Why Thailand offers the best Retirement Life
Last updated on September 23rd, 2025 at 05:39 am
Thinking of retiring abroad? While individual preferences always play a role, this article makes a compelling case for Thailand as the ultimate retirement destination. We understand that “best” is subjective, so we’ll operate under the assumption that a happy and healthy retirement is universally desired, prioritizing key quality-of-life factors essential for enjoying your golden years. Join us as we explore why Thailand might just be the perfect place to spend them.”
The top 10 priority values we used to rate Countries are below:
- Safety – low crime, honest society, safe to walk around, low risks of being assaulted, robber, or property stolen.
- Cost of living – the overall costs to live.
- Ability to live healthy – the availability, accessibility and affordability of living a healthy life. With special attention on preventative steps to improve health, examples are good food, good healthcare system, pharmacies, fitness centers and more
- Infrastructure – affordable, reliable, modern transportation systems such as roads, bridges, trains, buses taxis, metros, bridges malls, utilities.
- Social interactions – the easy of meeting new people in a safe, comfortable environment.
- Freedom – the ability to live without a high level of regulations, rules, laws impeding your daily life.
- Easy of daily life – easy access to daily essentials, lifestyle needs.
- Diversity in lifestyle options – Ability to choose low stress, peaceful living in country, big city nightlife or something in between.
Cultural acceptance of Expats by locals and immigration, how welcome and easy it is for Expats to move to and living in the country.
Political views are not invasive in daily life, Socially is neutral and does not judge others for their beliefs as long as it is not effecting others.
Statistics are not to be believed unless you see the details behind them.
I would not rely primarily on statistics to present my research, the information can be manipulated, intentional or not, by the way the data is presented. I will present some graphs that seem to closely resemble the realities that Expats see on the ground, which also concurred with years of research of actual news event records.
While statistics can be helpful, I won’t be relying on them as the primary foundation of my research. Statistical information, even unintentionally, can be manipulated by the way it’s presented, potentially skewing the true picture. Instead, I’ll be showcasing graphs and data visualizations that more accurately reflect the realities experienced by expats on the ground. These insights, furthermore, are corroborated by years of meticulous research and analysis of verified news events. My approach prioritizes a nuanced and comprehensive understanding, grounded in real-world observations and factual corroboration, rather than solely relying on potentially misleading statistical representations.
Safety
Personal safety is a balancing act between rules intended for safety and freedom. When you have too many rules and enforcement of those rules, you are taking away freedoms. Thailand does an amazing job of balancing these two critical values.
Global reviews of Thailand’s safety statistics seems to be focused on driving safety, which has unique reasons for its risky driving record. This topic of driving risks will be covered in detail in another article, but this is a minor safety concern overall.
The real world experience of most Expats living in Thailand is they feel the personal safety level is the highest in the world.
From walking down a dark street at night, to leaving your wallet or phone in a store or park chair or café for hours, the odds are it will not be taken. While in western countries it would be gone in a few minutes.
Yes, there is crime and safety issues in Thailand, but they rarely have reason to mess with Expats The crimes you do hear about are largely from a few isolated incidents. I would estimate crime is less than 2% of western country levels. Please refer to the graphics below for more details.
Unfortunately, western countries take a big hit when it comes to freedom avaialbe compared to Thailand.
Cost of Living
Cost of living around the world varies greatly, from 1000s of USD pert month to under 100 USD a month. Western countries are several times highest COL than other countries. While 30 years ago, this extra cost was reflected in the quality of life values, Today countries such as Thailand and Vietnam have remained low cost of living, while surpassed the western for qualify of life.
Ability to live healthy
The ability to be healthy is becoming limited in western countries for numerous reasons, most come down to high cost of living which is causing longer works hour, poor eating habits, and a host of other issues, economic and social and finding problems.
Even one of the main functions of western country governments, which is to protect its own citizens, make sure they have adequate healthcare and retirement funding, is no longer a high priority.
This is not the case in many emerging market countries.
The ability to live a healthy life is not easy to quantify, how, but happy is an indicator. See the graph below sheds so light on this.
Infrastructure
The condition of a country’s infrastructure is a telling sign of what the government priorities are.
Infrastructure is the quality of the roads, bridges, subways, airports, public facilities, covering everything from traffic lights to how long a line is at the tollways , this is also ways a major indicator of personal safety.
The extreme differences become obvious when you compare the embarrassing condition of the U.S. Infrastructure, of which 90% over 60 years old woth asafetly being a major problem and Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan’s ultra modern infrastructure, well maintained, clean and safe.
Social Interactions
Cost of living
Freedom
Cost of living
Easy of Daily Life
Thailand offers a simple life, with easy access to every services imaginable. From low cost of life, high quality of life. Safety, Freedom, entertainment and so much more.
Diversity in lifestyle option
Cost of living
Acceptance by locals and Immigration of Expats
Cost of living
Political views are not invasive in daily life
Cost of living
Conclusion
Cost of living