Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
How to get rid of chemicals in fabrics
http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/how-to-get-rid-of-chemicals-in-fabrics-hint-trick-question/
Can you wash or otherwise clean conventional fabrics to remove all the toxic residues so that you’d end up with a fabric that’s as safe as an organic fabric? It seems a reasonable question, and sure would be an easy fix if the answer was yes, wouldn’t it? But let’s explore this question, because it’s really interesting.
Let’s start by looking at one common type of fabric: a lightweight, 4 ounce cotton printed quilting fabric. In this case the answer is no (and as you’ll find out, our answers will always be no, but read on to see why).
The toxic chemicals in conventionally produced (versus “organically” produced) cotton fabric that cannot be washed out come from both:
1. the pesticides and herbicides applied to the crops when growing the cotton and
2. from the dyes and printing inks and other chemicals used to turn the fibers into fabric.
Let’s first look at the pesticides used during growing of the fiber.
Conventional cotton cultivation uses copious amounts of chemical inputs. These pesticides are absorbed by the leaves and the roots of the plants. Most pesticides applied to plants have a half life of less than 4 days before degredation.(1) So pesticides can be found in the plants, but over time the chemicals are degraded so the amount to be found in any bale of cotton fiber is highly depending on time of harvest and how recently the crop had been sprayed.
Gas chromatography easily shows that common pesticides used on cotton crops are found in the fibers, such as: Hexachlorobenzene, Aldrin, Dieldrin, DDT and DDT. (2) Look up the toxicity profiles of those chemicals if you want encouragement to keep even tiny amounts of them out of your house. With time, as the cotton fibers degrade, these residual chemicals are released.
We could find no studies which looked at the fibers themselves to see if pesticides could be removed by washing, but we did find a study of laundering pesticide-soiled clothing to see if the pesticide could be removed. Remember, this study (and others like it) was done only on protective clothing worn by workers who are applying the pesticides – so the pesticides are on the outside of the fibers - NOT on the fibers themselves during growth. The study found that, after six washings in a home washing machine, the percent of pesticide remaining in a textile substrate (cotton) ranged from 1% to 42%. (3)
If you’re trying to avoid pesticides which are applied to cotton crops, you’d do better to avoid cottonseed oil than the fiber (if processed conventionally) because we eat more of the cotton crop than we wear. Most of the damage done by the use of pesticides is to our environment – our groundwater and soils.
Before we go further, let’s do away with the notion that organic cotton, woven conventionally, is safe to use. Not so. There are so many chemicals used during the processing phase of fabric production, including detergents, brighteners, bleaches, softeners, and many others that the final fabric is a chemical smorgasbord, and is by weight at least 10% synthetic chemicals (4), many of which have been proven to cause harm to humans.
The chemicals used in conventionally processed organic cotton fabrics make the concerns about pesticides used in growing the crop pale in comparison: If we use the new lower chemical inputs that GMO cotton has introduced, it’s now possible to produce 1 lb. of conventionally grown cotton, using just 2.85 oz of chemical pesticides – that’s down from over 4.5 oz used during the 1990’s – a 58% decrease. So to produce enough cotton fiber to make 25 lbs of cloth, it would require just 4.45 lbs of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and insecticides. Processing that fiber into cloth, however, requires between 2.5 – 25 lbs. of chemicals. If we take the midpoint, that’s 12.5 lbs of processing chemicals – almost three times what it took to produce the fiber!
There are over 2,000 different kinds of chemicals regularly used in textile production, many of them so toxic that they’re outlawed in other products. And this toxic bath is used on both organic fibers as well as non-organic fibers – the fibers are just the first step in the weaving and finishing of a fabric. (Make sure you buy organic fibers that are also organically processed or you do not have an organic fabric. An organic fabric is one that is third party certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. ) Fabrics – even those made with organic fibers like organic cotton IF they are conventionally produced and not produced according to GOTS - contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, azo dyes, dioxin, and heavy metals. Some of the chemicals are there as residues from the production, others are added to give certain characteristics to the fabrics such as color, softness, crispness, wrinkle resistance, etc. And these chemicals are designed to do a job, and do it well. They are designed to NOT wash out. The dyes, for instance, are called “fiber reactive” dyes because they chemically bind with the fiber molecules in order to remain color fast. The chemical components of your fabric dye is there as long as the color is there. Many dyes contain a whole host of toxic chemicals. The heavy metals are common components of fabric dyes. They are part of the dye and part of the fabric fiber as long as the color remains.
And these chemicals are found in the fabrics we live with. Studies have shown that the chemicals are available to our bodies: dioxins (such as the 75 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)) were found in new clothing in concentrations ranging from low pg/g to high 300 ng/g in several studies. (5)
How do these chemicals get into our bodies from the textiles? Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s highly permeable. So skin absorption is one route; another is through inhalation of the chemicals (if they are the type that evaporate – and if they do evaporate, each chemical has a different rate of evaporation, from minutes or hours to weeks or years) and a third route: Think of microscopic particles of fabric that abrade each time we use a towel, sit on a sofa, put on our clothes. These microscopic particles fly into the air and then we breathe them in or ingest them. Or they fall into the dust of our homes, where people and pets, especially crawling children and pets, continue to breathe or ingest them.
In the United States, often the standards for exposure to these toxins is limited to workplace standards (based on limits in water or air) or they’re product specific: the FDA sets a maximum limit of cadmium in bottled water to be 0.005 mg/L for example. So that leaves lots of avenues for continued contamination!
The bad news is that existing legislation on chemicals fails to prohibit the use of hazardous chemicals in consumer products -–and the textile industry, in particular, has no organized voice to advocate for change. It’s a complex, highly fragmented industry, and it’s up to consumers to demand companies change their policies. In the United States we’re waking up to the dangers of industrial chemicals, but rather than banning a certain chemical in ALL products, the United States is taking a piece meal approach: for example, certain azo dyes (like Red 2G) are prohibited in foods – but only in foods, not fabrics. But just because the product is not meant to be eaten doesn’t mean we’re not absorbing that Red 2G. Phthalates are outlawed in California and Washington state in children’s toys – but not in their clothing or bedding. A Greenpeace study of a Walt Disney PVC Winne the Pooh raincoat found that it contained an astounding 320,000 mg/kg of total phthalates in the coat – or 32% of the weight of the raincoat! (6)
Concerns continue to mount about the safety of textiles and apparel products used by U.S. consumers. As reports of potential health threats continue to come to light, “we are quite concerned about potentially toxic materials that U.S. consumers are exposed to everyday in textiles and apparel available in this country,” said David Brookstein, Sc.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Textile and director of Philadelphia University’s Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS).
The good news is that there are fabrics that have been produced without resorting to these hazardous chemicals. Look for GOTS! Demand safe fabrics!
(1) “Degradation of Pesiticides on Plant Surfaces amd It’s prediction – a case study of tea leaves”, Zongmao, C and Haibin, W., Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, China. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vg5w5467743r5p41/
(2) “Extraction of Residual Chlorinated Pesticides from Cotton Matrix, El-Nagar, Schantz et.al, Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and management, Vol 4, Issue 2, Fall 2004
(3) Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 1992 (23, 85-90)
(4) Laucasse and Baumann, Textile Chemicals: Environmental Data and Facts, Springer, New York, 2004, page 609.
(5) “Dioxins and Dioxin-Like Persistent Organic Pollutants in Textiles” Krizanec, B and Le marechal, Al, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000, Maribor, Slovenia, 2006; hrcak.srce.hr/file/6721
(6) http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/greece/137368/toxic-childrensware-by-disney.pdf
Can you wash or otherwise clean conventional fabrics to remove all the toxic residues so that you’d end up with a fabric that’s as safe as an organic fabric? It seems a reasonable question, and sure would be an easy fix if the answer was yes, wouldn’t it? But let’s explore this question, because it’s really interesting.
Let’s start by looking at one common type of fabric: a lightweight, 4 ounce cotton printed quilting fabric. In this case the answer is no (and as you’ll find out, our answers will always be no, but read on to see why).
The toxic chemicals in conventionally produced (versus “organically” produced) cotton fabric that cannot be washed out come from both:
1. the pesticides and herbicides applied to the crops when growing the cotton and
2. from the dyes and printing inks and other chemicals used to turn the fibers into fabric.
Let’s first look at the pesticides used during growing of the fiber.
Conventional cotton cultivation uses copious amounts of chemical inputs. These pesticides are absorbed by the leaves and the roots of the plants. Most pesticides applied to plants have a half life of less than 4 days before degredation.(1) So pesticides can be found in the plants, but over time the chemicals are degraded so the amount to be found in any bale of cotton fiber is highly depending on time of harvest and how recently the crop had been sprayed.
Gas chromatography easily shows that common pesticides used on cotton crops are found in the fibers, such as: Hexachlorobenzene, Aldrin, Dieldrin, DDT and DDT. (2) Look up the toxicity profiles of those chemicals if you want encouragement to keep even tiny amounts of them out of your house. With time, as the cotton fibers degrade, these residual chemicals are released.
We could find no studies which looked at the fibers themselves to see if pesticides could be removed by washing, but we did find a study of laundering pesticide-soiled clothing to see if the pesticide could be removed. Remember, this study (and others like it) was done only on protective clothing worn by workers who are applying the pesticides – so the pesticides are on the outside of the fibers - NOT on the fibers themselves during growth. The study found that, after six washings in a home washing machine, the percent of pesticide remaining in a textile substrate (cotton) ranged from 1% to 42%. (3)
If you’re trying to avoid pesticides which are applied to cotton crops, you’d do better to avoid cottonseed oil than the fiber (if processed conventionally) because we eat more of the cotton crop than we wear. Most of the damage done by the use of pesticides is to our environment – our groundwater and soils.
Before we go further, let’s do away with the notion that organic cotton, woven conventionally, is safe to use. Not so. There are so many chemicals used during the processing phase of fabric production, including detergents, brighteners, bleaches, softeners, and many others that the final fabric is a chemical smorgasbord, and is by weight at least 10% synthetic chemicals (4), many of which have been proven to cause harm to humans.
The chemicals used in conventionally processed organic cotton fabrics make the concerns about pesticides used in growing the crop pale in comparison: If we use the new lower chemical inputs that GMO cotton has introduced, it’s now possible to produce 1 lb. of conventionally grown cotton, using just 2.85 oz of chemical pesticides – that’s down from over 4.5 oz used during the 1990’s – a 58% decrease. So to produce enough cotton fiber to make 25 lbs of cloth, it would require just 4.45 lbs of chemical pesticides, fertilizers and insecticides. Processing that fiber into cloth, however, requires between 2.5 – 25 lbs. of chemicals. If we take the midpoint, that’s 12.5 lbs of processing chemicals – almost three times what it took to produce the fiber!
There are over 2,000 different kinds of chemicals regularly used in textile production, many of them so toxic that they’re outlawed in other products. And this toxic bath is used on both organic fibers as well as non-organic fibers – the fibers are just the first step in the weaving and finishing of a fabric. (Make sure you buy organic fibers that are also organically processed or you do not have an organic fabric. An organic fabric is one that is third party certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. ) Fabrics – even those made with organic fibers like organic cotton IF they are conventionally produced and not produced according to GOTS - contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, azo dyes, dioxin, and heavy metals. Some of the chemicals are there as residues from the production, others are added to give certain characteristics to the fabrics such as color, softness, crispness, wrinkle resistance, etc. And these chemicals are designed to do a job, and do it well. They are designed to NOT wash out. The dyes, for instance, are called “fiber reactive” dyes because they chemically bind with the fiber molecules in order to remain color fast. The chemical components of your fabric dye is there as long as the color is there. Many dyes contain a whole host of toxic chemicals. The heavy metals are common components of fabric dyes. They are part of the dye and part of the fabric fiber as long as the color remains.
And these chemicals are found in the fabrics we live with. Studies have shown that the chemicals are available to our bodies: dioxins (such as the 75 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and 135 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)) were found in new clothing in concentrations ranging from low pg/g to high 300 ng/g in several studies. (5)
How do these chemicals get into our bodies from the textiles? Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s highly permeable. So skin absorption is one route; another is through inhalation of the chemicals (if they are the type that evaporate – and if they do evaporate, each chemical has a different rate of evaporation, from minutes or hours to weeks or years) and a third route: Think of microscopic particles of fabric that abrade each time we use a towel, sit on a sofa, put on our clothes. These microscopic particles fly into the air and then we breathe them in or ingest them. Or they fall into the dust of our homes, where people and pets, especially crawling children and pets, continue to breathe or ingest them.
In the United States, often the standards for exposure to these toxins is limited to workplace standards (based on limits in water or air) or they’re product specific: the FDA sets a maximum limit of cadmium in bottled water to be 0.005 mg/L for example. So that leaves lots of avenues for continued contamination!
The bad news is that existing legislation on chemicals fails to prohibit the use of hazardous chemicals in consumer products -–and the textile industry, in particular, has no organized voice to advocate for change. It’s a complex, highly fragmented industry, and it’s up to consumers to demand companies change their policies. In the United States we’re waking up to the dangers of industrial chemicals, but rather than banning a certain chemical in ALL products, the United States is taking a piece meal approach: for example, certain azo dyes (like Red 2G) are prohibited in foods – but only in foods, not fabrics. But just because the product is not meant to be eaten doesn’t mean we’re not absorbing that Red 2G. Phthalates are outlawed in California and Washington state in children’s toys – but not in their clothing or bedding. A Greenpeace study of a Walt Disney PVC Winne the Pooh raincoat found that it contained an astounding 320,000 mg/kg of total phthalates in the coat – or 32% of the weight of the raincoat! (6)
Concerns continue to mount about the safety of textiles and apparel products used by U.S. consumers. As reports of potential health threats continue to come to light, “we are quite concerned about potentially toxic materials that U.S. consumers are exposed to everyday in textiles and apparel available in this country,” said David Brookstein, Sc.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Textile and director of Philadelphia University’s Institute for Textile and Apparel Product Safety (ITAPS).
The good news is that there are fabrics that have been produced without resorting to these hazardous chemicals. Look for GOTS! Demand safe fabrics!
(1) “Degradation of Pesiticides on Plant Surfaces amd It’s prediction – a case study of tea leaves”, Zongmao, C and Haibin, W., Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, China. http://www.springerlink.com/content/vg5w5467743r5p41/
(2) “Extraction of Residual Chlorinated Pesticides from Cotton Matrix, El-Nagar, Schantz et.al, Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and management, Vol 4, Issue 2, Fall 2004
(3) Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 1992 (23, 85-90)
(4) Laucasse and Baumann, Textile Chemicals: Environmental Data and Facts, Springer, New York, 2004, page 609.
(5) “Dioxins and Dioxin-Like Persistent Organic Pollutants in Textiles” Krizanec, B and Le marechal, Al, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000, Maribor, Slovenia, 2006; hrcak.srce.hr/file/6721
(6) http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/greece/137368/toxic-childrensware-by-disney.pdf
WHY IS ISRAEL ATTACKING PALESTINE: THE TRUTH
As
always, mainstream media networks in North America have bombarded us
with a description of what’s happening in the Middle East. All
mainstream media networks have been used as propaganda that justify
actions of war for Israel.What is really happening? What’s going on and
what is the Israeli Palestinian conflict really about?
It’s all a plan to help introduce ‘A New
World Order’. The same ones that create the chaos are the same ones that
would like to propose the solution. If enough chaos is created, it
gives more justification to the solution, and gives rise to a potential
global conflict between Israel and Iran. By using media to manipulate
the population, justification of action is possible. Take 9/11 for
example, a false flag terrorist attack used to justify the invasion of
Iraq. But things are changing, humanity is waking up to truth and in
doing so we change the future timeline of planet Earth. We are moving
through a transition, nobody said it would be easy but we are well on
our way. Humanity is waking up rapidly to what has really been playing
out on the planet.
All information regarding world events is
in the hands of a small group of multinational corporations: Time
Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corporation and NBC Universal. Within
these corporations, connections can be made to the health,
pharmaceutical, energy (oil) and educational industries which lead
directly to the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, to name a few. It’s
no longer a secret that a small group of multinational corporations are
in control of the worlds resources , media, and major international
organizations. Having control of these entities and organizations they
are easily able to manipulate and control the perception of human beings
when it comes to international conflict.
In November of 1917, the Balfour
Declaration was made by Baron Rothschild. Lord Rothschild was a leading
member of the British Zionist Federation. It was established in 1899 to
create and advocate for a permanent homeland for the Jewish people.
Zionism is defined as a form of nationalism of Jewish people that
support a Jewish nation state in the land defined as Israel. The Balfour
declaration was made to allow a Jewish nation state to occupy
Palestinian land. The Rothschild family controlled Britain, and also
pushed the Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate for Palestine was set up
by the British to include a national home for the Jewish people in
Palestine. All of these mandates, all of these laws created out of thin
air to impose a political movement called Zionism, to remove inhabitants
from their land. Are you surprised? Gaza has been similar to a
concentration camp, a cultural Genocide. These family bloodlines date
back to ancient Rome and Aristocratic families, they are Illuminati.
It’s not a surprise that the Rothschild name sits atop of major Canadian
mining companies (Barrick Gold) , and were directly involved with the
Genocide of First Nations as-well. Illuminati control has been world
wide for many years.
A
large portion of the planet’s population has been made to believe that
Zionism is a race, including a large portion of the Jewish community.
Zionism is not a race, it is a political organization that has had an
agenda with regards to Gaza. A large majority of Jewish people are
fundamentally opposed to Zionism.Zionism is not about what’s right and what’s beneficial for Jewish people. Jewish people and Palestinian people are its victims not its beneficiaries. That’s why I call this Rothschild Zionism, it was created by them and it is controlled by them. It was created as a secret society within the web to massively contribute to the control of global society. It is a political system, at its core a secret society. – David Icke
You have the Rothschild family using its
power and influence to push Zionist (a false representation of Jewish
people) occupation in Palestinian land. Many people have been murdered
behind the lines of red tape. What has been happening in Palestine has
been a goal of the global control matrix, and they use religion to their
advantage.
Not only have the Rothschild family had
it’s hands in the occupation of Gaza, in 1947 the Rockefeller family
stepped in. The Rockefeller family provides funding to the United
Nations, and have created many different councils to govern foreign
relations since. In 1947 the United Nations created a resolution for the
problem proposed by the Rothschild family (the occupation of
Palestine). You see how they do things? A problem was created, the same
ones who created the problem are proposing the solution, clever no? They
created a resolution that implemented a plan to create Independent Arab
and Jewish states within Palestine. This was not a resolution, but an
excuse to further push the Illuminati occupation of Palestine. In doing
so, they create and push a clash of people and cultures creating the
environment we see today. Many people have been manipulated and steered
like puppets.
You have families on both sides of the
ocean getting involved with the take over and extermination of
Palestinian occupants, it has been similar to a concentration camp.
These families own the monetary system and control the worlds resources,
they create international organisations to propose solutions to the
problems they create.
What is Israel? Israel was created the
year after the United Nations made their decision for a ‘separate Jewish
state’. The United States approved and recognized the need for this,
and began their support of Israel. The Rothschild and Rockefeller
families, the Illuminati are directly behind this invasion. They are
Israel, and they control Israel.
The Knesset is the legislature of Israel,
it has the power to overrule all decisions made by the government, it’s
the hub of Israel. It was funded by the Rothschild family. If you look
where the money is flowing, these families and organizations have been
behind all the decisions with regards to Israel.
Please feel free to research and verify any information presented in this article. Please feel free to request sources for any specific statement
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/11/22/why-is-israel-attacking-palestine-the-truth/
Do You Know What Toxic Chemicals Lurk in Your Clothing?
http://www.naturalnews.com/022803_cotton_chemicals_organic.html
Monday, March 10, 2008 by: Cathy Sherman
NaturalNews) You know that if you eat that sugar-filled cookie, it might spike your insulin, and if you put on cosmetics with chemicals in them, they will probably end up in your blood. But have you ever thought twice about putting on your favorite T-shirt, or snuggling into your cotton sheets?
A growing number of parents are demanding organic cotton clothing and diapers for their babies. Many don't stop with clothing, but have furnished their homes with organic flooring or carpeting, organic mattresses, organic linens, organic window coverings etc. Are they fanatics or do they have scientific evidence to support their lifestyle changes?
Cotton has long been considered by consumers to be the most natural, healthy fabric and they have made it the most popular clothing material. It has been easy to forget that cotton is a crop and as such, it is subject to the same issues as other crops normally considered as food. The last time you drove by a cotton field, did you consider that many of the foods you eat contain a by-product of this very plant?
The cotton plant is comprised of 40% fiber and 60% seed by weight. Once separated in the gin, the fibers go to textile mills, while the seed and various ginning by-products are used for animal feed and human food. For humans this is in the form of cottonseed oil, a very common ingredient in processed foods. The cotton seeds are also used in grain for cattle, which indirectly does enter the food chain in meat and dairy products.
The concerns regarding health stem from the fact that though cotton uses only 2.4% of the world's
agricultural acreage, its cultivation involves 25% of the world's pesticide use, more than any other crop. Most of these are insecticides, but fungicide is another fraction of the total. Also, consider that it takes about one-third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough conventional cotton for just one T-shirt.
In many cases, these poisonous chemicals are applied by spraying from the air, which means they can be
carried and spread by the wind and breathed by people living nearby. It probably is no coincidence that Texans near Lubbock have a high cancer rate, while Lubbock happens to be the world's largest area of cotton cultivation.
The chemicals used in cotton production don't end with cultivation. As an aid in harvesting, herbicides are used to defoliate the plants, making picking easier. Producing a textile from the plants involves more chemicals in the process of bleaching, sizing, dying, straightening, shrink reduction, stain and odor resistance, fireproofing, mothproofing, and static- and wrinkle-reduction. Some of these chemicals are applied with heat, thus bonding them to the cotton fibers.
Several washings are done throughout the process, but some of the softeners and detergents leave a residue that will not totally be removed from the final product. Chemicals often used for finishing include formaldehyde, caustic soda, sulfuric acid, bromines, urea resins, sulfonamides, halogens, and bromines. Some imported clothes are now impregnated with long-lasting disinfectants which are very hard to remove, and whose smell gives them away.
These and the other chemical residues affect people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Also, people have developed allergic reactions, such as hives, to formaldehyde through skin contact with solutions on durable-press clothing containing formaldehyde. Allergic Contact Dermatitis develops after repeated allergen exposure to dyes and other chemicals and metals. According to a British allergy website, small amounts of perspiration can separate out allergens through several layers of clothing, and leather shoe dyes can leach through socks.
European researchers found antimony, a fire-retardant chemical used in some crib mattresses, leaches through the mattress; they connected this finding to SIDS deaths. The livers of autopsied infants were also found to contain high amounts of antimony. Europe is moving away from flame retardants and requires them to be proven safe before use. Yet US laws require flame retardants be applied to many kinds of children's clothing.
One study, which included an 18-month old baby, found high levels of flame retardants in the subjects' blood. The results were two to three times the levels that are known to cause neurological damage in rats.
Though many people believe that chemicals can leach from clothing into the body through the skin, there is no research to prove this. Sodium Tripolyphosphate, a chemical used in some laundry detergents, is claimed to be easily absorbed through the skin from clothes, but this was never proven.
A chemist will say that it is impossible for chemicals to transfer through the skin from dry clothing.
Chemicals enter the skin through the process of osmosis, which requires a moist medium in order for this to occur. Studies are needed to determine if sweat or urine in wet diapers constitute enough of that medium.
Possibly the mechanism by which the chemicals enter the body is through off-gassing of the chemical which is then breathed in. There have been no real studies proving this either. The baby in the previously-cited study crawled on a carpeted floor. Carpeting usually contains flame retardants.
One thing is clear though: organically produced cotton has few of the issues of conventional cotton. Not only are GMO seeds and chemical pesticides not used, but usually the picking is done by hand. Instead of using chemicals to defoliate for easier harvesting, the organic grower relies mostly on the seasonal freeze to defoliate the plants.
Synthetic fertilizers are not used, in favor of crop rotation, which increases the organic matter in the soil. Weeds are removed and controlled by hand and by hoeing. Pest control is achieved by bringing in natural predators, using beneficial insects and certain trap crops which lure insects away.
The processing of the organic fibers uses different procedures in milling and in the textile
manufacturing. Chemical finishes for shrink resistance, permanent press etc. are not applied or are minimal, and use of natural rather than synthetic dyes are encouraged by co-ops and trade organizations.
Therefore, at this time we cannot say that the non-organic cotton shirts and pajamas you wear and the non-organic sheets you sleep on are toxic. However, we do know that their cultivation is toxic to the field workers. They have a high rate of cancer and death from suicide.
We can state that the by-products of conventional cotton that appear in our food have been subjected to toxins in their production. We can say that their production pollutes rivers and soil and causes other environmental damage.
So you don't have to throw away all of your conventional cotton clothing just yet, unless it causes an
allergic reaction. However, we all might do well to request that future clothing and linen purchases of cotton be of the organic variety. If the demand increases, more fields will be raised organically, resulting in health benefits for the environment and the workers and residents near the fields, as well as for all of us who consume cottonseed oil in foods.
What's in your clothing today? Be informed; it does make a difference.
For further information:
(http://ezinearticles.com/?Organic-Cotton---Am-I-Bothered?&id=650235)
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm)
(http://www.bioline.org.br/request?dv05081)
(http://www.checnet.org/healthehouse/chemicals/chemicals-detail2.asp?M...)
Monday, March 10, 2008 by: Cathy Sherman
NaturalNews) You know that if you eat that sugar-filled cookie, it might spike your insulin, and if you put on cosmetics with chemicals in them, they will probably end up in your blood. But have you ever thought twice about putting on your favorite T-shirt, or snuggling into your cotton sheets?
A growing number of parents are demanding organic cotton clothing and diapers for their babies. Many don't stop with clothing, but have furnished their homes with organic flooring or carpeting, organic mattresses, organic linens, organic window coverings etc. Are they fanatics or do they have scientific evidence to support their lifestyle changes?
Cotton has long been considered by consumers to be the most natural, healthy fabric and they have made it the most popular clothing material. It has been easy to forget that cotton is a crop and as such, it is subject to the same issues as other crops normally considered as food. The last time you drove by a cotton field, did you consider that many of the foods you eat contain a by-product of this very plant?
The cotton plant is comprised of 40% fiber and 60% seed by weight. Once separated in the gin, the fibers go to textile mills, while the seed and various ginning by-products are used for animal feed and human food. For humans this is in the form of cottonseed oil, a very common ingredient in processed foods. The cotton seeds are also used in grain for cattle, which indirectly does enter the food chain in meat and dairy products.
The concerns regarding health stem from the fact that though cotton uses only 2.4% of the world's
agricultural acreage, its cultivation involves 25% of the world's pesticide use, more than any other crop. Most of these are insecticides, but fungicide is another fraction of the total. Also, consider that it takes about one-third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers to grow enough conventional cotton for just one T-shirt.
In many cases, these poisonous chemicals are applied by spraying from the air, which means they can be
carried and spread by the wind and breathed by people living nearby. It probably is no coincidence that Texans near Lubbock have a high cancer rate, while Lubbock happens to be the world's largest area of cotton cultivation.
The chemicals used in cotton production don't end with cultivation. As an aid in harvesting, herbicides are used to defoliate the plants, making picking easier. Producing a textile from the plants involves more chemicals in the process of bleaching, sizing, dying, straightening, shrink reduction, stain and odor resistance, fireproofing, mothproofing, and static- and wrinkle-reduction. Some of these chemicals are applied with heat, thus bonding them to the cotton fibers.
Several washings are done throughout the process, but some of the softeners and detergents leave a residue that will not totally be removed from the final product. Chemicals often used for finishing include formaldehyde, caustic soda, sulfuric acid, bromines, urea resins, sulfonamides, halogens, and bromines. Some imported clothes are now impregnated with long-lasting disinfectants which are very hard to remove, and whose smell gives them away.
These and the other chemical residues affect people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Also, people have developed allergic reactions, such as hives, to formaldehyde through skin contact with solutions on durable-press clothing containing formaldehyde. Allergic Contact Dermatitis develops after repeated allergen exposure to dyes and other chemicals and metals. According to a British allergy website, small amounts of perspiration can separate out allergens through several layers of clothing, and leather shoe dyes can leach through socks.
European researchers found antimony, a fire-retardant chemical used in some crib mattresses, leaches through the mattress; they connected this finding to SIDS deaths. The livers of autopsied infants were also found to contain high amounts of antimony. Europe is moving away from flame retardants and requires them to be proven safe before use. Yet US laws require flame retardants be applied to many kinds of children's clothing.
One study, which included an 18-month old baby, found high levels of flame retardants in the subjects' blood. The results were two to three times the levels that are known to cause neurological damage in rats.
Though many people believe that chemicals can leach from clothing into the body through the skin, there is no research to prove this. Sodium Tripolyphosphate, a chemical used in some laundry detergents, is claimed to be easily absorbed through the skin from clothes, but this was never proven.
A chemist will say that it is impossible for chemicals to transfer through the skin from dry clothing.
Chemicals enter the skin through the process of osmosis, which requires a moist medium in order for this to occur. Studies are needed to determine if sweat or urine in wet diapers constitute enough of that medium.
Possibly the mechanism by which the chemicals enter the body is through off-gassing of the chemical which is then breathed in. There have been no real studies proving this either. The baby in the previously-cited study crawled on a carpeted floor. Carpeting usually contains flame retardants.
One thing is clear though: organically produced cotton has few of the issues of conventional cotton. Not only are GMO seeds and chemical pesticides not used, but usually the picking is done by hand. Instead of using chemicals to defoliate for easier harvesting, the organic grower relies mostly on the seasonal freeze to defoliate the plants.
Synthetic fertilizers are not used, in favor of crop rotation, which increases the organic matter in the soil. Weeds are removed and controlled by hand and by hoeing. Pest control is achieved by bringing in natural predators, using beneficial insects and certain trap crops which lure insects away.
The processing of the organic fibers uses different procedures in milling and in the textile
manufacturing. Chemical finishes for shrink resistance, permanent press etc. are not applied or are minimal, and use of natural rather than synthetic dyes are encouraged by co-ops and trade organizations.
Therefore, at this time we cannot say that the non-organic cotton shirts and pajamas you wear and the non-organic sheets you sleep on are toxic. However, we do know that their cultivation is toxic to the field workers. They have a high rate of cancer and death from suicide.
We can state that the by-products of conventional cotton that appear in our food have been subjected to toxins in their production. We can say that their production pollutes rivers and soil and causes other environmental damage.
So you don't have to throw away all of your conventional cotton clothing just yet, unless it causes an
allergic reaction. However, we all might do well to request that future clothing and linen purchases of cotton be of the organic variety. If the demand increases, more fields will be raised organically, resulting in health benefits for the environment and the workers and residents near the fields, as well as for all of us who consume cottonseed oil in foods.
What's in your clothing today? Be informed; it does make a difference.
For further information:
(http://ezinearticles.com/?Organic-Cotton---Am-I-Bothered?&id=650235)
(http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6347.cfm)
(http://www.bioline.org.br/request?dv05081)
(http://www.checnet.org/healthehouse/chemicals/chemicals-detail2.asp?M...)
About the author
Cathy Sherman is a freelance writer with a major interest in natural health and in encouraging others to take responsibility for their health. She can be reached through www.devardoc.com.Tuesday, July 3, 2012
A New Satellite Tool Tracks Deforestation
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/a-new-satellite-tool-tracks-deforestation/
http://www.terra-i.org/Karolina Argote/Louis ReymondinThe Terra-I satellite tool maps deforestation in nearly real time.
An international team of researchers presented a new tool at the Rio+20 sustainability conference last week: the first satellite system
for monitoring deforestation across Latin America in nearly real time.
While such programs have existed in Brazil for several years, the
program, called Terra-I, fills a much-needed gap for some smaller Latin countries that are losing forests at an equal or higher rate.
“Everyone more or less understands maps,” said Mark Mulligan, a geographer at King’s College London and one of the project’s designers. “Having dynamic maps that show where forest loss is occurring is more effective than statistics you always hear about — ‘we’ve lost another patch of forest the size of Wales.’ ” Now, he said, people can visualize exactly where and how quickly that forest was felled, including which towns or protected areas that it lay near.
The project is a collaboration, involving Dr. Mulligan; a graduate student, Louis Reymondin; the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia; the Nature Conservancy; and the School of Engineering and Management of Vaud in Switzerland.
Using NASA’s Modis satellite sensor, it depicts land changes every 16 days at a resolution of 250 square meters (about 2,700 square feet) on the ground. The constantly updated maps are freely available online as a simple overlay on a Google map or formatted for more sophisticated Web mapping software. “People familiar with Google Maps can just look down at their own areas,” Dr. Mulligan said. “And we provide the data so others who have methods for manipulating geodata can actually do further things with the data than we’ve done.”
Preliminary results revealed that the effects of deforestation in parts of Colombia have more than quadrupled, increasing by 340 percent since 2004. More than a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of forest have been felled in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region. “I think the Gran Chaco results are quite surprising — there’s much greater deforestation than we expected,” Dr. Mulligan said.
For Terra-I to work, the researchers had to train the system to differentiate between seasonal changes in vegetation and human-induced impacts. They developed a computational neural network and taught the program to recognize those changes with old data from 2004 to 2005.
Brazil in particular was a good starting point for teaching the machine, since large swaths of land often change from all forest to no forest. From there, the scientists are refining the system to distinguish between visual obstacles like cloud cover and flooded rivers and to home in on more sporadic deforestation.
In many parts of the world, the details of what’s being cut where and when are splotchy, making managing a given patch of forest — let alone an entire country’s holdings — tricky. Dr. Mulligan and his colleagues hope the new tool will help governments, conservationists and those drafting climate-related policies to accurately assess landscape changes and make decisions — how to balance livelihoods and food security with biodiversity conservation, for example, or how to design more eco-efficient agriculture.
Now that monitoring for Latin America is up and running, the team is working on systems for Asia and Africa. Those areas are proving more challenging, though: forests there often occur in disconnected patches rather than one green blanket, and deforestation tends to be carried out by small-scale individual operations rather than large corporations.
Still, they are working on methods to improve their algorithms so they can better function in an African or Asian context. They are also brainstorming on ways to bolster their computing power, since continuously running an analysis of each pixel of data taken every 250 square meters on the continental scale is “hugely computationally intensive,” Dr. Mulligan said.
The Rio+20 attendees and others seemed to respond favorably to Terra-I’s debut, Dr. Mulligan said, with the Web site logging around 2,300 hits on the first day of the conference. “The best way to improve a system is to get people to use it,” he said, although so far most people have just taken a quick look. “It takes time for people to come back after figuring out, O.K., now what can I do with it?”
A New Satellite Tool Tracks Deforestation
By RACHEL NUWERhttp://www.terra-i.org/Karolina Argote/Louis ReymondinThe Terra-I satellite tool maps deforestation in nearly real time.“Everyone more or less understands maps,” said Mark Mulligan, a geographer at King’s College London and one of the project’s designers. “Having dynamic maps that show where forest loss is occurring is more effective than statistics you always hear about — ‘we’ve lost another patch of forest the size of Wales.’ ” Now, he said, people can visualize exactly where and how quickly that forest was felled, including which towns or protected areas that it lay near.
The project is a collaboration, involving Dr. Mulligan; a graduate student, Louis Reymondin; the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia; the Nature Conservancy; and the School of Engineering and Management of Vaud in Switzerland.
Using NASA’s Modis satellite sensor, it depicts land changes every 16 days at a resolution of 250 square meters (about 2,700 square feet) on the ground. The constantly updated maps are freely available online as a simple overlay on a Google map or formatted for more sophisticated Web mapping software. “People familiar with Google Maps can just look down at their own areas,” Dr. Mulligan said. “And we provide the data so others who have methods for manipulating geodata can actually do further things with the data than we’ve done.”
Preliminary results revealed that the effects of deforestation in parts of Colombia have more than quadrupled, increasing by 340 percent since 2004. More than a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of forest have been felled in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region. “I think the Gran Chaco results are quite surprising — there’s much greater deforestation than we expected,” Dr. Mulligan said.
For Terra-I to work, the researchers had to train the system to differentiate between seasonal changes in vegetation and human-induced impacts. They developed a computational neural network and taught the program to recognize those changes with old data from 2004 to 2005.
Brazil in particular was a good starting point for teaching the machine, since large swaths of land often change from all forest to no forest. From there, the scientists are refining the system to distinguish between visual obstacles like cloud cover and flooded rivers and to home in on more sporadic deforestation.
In many parts of the world, the details of what’s being cut where and when are splotchy, making managing a given patch of forest — let alone an entire country’s holdings — tricky. Dr. Mulligan and his colleagues hope the new tool will help governments, conservationists and those drafting climate-related policies to accurately assess landscape changes and make decisions — how to balance livelihoods and food security with biodiversity conservation, for example, or how to design more eco-efficient agriculture.
Now that monitoring for Latin America is up and running, the team is working on systems for Asia and Africa. Those areas are proving more challenging, though: forests there often occur in disconnected patches rather than one green blanket, and deforestation tends to be carried out by small-scale individual operations rather than large corporations.
Still, they are working on methods to improve their algorithms so they can better function in an African or Asian context. They are also brainstorming on ways to bolster their computing power, since continuously running an analysis of each pixel of data taken every 250 square meters on the continental scale is “hugely computationally intensive,” Dr. Mulligan said.
The Rio+20 attendees and others seemed to respond favorably to Terra-I’s debut, Dr. Mulligan said, with the Web site logging around 2,300 hits on the first day of the conference. “The best way to improve a system is to get people to use it,” he said, although so far most people have just taken a quick look. “It takes time for people to come back after figuring out, O.K., now what can I do with it?”
Monday, June 18, 2012
Monsanto
Coming soon after France bans GMO maize, WikiLeaks cables expose details of 'military-style trade wars' against countries who reject Monsanto GMOs.
France banned the Monsanto MON 810 "Yieldgard" maize due to environmental and health concerns. And now the European Union is stepping in to re-secure Monsanto's presence in that country, against the will of the nation itself.
Read more: http://
__________
US House biotech proposal would bypass courts:
* Provision would muzzle judges, says biotech critic
* Court cases on GMO crops can run for years
* USDA proposes deregulation of GMO sugar beets
WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - A provision in a U.S. House bill would allow farmers to grow genetically modified crops while court battles are under way to decide if the plants are safe, said a biotech skeptic on Tuesday, calling the idea an unprecedented muzzle on federal judges. http://af.reuters.com/
_________
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has warned that the public should avoid genetically modified (GM) foods, stating, "There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation."
A large number of studies and incidents have implicated GM foods in a wide variety of health problems, including accelerated aging, immune dysfunction, insulin disorders, organ damage and reproductive disruption.
For example, female rats fed a diet of GM soy experienced a drastically higher infant death rate, and their surviving infants were smaller and less fertile than the offspring of rats fed on a non-GM soy diet. Male rats fed the GM soy had their testicles change from pink to blue, and the GM soy was also observed to damage the DNA of sperm and embryos. Fertility problems such as abortion, infertility, premature delivery, prolapsed uteri, infant death, and even delivery of unformed infants (bags of water) have been observed in farm animals fed GM cottonseed and corn.
Animals consuming crops that have been genetically modified to produce the pesticide Bt (approved for human consumption in the United States) have died by the thousands, while animals grazing on a non-GM version of the same crops remained unharmed. Upon autopsies, researchers have found black patches in the animals' livers and intestines, internal bleeding and other signs of Bt poisoning. Farm workers in India have begun developing allergic reactions upon handling Bt corn, similar to the effects experienced by people exposed to Bt spraying.
In addition to these risks, GM soy and corn contain significantly higher concentrations of allergens than unmodified varieties. Evidence also suggests that the genetic abnormalities of GM foods may transfer to bacteria in the human gut, thereby exposing people to their detrimental effects long after a food has been consumed.
Yet in spite of all this evidence and the prevalence of GM crops in the U.S. food supply not a single clinical trial of any GM crop has ever been published.
"The experiments simply haven't been done and we now have become the guinea pigs," said Canadian geneticist David Suzuki. "Anyone that says, 'Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,' I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying."
Learn more: http://
— with Steve Moats.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Nos comptes Facebook sont, je vous le confirme, observés par la Sureté du Québec
En allant assister à la période de questions à l’Assemblée nationale
ce matin, comme il m’est arrivé de le faire plusieurs fois depuis le
vote de la loi 78, le garçon à l’accueil m’a fait patienter sous des
prétextes de problèmes de système informatique.
Après avoir attendu une douzaine de minutes, le chef de la sécurité du Parlement est venu me voir en m’interpellant à peu près de cette façon :
« Monsieur Lapointe, mon nom est ********* de la sûreté du Québec. Nous voulons vous aviser que nous savons que vous avez, via Facebook, incité les gens à venir à l’Assemblée nationale pour assister à la période de questions. Y’a t’il d’autres personnes qui vous accompagnent aujourd’hui ? Vous savez que nous voyons à peu près tout ce qui se trouvent sur Facebook ? »
Moi : « Non je ne savais pas et non, personne ne m'accompagne. Je viens toujours ici seul et j’exerce simplement un de mes droits qui est celui d’assister aux travaux parlementaires et j’ai oui, je ne m'en cacherai pas, utilisé Facebook pour informer les gens de ce droit qu’ils ont et qui est le leur. »
Lui : « Sachez que nous vous contrôlerons de la sorte à chacune de vous visite et que si vous enfreignez le code comportemental de l’Assemblée nous vous en interdirons l’accès pour toujours. »
Chose dont je suis déjà bien informée comme vous pouvez vous imaginer.
Et juste comme ça, tout dernièrement une femme a passée sa journée en prison pour avoir lue à haute voix 1984 de George Orwell dans le métro à Montréal...
Bref, pour vous dire que oui, nos comptes Facebook sont, je vous le confirme, observés par la Sureté du Québec et qu’ils restent seulement trois périodes de questions d’ici la fin des travaux parlementaires. En effet, ceux-ci se terminent vendredi.
Et oui, les élus s’en vont pour l’été et laisseront la situation politique telle qu'elle est semble t'il.
Je vous rappelle qu’il y a 66 places pour permettre aux citoyens d'assister aux travaux parlementaires.
Voici le numéro pour réserver votre places : (418) 643-7239.
La période de questions est à 9h45 demain, jeudi et vendredi.
À 15h30 aujourd’hui il restait 4 places pour mercredi, 27 places pour jeudi et 48 places pour vendredi.
Et étrangement tout cela me rappelle d’ailleurs que dernièrement mon téléphone cellulaire (qui est flambant neuf) fait vraiment de drôles de bruits d’interférences et d’interruption de service…
Christian Lapointe
Citoyen du Québec
https://www.facebook.com/notes/th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-p%C3%A9ril/nos-comptes-facebook-sont-je-vous-le-confirme-observ%C3%A9s-par-la-suret%C3%A9-du-qu%C3%A9bec/10150969787734653
Après avoir attendu une douzaine de minutes, le chef de la sécurité du Parlement est venu me voir en m’interpellant à peu près de cette façon :
« Monsieur Lapointe, mon nom est ********* de la sûreté du Québec. Nous voulons vous aviser que nous savons que vous avez, via Facebook, incité les gens à venir à l’Assemblée nationale pour assister à la période de questions. Y’a t’il d’autres personnes qui vous accompagnent aujourd’hui ? Vous savez que nous voyons à peu près tout ce qui se trouvent sur Facebook ? »
Moi : « Non je ne savais pas et non, personne ne m'accompagne. Je viens toujours ici seul et j’exerce simplement un de mes droits qui est celui d’assister aux travaux parlementaires et j’ai oui, je ne m'en cacherai pas, utilisé Facebook pour informer les gens de ce droit qu’ils ont et qui est le leur. »
Lui : « Sachez que nous vous contrôlerons de la sorte à chacune de vous visite et que si vous enfreignez le code comportemental de l’Assemblée nous vous en interdirons l’accès pour toujours. »
Chose dont je suis déjà bien informée comme vous pouvez vous imaginer.
Et juste comme ça, tout dernièrement une femme a passée sa journée en prison pour avoir lue à haute voix 1984 de George Orwell dans le métro à Montréal...
Bref, pour vous dire que oui, nos comptes Facebook sont, je vous le confirme, observés par la Sureté du Québec et qu’ils restent seulement trois périodes de questions d’ici la fin des travaux parlementaires. En effet, ceux-ci se terminent vendredi.
Et oui, les élus s’en vont pour l’été et laisseront la situation politique telle qu'elle est semble t'il.
Je vous rappelle qu’il y a 66 places pour permettre aux citoyens d'assister aux travaux parlementaires.
Voici le numéro pour réserver votre places : (418) 643-7239.
La période de questions est à 9h45 demain, jeudi et vendredi.
À 15h30 aujourd’hui il restait 4 places pour mercredi, 27 places pour jeudi et 48 places pour vendredi.
Et étrangement tout cela me rappelle d’ailleurs que dernièrement mon téléphone cellulaire (qui est flambant neuf) fait vraiment de drôles de bruits d’interférences et d’interruption de service…
Christian Lapointe
Citoyen du Québec
https://www.facebook.com/notes/th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-p%C3%A9ril/nos-comptes-facebook-sont-je-vous-le-confirme-observ%C3%A9s-par-la-suret%C3%A9-du-qu%C3%A9bec/10150969787734653
Friday, June 1, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The Scores and How Our 2012 Retirement Index Works
This is a qualitative assessment, based on real-world data gathered
on the ground. For each category in our Index, we looked closely at what
matters most to you when you’re considering an overseas retirement
spot—everything from the price of bread to how easy it is to make
friends or stay in touch with family.
We considered a vast range of data points, from the average humidity to the cost of a taxi. And with costs in mind, we examined prices for real estate, rentals, and utilities like water, electricity, and cable TV. We looked at costs for groceries, eating out, even specific medical procedures. We took into account what kind of discounts retirees can get on travel, taxes and entertainment. And we cons
*E&A = Entertainment and Amenities; Inte. = Integration; Infras. = Infrastructure
We considered a vast range of data points, from the average humidity to the cost of a taxi. And with costs in mind, we examined prices for real estate, rentals, and utilities like water, electricity, and cable TV. We looked at costs for groceries, eating out, even specific medical procedures. We took into account what kind of discounts retirees can get on travel, taxes and entertainment. And we cons
| Country | Real Estate | Special Benefits | Cost of Living | Inte. | E&A | Health | Infras. | Climate | Final Scores |
| Ecuador | 97 | 98 | 100 | 95 | 90 | 85 | 80 | 83 | 91.1 |
| Panama | 95 | 100 | 95 | 96 | 96 | 91 | 82 | 68 | 90.4 |
| Mexico | 94 | 91 | 88 | 96 | 96 | 88 | 75 | 89 | 89.6 |
| Malaysia | 94 | 79 | 95 | 95 | 96 | 87 | 91 | 66 | 87.7 |
| Colombia | 93 | 76 | 60 | 92 | 96 | 93 | 84 | 75 | 83.7 |
| New Zealand | 87 | 72 | 69 | 90 | 93 | 84 | 86 | 89 | 83.6 |
| Nicaragua | 92 | 79 | 94 | 89 | 85 | 78 | 63 | 70 | 82.6 |
| Spain | 79 | 68 | 78 | 90 | 93 | 76 | 94 | 81 | 82.1 |
| Thailand | 90 | 68 | 71 | 91 | 97 | 83 | 76 | 75 | 81.4 |
| Honduras | 82 | 89 | 76 | 95 | 96 | 78 | 67 | 63 | 80.7 |
| Uruguay | 91 | 76 | 81 | 87 | 57 | 81 | 83 | 87 | 80.4 |
| Italy | 69 | 74 | 60 | 71 | 98 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 80.3 |
| Brazil | 81 | 87 | 68 | 81 | 99 | 85 | 69 | 71 | 80.2 |
| Ireland | 70 | 90 | 57 | 99 | 91 | 70 | 85 | 79 | 80.2 |
| France | 68 | 75 | 57 | 82 | 100 | 90 | 88 | 90 | 80.1 |
| Costa Rica | 88 | 79 | 65 | 97 | 94 | 83 | 74 | 60 | 80.0 |
| Belize | 80 | 84 | 84 | 100 | 83 | 82 | 70 | 57 | 79.9 |
| Chile | 90 | 73 | 77 | 80 | 93 | 81 | 84 | 61 | 79.8 |
| Dom. Republic | 93 | 68 | 60 | 85 | 89 | 72 | 75 | 72 | 76.8 |
*E&A = Entertainment and Amenities; Inte. = Integration; Infras. = Infrastructure
The World’s Top Retirement Havens in 2012
In the States today, the discussion about retirement orbits around how much less
of it we’re all going to have. While the cost of everything from
healthcare to food swells… incomes, pensions and nest eggs erode,
leaving baby boomers fewer and fewer options for retirement at home.
But look at the right places beyond our borders today, and you’ll find you have more good choices than ever for a comfortable – even a pampered – retirement. In any one of our top 19 havens for 2012, a lifestyle well beyond your reach in the States could be yours for pennies on the dollar.
In this, our annual Global Retirement Index, we bring you the top choices available on the planet today. From beachfront hideaways to arts-rich colonial cities, from cosmopolitan capitals to small highland villages, there’s an overseas haven to fit your fantasy… and your budget.
For our Retirement Index, we only measure the very best havens against one other. So the country last on our list is still the 19th best in the world.
In each of our 2012 top retirement destinations, you’ll find thousands of ordinary folks who’ve not simply salvaged their retirements overseas… but upgraded them.
Take Daphne Newman, who lives in Caribbean Honduras. She’s spending just $1,400 a month to live yards from a white-sand beach on the island of Roatan. Only a three-hour flight from the U.S., English-speaking Roatan with its world-class reef just offshore, is an easy place to make friends and fit in. It lands mid-table in this year’s Index.
Jack Griffin and his wife Margaret have opted, by contrast, for city life in Nicaragua. When the stock market crashed and the value of their home in the States plummeted by 30%, they began to worry about how to fund their retirement. The final straw came with a 37% hike in their annual health-insurance premium. At age 60, they felt they deserved the retirement they had worked for all their lives, so they found a new home in Managua, the country’s capital.
Today their international medical insurance costs them 62% less than their policy did back home (yet their local hospital is internationally accredited and the doctors speak English).
Retired now without money worries, they spend their days exploring, horseback riding, going to the beach or gym, and doing yoga. They have a full-time maid and a gardener and, says Jack, “We do it all for less than half the cost of a moderate lifestyle back home in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Chuck and Jamie Bilbe, ready to retire in Florida, found themselves in a situation similar to the Griffins’. “We were concerned that our retirement savings wouldn’t see us through, so we began looking overseas for a place where our ever-shrinking nest egg might last longer,” says Chuck. Now they live in Corozal, Belize, their cost of living is much lower than it was in the States, but that’s not the greatest appeal. What they say they like most is the Old-World lifestyle. “Like Florida in the 1950’s,” they say. “We’re eating better, sleeping better and enjoying social activity much more now than we did before.”
It’s not just destinations south of the States that appeal. Pam Griner Leavy and her husband Jim are just two of the more than 100,000 American expats living in France. They’re retired in Paris on a reasonable $3,149 a month. “There are so many things for free here, or reasonably priced…big-city life is good,” says Pam.
In Asia you can live comfortably for less than $1,000 a month on a powder-sand beach in Thailand. Up the budget just a bit and you can afford First-World comforts and conveniences in colonial Penang Island, Malaysia. Keith Hockton and his wife Lisa live there, where they rent a sea-view apartment for $1,000 a month – it comes with a shared pool and gym – and they eat out five nights a week, keep a small sailboat, enjoy cycling through the botanic gardens. Their total budget is $1,719 a month.
In Brazil, expats with $2,150 a month can live a block from the country’s best beaches in Fortaleza. In Boquete, Panama, Karl and Liz Parker need just $2,000 a month to fund their life in a place that provides lavish highland views in a near-perfect climate. Panama’s retiree-benefit program provides them discounts on nearly everything, too, which helps keep their costs down.
In Cuenca, Ecuador, Douglas Willis, his wife and two children live on just $1,000 a month. In Costa Rica’s Central Valley, Sharon and Lee Harris bought a townhouse in Heredia for $75,000, and pay only $40 a month for healthcare coverage as members of the Caja, the country’s excellent national healthcare system.
Wherever the community they’ve chosen is—beach, city, highland, valley—these expats all have one thing in common: They’re living the lives they’ve always wanted for much less than they ever dreamt they could.
Think about it this way: If you had $20,000 a month to retire on—you could live lavishly pretty much anywhere on the planet. But what we’re interested in here are the places where you can live that lifestyle on one-tenth the budget…
Places where you can have a maid clean for you…hire a gardener… wake up to a view…have great health care, eat well, enjoy the finer things in life—for less than $2,000 a month. You may be surprised how many there are…
This 2012 Retirement Index covers all the bases, revealing a wealth of choice when it comes to comfortable retirement living abroad. Choices you don’t have to be wealthy to take advantage of.
The Cheapest Places to Retire
Ecuador is the clear winner in our cost of living category. A couple watching their spending here can live well on $800 a month. And even if you push the boat out you’ll find it hard to spend more than $1,500.
Patricia Farmer and her husband Ron retired to Bahia on the country’s coast. After 10 months living there, they know what things cost. “It averages out to be a fifth the cost of living in California. We live in a nice highrise condo overlooking the ocean. With two spoiled cats in need of gourmet food, our love of fine dark chocolate, good Chilean wines, and eating out with friends, we enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle—even more luxurious than we had in California. You can live on less, no doubt, but our current budget is $1,500,” says Patricia.
But it’s not just Ecuador that’s cheap. In Panama’s highland haven of Boquete, expat Robin Cook rents a three-bed apartment for just $450 a month. On the Pacific Coast in Coronado you’ll eat out for $7…in the heart of the capital $1,500 covers you for everything…
In Nicaragua, expats in the colonial city of Granada are spending around $1,200 a month. A small house can be $500 to $1,000 a month to rent. You can get a fantastic steak dinner in the finest restaurant for around $13. Regular fare at typical restaurants runs about half that and a “local” meal is $2 to $3. The local beers, which are good, run from $0.75 to $1.50.
On the white-sand beaches of the Dominican Republic $2,000 a month means living in a luxury apartment, having a maid, heath care…everything. And of course, it’s easily done for less…
Where Are The Best Retiree Benefits?
It’s almost shocking just how many special benefits, discounts and breaks you can gain access to as a retiree overseas. In countries like Ireland, Brazil or Chile, for example, you’ll get discounts on public transport, utilities, importing your household goods and more.
But some countries stand out for the amount and quality of benefits they offer foreign retirees. Panama tops the category with an organized program of discounts and perks called the pensionado. The program is open to foreigners and there’s no minimum age requirement.
With it you have serious discounts, money off that makes a big difference to your costs. Like 20% off any professional services used in Panama; 50% off for movies, theaters and sporting events; a 30% discount on public transport, 25% off the price of food eaten in a sit down restaurant; 15% off in fast food joints, 15% off in hospitals and private clinics…25% domestic flights on COPA…the list goes on…
Ecuador, too, has excellent benefits, though they’re not in an organized package like the pensionado. You get 50% off public and private transportation within the country (including the Galápagos); 50% off tickets for all cultural and sporting events, including movies; 50% off electric and water bills (below certain usage levels); and free domestic landline phone service (does not include long distance and other services). You’ll also get 50% off international airfares on Taca, Copa, or AeroGal for round-trip flights originating in Ecuador. And when you’re over 65, you pay lower income tax.
And there are other countries with special programs, like Belize, which has the Qualified Retired Persons (QRP) program, and then there’s the Malaysia My Second Home program, open to all foreigners wishing to retire to one of Asia’s best-value destinations… Every country on our list has some “retiree benefits” to offer.
The Best-Value Real Estate
There’s a lot to consider when buying a home…especially one overseas. First thing you want to know is how much it’s going to cost you, and again, Ecuador offers some of the best-value real estate in the world. Fifty thousand will get a penthouse suite in a colonial mountain town or a beachfront condo.
In fact, it’s so affordable that some expats chose both. Ron and Terresa Moore wanted mountain and beachfront retirement. So they bought a two-bed condo in the Andean town of Cotacachi and a new two-bed condo on the beach in Crucita—grand total $111,000.
And in Panama you’ll find bargains, too. Karl and Liz Parker both a home among the pines of Alto Boquete for $100,000. Marvin and Joanne Riddell bought their 1,650-square-foot beachfront condo in La Barqueta for $180,000…fully furnished. And in Panama City you’ll find beautiful apartments from $90,000. Then there’s Mexico where in places like Tulum, on the country’s Caribbean coast you’ll find properties from $167,000.
We didn’t just look at real estate prices. We always recommend you rent before you buy so we also checked out rental costs. Again Ecuador is a front runner and you can rent a two-bed apartment on the beach for $500 a month or a condo in colonial Cuenca for $500.
In Thailand, about $500 a month will get you a really nice, liveable place just about anywhere in the country. IL contributor, Jason Gaspero pays just $222 a month for his beachside bungalow with air-con, hot water, WiFi, and a refrigerator.
Easiest Places to Integrate
Obviously language is the biggest factor in how easily you can make friends and build up a new network in your overseas home. That means English-speaking countries like Belize, Ireland and New Zealand do well…but other places get high marks, too, in parts of Panama, Ecuador and Mexico you’ll get by in English, and in Malaysia and Thailand you’ll find plenty of locals happy to try out their English.
Of course, in lots of places there’s already an established expat community to get involved with. There are over 80 interest groups around Lake Chapala, home to Mexico’s biggest expat community. Living in Paris, your high-school French might be rusty, but there are dozens of long-established expat clubs happy to welcome new members. The expat communities of places like Cuenca, Ecuador, and Granada, Nicaragua, have changed the face of those cities, and you’ll find making new friends and establishing yourself in the community a lot easier than you think.
Then there’s the million-dollar question—exactly how friendly are the locals? Well, the answer varies from “very” to “extremely” with the locals in all our havens happy to help a stranger in a strange land. Making an effort with the language, even just “buenas dias” or “merci” will earn you mega-brownie points. And remember, making new friends, learning about different cultures is often the best—and least planned—aspect of an overseas retirement.
But what about those home comforts? There’s nothing like peanut butter, being able to catch a ball game and pumpkin soup mix to help you settle in. For our Index we gauged just how difficult it was to find that packet of Cheerios or a genuine hotdog. You’ll find them in most places, although as imports they’re usually more expensive than local brands.
The Most Exciting Retirement Haven
Let’s get this out of the way…none of our picks are boring places, it’s just that some have more to offer than others in terms of the range of amenities and entertainment options to keep you busy.
If variety is the spice of retired life, than Paris, Panama City, the expat communities of Mexico, Medellin in Colombia, and Bangkok, Thailand, should be top of your list. Here you’ll find something different every night…choose from catching a concert, seeing a movie or eating out with friends for a fraction of the cost back home.
“Thai food is amazing,” says Jason Gaspero, “But if you get tired of it, you can find restaurants with food from all over the world.” In Medellin’s El Poblado district you’ll find Japanese, French, seafood and Italian restaurants within a block of each other.
In Malaysia you’ll catch a movie in English for $4…before it comes out in the U.S. In Punta del Este, Uruguay, artists like Shakira don’t just perform there, they live there, too.
If you love the sea, then Placencia and Amergris Caye in Belize, Roatan, Honduras, and Panama’s Caribbean Coast make sense. Scuba diving, fishing, sailing, kayaking and snorkelling, they’ve got it all. And if surfing is your passion, catch the best waves on Nicaragua and Costa Rica’s Pacific Coasts.
For foodies in love with culture, Spain and Italy offer a menu of delights unmatched anywhere else, even the smallest villages ooze history and art is everywhere. You’ll find delicious three-course meals for less than $20 in both countries, too.
Of course, you might be content with amazing new views, meeting friends down the boardwalk and a homecooked meal. “If you’re looking for exciting night clubs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or a night at the opera, Bahia, Ecuador, is not for you. But for peace, simplicity, a dish of Pingüino ice cream, and soothing natural beauty, this is heaven,” says Patricia Farmer. “You would be hard-pressed to find such tranquillity in any beach resort town in the U.S. Even the wealthiest people inhabiting fortress-like beach homes on the hills of Malibu have to spend much of their lives sitting in rush hour traffic, breathing in smog, and feeling the crush and pressures of a type-A culture.”
Healthcare in our Havens
In each of our 19 havens you’ll find first-class hospitals and clinics where care is second-to-none, and the staff are often U.S.-trained. But while the care is similar to the U.S. in many places, it’s a lot cheaper than back home. You’ll literally save thousands on procedures if you need them, and hundreds on prescriptions and doctors’ visits.
For example, a visit to the doctor in Nicaragua is $15, in Panama its $10 and in France house calls are standard. In fact, in many of our choices doctors put a value on the personal touch. “Our doctor in Nicaragua speaks English and we have his personal cell number for emergencies. Hard to imagine that happening in the U.S.” says Darrell Bushnell.
In many of our picks the public health care systems provide wonderful low-cost care. In Costa Rica the public health care system called the Caja, is part of a socialized medical system. Living in the Central Valley, Sharon and Lee Harris are members. “It provides economical and excellent medical care as well as prescriptions for only $40 per month for both of us. There is a Caja clinic in every neighborhood. There are also many excellent private hospitals in the Central Valley and state-run Caja hospitals in every province,” says Sharon.
The Ecuadorian government guarantees senior citizens access to free health care and medication and exemption from notary and registration fees. “All expats are able to participate in the Ecuador Social Security medical program,” explains Jack Moss who, with his wife Debbie, retired to Cotacachi two years ago. “The premium is about $57 a month, and there is no co-pay or deductible for physician visits, hospitalization, medications, or dental visits.”
Even just living overseas can improve your health, as Lucky and Erin Ivy point out on page 11 of this issue. On the sandy beaches of Placencia, Belize, they found a stress-free life that means they sleep better, and feel healthier, than ever before.
The Best Retirement Infrastructure
These days, you can have a U.S. phone number ring in your home overseas for less than $20 a year. Through online services like Skype, you can video chat with friends and family back home every day if you want to— for free. The world is more connected than ever, and that makes exploring it so much easier than it ever has been.
Good Internet coverage is a necessity most expats today are reluctant to do without. In all our havens, rest assured: You can get online. Malaysia, Italy and France have higher levels of Internet penetration than other countries—but there’s access in all of them. Quality roads and good cell phone coverage matter, too. Now, you may not want to drive, and in that case, you’ll want access to a good public transport system.
In Paris, expat Jim Leavy says he’s delighted by the great public transportation…in Cotacachi, Ecuador, IL editors Dan Prescher and Suzan Haskins get by with taxis and buses. When the mood strikes, Patricia and Ron Farmer can explore the sandy beaches of the Ecuadorian coast by taxi—$35 for the whole day. And what about direct, cheap flights home to the U.S. to visit family? You don’t even have to fly to get to Mexico; you can drive. It takes less time to fly from Houston to Quito or to Panama City than it does to fly from New York to Los Angeles.
The Best Climate
You’ll find lots of climate choice in our top retirement havens. Sharon Hiebing says she practically lives in tank tops and shorts now, and only occasionally needs a light jacket or close-toed shoes. Ever since her move to San Ignacio, Belize, Sharon has been enchanted by the climate. She’s not alone. Thousands of expats have turned in their snow shovels for good.
In places where the weather is warm year-round, not only do you eliminate the need for heavy winter clothes, but you gain in quality of life. Better weather means you’re outside more. And that often translates to “healthier.” Plus it usually means lower utility bills, too.
In Belize you’ll find an average temperature of 80 F, and it isn’t even one of our highest scoring havens in this category. Because pretty much all of our picks offer a perfect climate for part of the year, we concentrated on the ones that are the best year round.
But you could opt for the part-time strategy—capitalizing on good weather in different parts of the world. That’s what Kelly and Angela Grams do. They live lakeside in Canada May to September, then head south to their second home in warm-weather Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, October to December. Then every January to April they rent out their Mexican condo to cover their costs and spend those three months traveling.
How to Know You’re Safe Overseas
The expats living in each of our top havens report they feel safe. In fact, often they say they feel safer than they did back in the States. That’s not to say there’s no petty crime or that nothing bad ever happens.
But just as you wouldn’t dismiss the idea of owning a condo on Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile because of the crime stats on that city’s south side…you shouldn’t reject a town we recommend in a country where you can retire well for less…because you remember hearing something about that nation being “dangerous.” Old stereotypes die hard. You’re best served by seeing a place for yourself. Talk to expats on the ground. See how comfortable you feel there. We predict: You’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Why Ecuador is the World’s Best Retirement Haven
No matter where you choose to live in Ecuador, there is no better retirement haven in the world. That’s what our 2012 Global Retirement Index reveals. Across all eight of our crucial categories it scores strongly. It outright wins two. And nowhere does it fail to live up to its reputation.
Ecuador has the cheapest costs of living, the best-value real estate, and it presents you with some of the most diverse options of any country. Live in the colonial splendor of its cities for less than $1,000 a month…buy a beachfront condo for $60,000, with a view of the crashing Pacific…explore the country’s Amazonian jungles…live comfortably in thriving expat communities…or with friendly, welcoming locals.
The special benefits you can avail yourself of as a retiree are second only to those offered by Panama, and they don’t trail by much. You’ll find world-class healthcare at a fraction of the costs back home, along with doctors trained in the U.S. who speak English.
You’ll have dinner out for $2.50, an hour long massage for $25…a beer costs $0.85, and if you want to keep busy with work, it’s one of the best countries for an expat start-up.
But look at the right places beyond our borders today, and you’ll find you have more good choices than ever for a comfortable – even a pampered – retirement. In any one of our top 19 havens for 2012, a lifestyle well beyond your reach in the States could be yours for pennies on the dollar.
In this, our annual Global Retirement Index, we bring you the top choices available on the planet today. From beachfront hideaways to arts-rich colonial cities, from cosmopolitan capitals to small highland villages, there’s an overseas haven to fit your fantasy… and your budget.
For our Retirement Index, we only measure the very best havens against one other. So the country last on our list is still the 19th best in the world.
In each of our 2012 top retirement destinations, you’ll find thousands of ordinary folks who’ve not simply salvaged their retirements overseas… but upgraded them.
Take Daphne Newman, who lives in Caribbean Honduras. She’s spending just $1,400 a month to live yards from a white-sand beach on the island of Roatan. Only a three-hour flight from the U.S., English-speaking Roatan with its world-class reef just offshore, is an easy place to make friends and fit in. It lands mid-table in this year’s Index.
Jack Griffin and his wife Margaret have opted, by contrast, for city life in Nicaragua. When the stock market crashed and the value of their home in the States plummeted by 30%, they began to worry about how to fund their retirement. The final straw came with a 37% hike in their annual health-insurance premium. At age 60, they felt they deserved the retirement they had worked for all their lives, so they found a new home in Managua, the country’s capital.
Today their international medical insurance costs them 62% less than their policy did back home (yet their local hospital is internationally accredited and the doctors speak English).
Retired now without money worries, they spend their days exploring, horseback riding, going to the beach or gym, and doing yoga. They have a full-time maid and a gardener and, says Jack, “We do it all for less than half the cost of a moderate lifestyle back home in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Chuck and Jamie Bilbe, ready to retire in Florida, found themselves in a situation similar to the Griffins’. “We were concerned that our retirement savings wouldn’t see us through, so we began looking overseas for a place where our ever-shrinking nest egg might last longer,” says Chuck. Now they live in Corozal, Belize, their cost of living is much lower than it was in the States, but that’s not the greatest appeal. What they say they like most is the Old-World lifestyle. “Like Florida in the 1950’s,” they say. “We’re eating better, sleeping better and enjoying social activity much more now than we did before.”
It’s not just destinations south of the States that appeal. Pam Griner Leavy and her husband Jim are just two of the more than 100,000 American expats living in France. They’re retired in Paris on a reasonable $3,149 a month. “There are so many things for free here, or reasonably priced…big-city life is good,” says Pam.
In Asia you can live comfortably for less than $1,000 a month on a powder-sand beach in Thailand. Up the budget just a bit and you can afford First-World comforts and conveniences in colonial Penang Island, Malaysia. Keith Hockton and his wife Lisa live there, where they rent a sea-view apartment for $1,000 a month – it comes with a shared pool and gym – and they eat out five nights a week, keep a small sailboat, enjoy cycling through the botanic gardens. Their total budget is $1,719 a month.
In Brazil, expats with $2,150 a month can live a block from the country’s best beaches in Fortaleza. In Boquete, Panama, Karl and Liz Parker need just $2,000 a month to fund their life in a place that provides lavish highland views in a near-perfect climate. Panama’s retiree-benefit program provides them discounts on nearly everything, too, which helps keep their costs down.
In Cuenca, Ecuador, Douglas Willis, his wife and two children live on just $1,000 a month. In Costa Rica’s Central Valley, Sharon and Lee Harris bought a townhouse in Heredia for $75,000, and pay only $40 a month for healthcare coverage as members of the Caja, the country’s excellent national healthcare system.
Wherever the community they’ve chosen is—beach, city, highland, valley—these expats all have one thing in common: They’re living the lives they’ve always wanted for much less than they ever dreamt they could.
Think about it this way: If you had $20,000 a month to retire on—you could live lavishly pretty much anywhere on the planet. But what we’re interested in here are the places where you can live that lifestyle on one-tenth the budget…
Places where you can have a maid clean for you…hire a gardener… wake up to a view…have great health care, eat well, enjoy the finer things in life—for less than $2,000 a month. You may be surprised how many there are…
This 2012 Retirement Index covers all the bases, revealing a wealth of choice when it comes to comfortable retirement living abroad. Choices you don’t have to be wealthy to take advantage of.
The Cheapest Places to Retire
Ecuador is the clear winner in our cost of living category. A couple watching their spending here can live well on $800 a month. And even if you push the boat out you’ll find it hard to spend more than $1,500.
Patricia Farmer and her husband Ron retired to Bahia on the country’s coast. After 10 months living there, they know what things cost. “It averages out to be a fifth the cost of living in California. We live in a nice highrise condo overlooking the ocean. With two spoiled cats in need of gourmet food, our love of fine dark chocolate, good Chilean wines, and eating out with friends, we enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle—even more luxurious than we had in California. You can live on less, no doubt, but our current budget is $1,500,” says Patricia.
But it’s not just Ecuador that’s cheap. In Panama’s highland haven of Boquete, expat Robin Cook rents a three-bed apartment for just $450 a month. On the Pacific Coast in Coronado you’ll eat out for $7…in the heart of the capital $1,500 covers you for everything…
In Nicaragua, expats in the colonial city of Granada are spending around $1,200 a month. A small house can be $500 to $1,000 a month to rent. You can get a fantastic steak dinner in the finest restaurant for around $13. Regular fare at typical restaurants runs about half that and a “local” meal is $2 to $3. The local beers, which are good, run from $0.75 to $1.50.
On the white-sand beaches of the Dominican Republic $2,000 a month means living in a luxury apartment, having a maid, heath care…everything. And of course, it’s easily done for less…
Where Are The Best Retiree Benefits?
It’s almost shocking just how many special benefits, discounts and breaks you can gain access to as a retiree overseas. In countries like Ireland, Brazil or Chile, for example, you’ll get discounts on public transport, utilities, importing your household goods and more.
But some countries stand out for the amount and quality of benefits they offer foreign retirees. Panama tops the category with an organized program of discounts and perks called the pensionado. The program is open to foreigners and there’s no minimum age requirement.
With it you have serious discounts, money off that makes a big difference to your costs. Like 20% off any professional services used in Panama; 50% off for movies, theaters and sporting events; a 30% discount on public transport, 25% off the price of food eaten in a sit down restaurant; 15% off in fast food joints, 15% off in hospitals and private clinics…25% domestic flights on COPA…the list goes on…
Ecuador, too, has excellent benefits, though they’re not in an organized package like the pensionado. You get 50% off public and private transportation within the country (including the Galápagos); 50% off tickets for all cultural and sporting events, including movies; 50% off electric and water bills (below certain usage levels); and free domestic landline phone service (does not include long distance and other services). You’ll also get 50% off international airfares on Taca, Copa, or AeroGal for round-trip flights originating in Ecuador. And when you’re over 65, you pay lower income tax.
And there are other countries with special programs, like Belize, which has the Qualified Retired Persons (QRP) program, and then there’s the Malaysia My Second Home program, open to all foreigners wishing to retire to one of Asia’s best-value destinations… Every country on our list has some “retiree benefits” to offer.
The Best-Value Real Estate
There’s a lot to consider when buying a home…especially one overseas. First thing you want to know is how much it’s going to cost you, and again, Ecuador offers some of the best-value real estate in the world. Fifty thousand will get a penthouse suite in a colonial mountain town or a beachfront condo.
In fact, it’s so affordable that some expats chose both. Ron and Terresa Moore wanted mountain and beachfront retirement. So they bought a two-bed condo in the Andean town of Cotacachi and a new two-bed condo on the beach in Crucita—grand total $111,000.
And in Panama you’ll find bargains, too. Karl and Liz Parker both a home among the pines of Alto Boquete for $100,000. Marvin and Joanne Riddell bought their 1,650-square-foot beachfront condo in La Barqueta for $180,000…fully furnished. And in Panama City you’ll find beautiful apartments from $90,000. Then there’s Mexico where in places like Tulum, on the country’s Caribbean coast you’ll find properties from $167,000.
We didn’t just look at real estate prices. We always recommend you rent before you buy so we also checked out rental costs. Again Ecuador is a front runner and you can rent a two-bed apartment on the beach for $500 a month or a condo in colonial Cuenca for $500.
In Thailand, about $500 a month will get you a really nice, liveable place just about anywhere in the country. IL contributor, Jason Gaspero pays just $222 a month for his beachside bungalow with air-con, hot water, WiFi, and a refrigerator.
Easiest Places to Integrate
Obviously language is the biggest factor in how easily you can make friends and build up a new network in your overseas home. That means English-speaking countries like Belize, Ireland and New Zealand do well…but other places get high marks, too, in parts of Panama, Ecuador and Mexico you’ll get by in English, and in Malaysia and Thailand you’ll find plenty of locals happy to try out their English.
Of course, in lots of places there’s already an established expat community to get involved with. There are over 80 interest groups around Lake Chapala, home to Mexico’s biggest expat community. Living in Paris, your high-school French might be rusty, but there are dozens of long-established expat clubs happy to welcome new members. The expat communities of places like Cuenca, Ecuador, and Granada, Nicaragua, have changed the face of those cities, and you’ll find making new friends and establishing yourself in the community a lot easier than you think.
Then there’s the million-dollar question—exactly how friendly are the locals? Well, the answer varies from “very” to “extremely” with the locals in all our havens happy to help a stranger in a strange land. Making an effort with the language, even just “buenas dias” or “merci” will earn you mega-brownie points. And remember, making new friends, learning about different cultures is often the best—and least planned—aspect of an overseas retirement.
But what about those home comforts? There’s nothing like peanut butter, being able to catch a ball game and pumpkin soup mix to help you settle in. For our Index we gauged just how difficult it was to find that packet of Cheerios or a genuine hotdog. You’ll find them in most places, although as imports they’re usually more expensive than local brands.
The Most Exciting Retirement Haven
Let’s get this out of the way…none of our picks are boring places, it’s just that some have more to offer than others in terms of the range of amenities and entertainment options to keep you busy.
If variety is the spice of retired life, than Paris, Panama City, the expat communities of Mexico, Medellin in Colombia, and Bangkok, Thailand, should be top of your list. Here you’ll find something different every night…choose from catching a concert, seeing a movie or eating out with friends for a fraction of the cost back home.
“Thai food is amazing,” says Jason Gaspero, “But if you get tired of it, you can find restaurants with food from all over the world.” In Medellin’s El Poblado district you’ll find Japanese, French, seafood and Italian restaurants within a block of each other.
In Malaysia you’ll catch a movie in English for $4…before it comes out in the U.S. In Punta del Este, Uruguay, artists like Shakira don’t just perform there, they live there, too.
If you love the sea, then Placencia and Amergris Caye in Belize, Roatan, Honduras, and Panama’s Caribbean Coast make sense. Scuba diving, fishing, sailing, kayaking and snorkelling, they’ve got it all. And if surfing is your passion, catch the best waves on Nicaragua and Costa Rica’s Pacific Coasts.
For foodies in love with culture, Spain and Italy offer a menu of delights unmatched anywhere else, even the smallest villages ooze history and art is everywhere. You’ll find delicious three-course meals for less than $20 in both countries, too.
Of course, you might be content with amazing new views, meeting friends down the boardwalk and a homecooked meal. “If you’re looking for exciting night clubs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or a night at the opera, Bahia, Ecuador, is not for you. But for peace, simplicity, a dish of Pingüino ice cream, and soothing natural beauty, this is heaven,” says Patricia Farmer. “You would be hard-pressed to find such tranquillity in any beach resort town in the U.S. Even the wealthiest people inhabiting fortress-like beach homes on the hills of Malibu have to spend much of their lives sitting in rush hour traffic, breathing in smog, and feeling the crush and pressures of a type-A culture.”
Healthcare in our Havens
In each of our 19 havens you’ll find first-class hospitals and clinics where care is second-to-none, and the staff are often U.S.-trained. But while the care is similar to the U.S. in many places, it’s a lot cheaper than back home. You’ll literally save thousands on procedures if you need them, and hundreds on prescriptions and doctors’ visits.
For example, a visit to the doctor in Nicaragua is $15, in Panama its $10 and in France house calls are standard. In fact, in many of our choices doctors put a value on the personal touch. “Our doctor in Nicaragua speaks English and we have his personal cell number for emergencies. Hard to imagine that happening in the U.S.” says Darrell Bushnell.
In many of our picks the public health care systems provide wonderful low-cost care. In Costa Rica the public health care system called the Caja, is part of a socialized medical system. Living in the Central Valley, Sharon and Lee Harris are members. “It provides economical and excellent medical care as well as prescriptions for only $40 per month for both of us. There is a Caja clinic in every neighborhood. There are also many excellent private hospitals in the Central Valley and state-run Caja hospitals in every province,” says Sharon.
The Ecuadorian government guarantees senior citizens access to free health care and medication and exemption from notary and registration fees. “All expats are able to participate in the Ecuador Social Security medical program,” explains Jack Moss who, with his wife Debbie, retired to Cotacachi two years ago. “The premium is about $57 a month, and there is no co-pay or deductible for physician visits, hospitalization, medications, or dental visits.”
Even just living overseas can improve your health, as Lucky and Erin Ivy point out on page 11 of this issue. On the sandy beaches of Placencia, Belize, they found a stress-free life that means they sleep better, and feel healthier, than ever before.
The Best Retirement Infrastructure
These days, you can have a U.S. phone number ring in your home overseas for less than $20 a year. Through online services like Skype, you can video chat with friends and family back home every day if you want to— for free. The world is more connected than ever, and that makes exploring it so much easier than it ever has been.
Good Internet coverage is a necessity most expats today are reluctant to do without. In all our havens, rest assured: You can get online. Malaysia, Italy and France have higher levels of Internet penetration than other countries—but there’s access in all of them. Quality roads and good cell phone coverage matter, too. Now, you may not want to drive, and in that case, you’ll want access to a good public transport system.
In Paris, expat Jim Leavy says he’s delighted by the great public transportation…in Cotacachi, Ecuador, IL editors Dan Prescher and Suzan Haskins get by with taxis and buses. When the mood strikes, Patricia and Ron Farmer can explore the sandy beaches of the Ecuadorian coast by taxi—$35 for the whole day. And what about direct, cheap flights home to the U.S. to visit family? You don’t even have to fly to get to Mexico; you can drive. It takes less time to fly from Houston to Quito or to Panama City than it does to fly from New York to Los Angeles.
The Best Climate
You’ll find lots of climate choice in our top retirement havens. Sharon Hiebing says she practically lives in tank tops and shorts now, and only occasionally needs a light jacket or close-toed shoes. Ever since her move to San Ignacio, Belize, Sharon has been enchanted by the climate. She’s not alone. Thousands of expats have turned in their snow shovels for good.
In places where the weather is warm year-round, not only do you eliminate the need for heavy winter clothes, but you gain in quality of life. Better weather means you’re outside more. And that often translates to “healthier.” Plus it usually means lower utility bills, too.
In Belize you’ll find an average temperature of 80 F, and it isn’t even one of our highest scoring havens in this category. Because pretty much all of our picks offer a perfect climate for part of the year, we concentrated on the ones that are the best year round.
But you could opt for the part-time strategy—capitalizing on good weather in different parts of the world. That’s what Kelly and Angela Grams do. They live lakeside in Canada May to September, then head south to their second home in warm-weather Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, October to December. Then every January to April they rent out their Mexican condo to cover their costs and spend those three months traveling.
How to Know You’re Safe Overseas
The expats living in each of our top havens report they feel safe. In fact, often they say they feel safer than they did back in the States. That’s not to say there’s no petty crime or that nothing bad ever happens.
But just as you wouldn’t dismiss the idea of owning a condo on Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile because of the crime stats on that city’s south side…you shouldn’t reject a town we recommend in a country where you can retire well for less…because you remember hearing something about that nation being “dangerous.” Old stereotypes die hard. You’re best served by seeing a place for yourself. Talk to expats on the ground. See how comfortable you feel there. We predict: You’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Why Ecuador is the World’s Best Retirement Haven
No matter where you choose to live in Ecuador, there is no better retirement haven in the world. That’s what our 2012 Global Retirement Index reveals. Across all eight of our crucial categories it scores strongly. It outright wins two. And nowhere does it fail to live up to its reputation.
Ecuador has the cheapest costs of living, the best-value real estate, and it presents you with some of the most diverse options of any country. Live in the colonial splendor of its cities for less than $1,000 a month…buy a beachfront condo for $60,000, with a view of the crashing Pacific…explore the country’s Amazonian jungles…live comfortably in thriving expat communities…or with friendly, welcoming locals.
The special benefits you can avail yourself of as a retiree are second only to those offered by Panama, and they don’t trail by much. You’ll find world-class healthcare at a fraction of the costs back home, along with doctors trained in the U.S. who speak English.
You’ll have dinner out for $2.50, an hour long massage for $25…a beer costs $0.85, and if you want to keep busy with work, it’s one of the best countries for an expat start-up.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Meanwhile at the bluegrass music festival
Meanwhile at the bluegrass music festival -- a little bird comes in and joins the band
Boxer dog doing a drama show
Stella the Boxer dog.
This is what she does when she don't get her way lol
http://www.dogwork.com/sbxd9/#
This is what she does when she don't get her way lol
http://www.dogwork.com/sbxd9/#
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Drague et séduction : Les Québécois en ont assez!
Par France Lécuyer, spécialiste en psychologie (M.A.PS) et infimière
Pour les jeunes de 18 à 35 ans, trouver l'âme soeur n'est pas de tout repos. Lasses d'espérer que les messieurs feront les premiers pas, les Québécoises doivent prendre les devants. Ce phénomène, peu banal, annoncerait-il l'extinction de comportements masculins millénaires? Voyons de quoi il est question.
Le b. a.-ba de la séduction ne consiste-t-il pas à regarder l'autre dans les yeux, à lui sourire et à encourager spontanément un échange? Si. Dans de nombreux pays occidentaux, tels que la France, l'Italie et l'Argentine, c'est ainsi que les choses se passent lorsqu'un homme est attiré par une femme. Mais pas chez nous! Ici, les mâles ne font plus les premiers pas. Une femme qui désire avoir un amoureux doit s'adonner elle-même à la drague.
Et la situation ne semble pas changer. Comment expliquer cela? Deux journalistes, Jean-Sébastien Marsan et Emmanuelle Gril, ont fouillé le sujet en long et en large afin de découvrir la réponse à cette question. Elle se trouve dans le titre de leur récent bouquin, Les Québécois ne veulent plus draguer et encore moins séduire (Les Éditions de l'Homme, 2009). Intéressant, non?
Dans les bars, sur les terrasses, aux festivals: Aucun contact visuel n'est établi; l'homme ne regarde pas une femme dans les yeux lorsqu'il la croise dans la rue, dans le métro ou ailleurs. Soit son regard est fuyant, soit il est vissé au sol. Les hommes ne draguent pas non plus dans les bars. Ils se tiennent en petits groupes, entre eux, et n'abordent pas les individus de l'autre sexe. Certains se disent incapables d'approcher une belle inconnue, craignant par-dessus tout le rejet, l'humiliation ou la désapprobation sociale.
Aux soirées particulières: lorsque des célibataires québécois des deux sexes se rassemblent dans une maison, on observe des conduites d'isolement. Personne ne se soucie de faire les présentations: les gens se mettent à jaser deux à deux et ignorent les autres, qu'ils n'ont même pas salués. Difficile d'entrer en contact dans un tel climat de méfiance! Les gars n'ont aucune stratégie d'approche. Par exemple, un type invite chez lui des amis, dont une fille qui lui plaît. Il l'étudie à distance, discute un peu avec elle et se fait une certaine idée... sans lui manifester clairement son intérêt ni s'avancer. Sa position de repli le protège d'une déception ou d'un échec.
Le féminisme radical des années 70 aurait affaibli le discours amoureux et la galanterie.
L'invasion de la pornographie contaminerait les rapports amoureux et sexuels en les déshumanisant. «Aujourd'hui, la pornographie multiplie les scènes psychopathiques où le corps est un morceau de viande, et le sexe, un acte de destruction», selon les journalistes Jean-Sébastien Marsan et Emmanuelle Gril. Ainsi, les pornophiles évoluent dans des univers beaucoup plus dégradants, humiliants et violents qu'il y a 20 ans, et la misogynie y est omniprésente.
Et puis, la porno est accessible en un clic dans internet, à toute heure du jour et de la nuit, alors qu'on est bien au chaud dans son petit cocon... et pas obligé d'établir un contact avec l'autre sexe.
Le chacun pour soi n'aide pas: la proportion de la population qui vit seule ne cesse d'augmenter. On a beau rêver du grand amour monogame, les relations homme-femme ne résistent pas longtemps au choc du réel.
Des critères trop sélectifs ne favorisent pas la formation des couples. La recherche de l'âme soeur se résume souvent à une quête de la femme idéale. Il n'y a qu'à consulter les fiches individuelles des messieurs sur les sites de rencontres: chacun y va de sa longue liste d'exigences relatives aux mensurations, à la couleur des yeux et des cheveux, à l'état civil, à la profession, à la scolarité, à la situation financière... Les plus ambitieux visent «une entente parfaite» avec l'autre, rien de moins! Or, trop d'attentes tuent le plaisir et les occasions de faire des rencontres.
La précarité professionnelle et financière vient déstabiliser la sphère privée.
L'ère «postmoderne» dans laquelle on vit est une époque dépourvue de contenu, de sens et de repères qui engendre beaucoup de confusion. «La liberté est associée au marché, le bonheur, à la consommation, la séduction, à la publicité, le sexe, à la pornographie», notent les auteurs. Cet état d'esprit entretient une pauvreté des liens interpersonnels, une indifférence des uns vis-à-vis des autres.
Bref, rien ne va plus comme avant en matière de flirt; et on dirait bien que le renversement des rôles traditionnels va durer encore un petit moment! On peut même conclure que les jeunes mâles traversent une phase d'ambivalence; ils sont déchirés entre leurs aspirations amoureuses (le couple mythique, encore et toujours!) et leur immense besoin d'indépendance.
Pour les jeunes de 18 à 35 ans, trouver l'âme soeur n'est pas de tout repos. Lasses d'espérer que les messieurs feront les premiers pas, les Québécoises doivent prendre les devants. Ce phénomène, peu banal, annoncerait-il l'extinction de comportements masculins millénaires? Voyons de quoi il est question.
Le b. a.-ba de la séduction ne consiste-t-il pas à regarder l'autre dans les yeux, à lui sourire et à encourager spontanément un échange? Si. Dans de nombreux pays occidentaux, tels que la France, l'Italie et l'Argentine, c'est ainsi que les choses se passent lorsqu'un homme est attiré par une femme. Mais pas chez nous! Ici, les mâles ne font plus les premiers pas. Une femme qui désire avoir un amoureux doit s'adonner elle-même à la drague.
Et la situation ne semble pas changer. Comment expliquer cela? Deux journalistes, Jean-Sébastien Marsan et Emmanuelle Gril, ont fouillé le sujet en long et en large afin de découvrir la réponse à cette question. Elle se trouve dans le titre de leur récent bouquin, Les Québécois ne veulent plus draguer et encore moins séduire (Les Éditions de l'Homme, 2009). Intéressant, non?
Qui sont ces célibataires passifs?
Peut-on dégager le profil de cette génération de gars non séducteurs? Au Québec, bien des hommes semblent dominés par une peur irrationnelle du rejet sentimental, et ils ne flirtent presque plus. Les spécimens rarissimes qui se lancent encore dans quelque entreprise de séduction ou de drague ne font pas preuve de dextérité, expliquent les auteurs. Ils sont souvent indépendants sur le plan affectif et vivent seuls. On les dit volontiers narcissiques, réservés, allergiques aux conflits, épris de liberté... bien qu'ils rêvent toujours de l'amour romantique. En parfaite résonance avec le vide qu'ils ressentent par rapport à notre époque, ils sont en rupture avec le passé et l'histoire, refusent d'envisager l'avenir et l'absolu. Dans les faits, nombre de Québécois consacrent temps et argent à la télé, à l'ordinateur et au cocooning. Telles sont leurs priorités! S'ils font encore des rencontres amoureuses, celles-ci sont souvent brèves, malaisées et insatisfaisantes.Dans les lieux publics, en société...
L'attitude des gens de 18 à 35 ans est prévisible.Dans les bars, sur les terrasses, aux festivals: Aucun contact visuel n'est établi; l'homme ne regarde pas une femme dans les yeux lorsqu'il la croise dans la rue, dans le métro ou ailleurs. Soit son regard est fuyant, soit il est vissé au sol. Les hommes ne draguent pas non plus dans les bars. Ils se tiennent en petits groupes, entre eux, et n'abordent pas les individus de l'autre sexe. Certains se disent incapables d'approcher une belle inconnue, craignant par-dessus tout le rejet, l'humiliation ou la désapprobation sociale.
Aux soirées particulières: lorsque des célibataires québécois des deux sexes se rassemblent dans une maison, on observe des conduites d'isolement. Personne ne se soucie de faire les présentations: les gens se mettent à jaser deux à deux et ignorent les autres, qu'ils n'ont même pas salués. Difficile d'entrer en contact dans un tel climat de méfiance! Les gars n'ont aucune stratégie d'approche. Par exemple, un type invite chez lui des amis, dont une fille qui lui plaît. Il l'étudie à distance, discute un peu avec elle et se fait une certaine idée... sans lui manifester clairement son intérêt ni s'avancer. Sa position de repli le protège d'une déception ou d'un échec.
Pourquoi est-ce comme ça?
L'absence de comportements de séduction chez les jeunes mâles d'ici résulterait de divers facteurs qui ont façonné les attitudes et les moeurs au fil du temps.Le féminisme radical des années 70 aurait affaibli le discours amoureux et la galanterie.
L'invasion de la pornographie contaminerait les rapports amoureux et sexuels en les déshumanisant. «Aujourd'hui, la pornographie multiplie les scènes psychopathiques où le corps est un morceau de viande, et le sexe, un acte de destruction», selon les journalistes Jean-Sébastien Marsan et Emmanuelle Gril. Ainsi, les pornophiles évoluent dans des univers beaucoup plus dégradants, humiliants et violents qu'il y a 20 ans, et la misogynie y est omniprésente.
Et puis, la porno est accessible en un clic dans internet, à toute heure du jour et de la nuit, alors qu'on est bien au chaud dans son petit cocon... et pas obligé d'établir un contact avec l'autre sexe.
Le chacun pour soi n'aide pas: la proportion de la population qui vit seule ne cesse d'augmenter. On a beau rêver du grand amour monogame, les relations homme-femme ne résistent pas longtemps au choc du réel.
Des critères trop sélectifs ne favorisent pas la formation des couples. La recherche de l'âme soeur se résume souvent à une quête de la femme idéale. Il n'y a qu'à consulter les fiches individuelles des messieurs sur les sites de rencontres: chacun y va de sa longue liste d'exigences relatives aux mensurations, à la couleur des yeux et des cheveux, à l'état civil, à la profession, à la scolarité, à la situation financière... Les plus ambitieux visent «une entente parfaite» avec l'autre, rien de moins! Or, trop d'attentes tuent le plaisir et les occasions de faire des rencontres.
La précarité professionnelle et financière vient déstabiliser la sphère privée.
L'ère «postmoderne» dans laquelle on vit est une époque dépourvue de contenu, de sens et de repères qui engendre beaucoup de confusion. «La liberté est associée au marché, le bonheur, à la consommation, la séduction, à la publicité, le sexe, à la pornographie», notent les auteurs. Cet état d'esprit entretient une pauvreté des liens interpersonnels, une indifférence des uns vis-à-vis des autres.
Bref, rien ne va plus comme avant en matière de flirt; et on dirait bien que le renversement des rôles traditionnels va durer encore un petit moment! On peut même conclure que les jeunes mâles traversent une phase d'ambivalence; ils sont déchirés entre leurs aspirations amoureuses (le couple mythique, encore et toujours!) et leur immense besoin d'indépendance.
Comment font-ils pour se rencontrer?
Les jeunes femmes avouent qu'elles ne se font pas draguer. La drague directe, dit-on, est très mal vue... Il est clair que les codes de rencontre ont changé. Contrairement à leurs cousins français, qui adorent les intrigues, les longues conquêtes ou les coups de théâtre, les Québécois misent sur le hasard pour établir des contacts: ils croisent de nouveaux visages au travail ou à une soirée amicale, «chassent» sur les sites de rencontres, composent avec un événement imprévu (on leur présente une célibataire sans avertissement, par exemple)... Sauf exception, les gars s'approchent des femmes sans en avoir l'air, quasiment sur la pointe des pieds. Ainsi, la majorité d'entre eux semble totalement exclure la prise de risque!
Date a girl who travels
Date a girl who travels. Date a girl who would rather save up for out of
town trips or day trips than buy new shoes or clothes. She may not look
like a fashion plate, but behind that tanned and freckled face from all
the days out in the sun, lies a mind that can take you places and an
open heart that will take you for what you are, not for what you can be.
Date a girl who travels. You’ll recognize her by the backpack she always
carries. She won’t be carrying a dainty handbag; where will she put her
travel journal, her pens, and the LED flashlight that’s always attached
to her bag’s zipper? In a small purse, how can she bring the small coil
of travel string, the wet tissues, the box of cracker, and the bottle of
water she’s always ready with, just in case something happens and she
can’t go home yet?
town trips or day trips than buy new shoes or clothes. She may not look
like a fashion plate, but behind that tanned and freckled face from all
the days out in the sun, lies a mind that can take you places and an
open heart that will take you for what you are, not for what you can be.
Date a girl who travels. You’ll recognize her by the backpack she always
carries. She won’t be carrying a dainty handbag; where will she put her
travel journal, her pens, and the LED flashlight that’s always attached
to her bag’s zipper? In a small purse, how can she bring the small coil
of travel string, the wet tissues, the box of cracker, and the bottle of
water she’s always ready with, just in case something happens and she
can’t go home yet?
Yes, a girl who travels knows that anytime, anything can happen and she just has to be prepared with it. Nothing takes her by surprise; she takes everything with equanimity, knowing that such things are always a part of life. She’s reliable and dependable, traits that she’s learned while on the road.
You’ll also recognize a girl who travels by the fact that she’s always amazed at the world around her, no matter if she’s in her home town or in a place that’s totally new.
She sees beauty all around her, not just the ones featured in travel guides or shown in postcards. A girl who travels has developed a deeper appreciation for life. She won’t judge you, or pressure you to do things you don’t want to do. She knows too much about the importance of identity and self-efficacy, and she will appreciate all the more if you won’t pretend to be who you’re not.
You can make mistakes with a girl who travels, and you can also be as idiosyncratic as you can be. Trust me, she has seen so much worse in her travels, and knows firsthand the vagaries of human nature.Date a girl who travels, because when you’re with her, you’ll realize that even though she’s napped at a temple in Angkor Wat, went boating down the Mekong Delta, ran by the streets of Saigon, or went skinny-dipping in the caves in the Philippines, she still retains that humility that is the mark of a real traveler. She knows she’s been to a lot of places, but she’s humbled by the fact that the world is still a big place and she’s only seen a small part of it. Seeing this in her can make you feel all right with yourself too; there’s no need for you to do more, to be more. What you are is enough.
When you meet a girl who travels, ask her where she’s been and what she’s going to do next. She will appreciate your interest, and if you’re lucky, she may even invite you to join her. When she does, do. Nothing bonds people better than traveling. On your trips, you will both see each other’s best and worst characteristics, and you can then decide whether she’s worth fighting for.
It’s easy enough to date a girl who travels. She won’t want expensive gifts; you can buy her (or both of you) cheap tickets to Thailand for the weekend, and she’ll be more than happy to take you to the longest wooden bridge in the country. You don’t even have to go overseas; you can take her out on day trips, caving or hiking, or treat her to a full body massage.
You can also buy her the little things that she keeps forgetting to buy for herself; that carabiner that will attach her backpack to her seat so that she will feel easier about sleeping on her bus trip, or a backpack cover, a small alarm clock, a money belt, or another sarong that will replace the one she lost in China.
She won’t mind if you get lost on your way to a date. She knows that oftentimes, the journey is more important than the destination. She will help you see the lighter side of things. She’ll walk along with you, not behind you, pointing out the interesting bits of things you’ll see on the way. Before long, you’ll realize that yes, the journey has been more memorable than the destination that you’ve planned to take her to.
Is a girl who travels worth it? Yes, she is. So when you find her, keep her. Don’t lose her with your insecurities and doubts. Because when she says she loves you, she really does. After all, she’s seen so many things, met so many people, and if she had chosen you, better grab that opportunity and thank the gods that you were lucky enough she’s chosen you and not that bloke she met while watching the sun rise in Angkor Wat, or while whitewater rafting in the Padas Gorge in Sabah.
If she says she loves you, she must have seen something in you, something that can always call her back from her travels, something that can anchor her to the world in the way that she wants to after weeks and months of being on the road.
Date a girl who travels. Make her feel safe, warm, and secure. Make her believe that no matter where she goes, and however long she’s gone, you’ll always be there for her, the one that she can call home. Find a girl who travels. Date her, love her, and marry her, and your world will never be the same again.
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