic might.
Visually, the region is stunning: Dominated by red-hued rock outcrops, it has long served as a favorite subject for landscape artists. Its two major national parks, Zion and Bryce Canyon, bring in hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. Many of these folks continue on to nearby attractions like Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.
Compared to other parts of the Interior West, local real estate prices, property taxes and other fixed living costs are quite low. Most suburban-style development is restricted to an area that spreads north and west from St. George, leaving wide-open tracts of privately-held undeveloped land for enterprising homeowners.
There are relatively few rules of thumb to follow when looking for cheap places to live around the world. As the global economy becomes increasingly interconnected, the living-standards divide between the “third world” and “first world” continues to narrow. These days, it’s all about location: Living costs in many developing enclaves have risen to frighteningly high levels even as they slide in some developed regions. Use Live and Invest Overseas’ Global Property Marketwatch to find the world’s best deals on cheap places to live.