
Living in the world's most welcoming countries - hwayern
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170215-living-in-the-worlds-most-welcoming-countries
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Overtonwindow
This is an interesting list but I would caution that it appears to be written
for a European audience. For Americans, I don't think it takes into account
current political climates, and general safety of westerners. Oman and the
Philippines are beautiful places to go, truly wonderful, but they can also be
very dangerous for Americans.

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glibgil
> they can also be very dangerous for Americans

Evidence?

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run4yourlives2
In Philippines and Columbia, kidnapping for ransom is still a thing in certain
areas, particularly of "rich" westerners.

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petercooper
Can someone TLDR this for those of who live in the UK where such BBC content
is blocked?

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skykooler
...Why is the BBC blocked in the UK, of all places?

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warp
My understanding (I don't live in the UK) is that the BBC is wholly or
partially government funded. As such there are certain things the BBC cannot
do within the UK, because it would unfairly compete with other UK media
companies which don't have similar government funding.

(But I could be completely wrong, if so... please correct me :)

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gregn610
I'd be very interested to hear how they implement it, because it's fairly
resistant to VPN trickery too.

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noir_lord
Possibly leveraging the same technology they use for Blocking BBC iPlayer via
VPN's.

People I know abroad say that works quite well.

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frankus
Uganda may not be a great fit for a lot of people:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Uganda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Uganda)

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monkmartinez
My wife is from Colombia and I love it there. We definitely plan on living
part of the year there and part of the year in the US when we retire. I will
mention outside of the Mountainous cities, it is very warm and humid. The
cities at say 1828m (6,000ft) and above are absolutely perfect climates year
round. Bonus: You can get in shape very, very quickly in the mountains.

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hwayern
Is altitude a problem? Like, do you find yourself out of breath very easily?

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mikestew
My experience says that 6000 feet will be noticeable, but you'll be able to,
say, climb a flight of stairs and be a bit more winded than usual. As another
example, the Paradise visitor's center at Mount Rainier sits at (IIRC) 7K
feet. Plenty of fat people waddle out of their cars and make it across the
parking lot just fine. They don't generally go very far up the mountain, but
they make it. And the residents of Denver, CO seem to survive at 5200 feet.

To me, "noticing altitude" starts at about 10K feet. For reference, life-long
endurance athlete who still stays in pretty good shape in his middle-age.

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macintux
I tried to sprint to make a connecting flight in Denver (after waiting on the
tarmac for 30 minutes to get a gate, grumble). What a mistake. I never had a
chance.

Sad part was it took me a few minutes to remember why I was suddenly an
invalid.

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mikestew
As always, YMMV. I can run a marathon in under 3:00, and making an airport
connection in Denver probably wouldn't phase me much (I've run in Denver, but
not to make a flight). OTOH, I distinctly remember going up Pike's Peak at
>14K feet, and found the walk across the parking lot to be challenging. I
can't imagine what climbing a >20K foot peak must be like given that humbling
experience.

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run4yourlives2
There are very good reasons people DON'T live in those countries though. Most
have to do with things westerners take for granted, like stable electricity,
not needing to bribe cops, and being able to easily purchase goods when you
need to.

YMMV as always. Places aren't easy to move to unless they are trying to create
a place that is hard to move to.

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gabomagno03
As someone living in one of those countries, I got to ask, have you actually
visited one of them? Sure if you go to a rural place then a solid electric
grid may be an issue, but not at all in mid to large cities.

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baursak
Remember kids, all Westerners are never migrants, immigrants, or God forbid,
refugees. They're just expats.

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jowiar
Visiting Colombia recently, Bogota felt like an absolutely brilliant place to
work remotely from. Housing and dining are ridiculously cheap (and high
quality), but one can easily collaborate with the US (it's on the eastern time
zone, and flying in for meetings isn't particularly far away).

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machbio
have heard recently alarmingly high crime rate in Costa Rica for Foreigners, I
would stay out of Costa Rica

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knz
Two of my coworkers experienced armed home invasions while on holiday in Costa
Rica (5 years apart, within the last 10 years). One of them had the same
people come back the following evening.

It's a small sample size but it's a hell of an anecdote!

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rwmj
It would be nice to have a guide to developed world countries with easy paths
to permanent residence and/or citizenship.

