Transcription
Welcome back to Daang Vietnam. I'm Evan and these are my 10 reasons why you might not want to retire abroad in 2026. This is my honest reality and opinion from someone who's actually done this and been abroad for over a decade. You know, everyone online shows you the highlight reel of retiring abroad. They've only been there for 3 months. Been doing this on and off for over 18 years in almost 10 different countries. I think I have a pretty solid [ __ ] detector because of it. Right?
So, talking about whether it's cheap apartments, infinity pools, you know, the perfect beach sunset, the street food that costs less than a Starbucks tip. All of these things can be found. And look, I have lived that life. I've lived in Mexico, you know, I have the city and the beaches. I've spent long stretches in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia. Ultimately, I retired early in Vietnam. lived in Ho Chi Min for years before I came up here to Daang. I'm married. I have my kids here. This is my life. So, when I say this next part, I'm not guessing. I'm just sort of giving it to you straight. Retiring abroad can be incredible, but it's not for everyone. So, let's jump into the 10 reasons why you might not want or be able to do it this year. The stuff people don't put in their thumbnails. And it's not fear-mongering. It's just preparation helping you decide.
Number 10, you don't just leave a country, you leave behind your operating system. This is the first thing that hits you when you retire abroad. You're not just leaving a country or a physical place. You're leaving your whole way of operating, functioning. Back home in Canada, the US, wherever yes usually means yes or at least yesish. Here abroad, even a word as simple as yes can mean something completely different. Mean I hear you. I respect you. I don't want to disappoint you. I have absolutely no idea how to do this, but let's not make it awkward and I want to save face. So, this is a save face culture. And once you understand that, everything makes more sense.
In Vietnam, and honestly across most of Southeast Asia or East Asia, people will often say yes or agree even when the thing is completely impossible or only scheduled in a parallel universe. This isn't because they're lying. It's because saying no is rude or feels rude here. So, I've had contractors say yes to jobs clearly required four more people. You know, internet companies say yes to repairs that were impossible. Schools say yes to timelines that were never going to happen. And landlords say yes to things that like violated the laws of physics or at least the local codes. And eventually, you're going to learn something important. Yes does not mean done. Yes means we're now emotionally aligned. we're on the same page, if you will.
So, if you're wired for like direct answers, firm timelines, written guarantees, this can quietly drive you insane. At first, you'll think it's you. The thing, why does everyone agree with me? But then nothing's happening. Why are they lying to me? Why are they [ __ ] with me? And the answer is they're not agreeing with your plan, per se. They're agreeing with your presence, with the idea of working together. Once you get this, like really get it and accept it, your life will become easier. You'll stop asking so many yes or no questions, you'll start asking when can this realistically happen? How can we do this together? What's the next step? Who actually does this? You know, yada yada, right? But if you don't adapt to that, this cultural mismatch can become really exhausting uh and tiring over time. It's not wrong, it's not bad. And this is why some people leave after 6 months or just get inferior, right? They're like, "I love the food. I love the prices, but I can't live here. This place isn't for me." And often what they really mean is they can't rewire or change their own expectations. And that's not a failure, but it is something you need to know before you sell everything and uh move across the world to Asia. Uh, okay.
Number nine, where you land often matters more than the country itself. So, this is a mistake I see a lot of people make over and over and again. They say basically, I'm retiring to Vietnam. I'm retiring to Thailand. Or they say, "I'm moving to Cambodia." Right? I'm going to Malaysia. I'm going to Indonesia. Like, that says nothing, right? If you actually know the on the ground situation because where you land inside a country will completely determine your lifestyle. Here in Daang could not be any more different than Ho Chi Min City. Hanoi in the north, same country. totally different lifestyle and culture. Totally different lives, different accents, different costs. You know, Ho Chi Min is a true mega city. It's loud. It's dense. It's ambitious. It's chaotic, but in a productive hustle culture way, similar to a Bangkok, a Jakarta, a Mexico City. Things are open late. Opportunities exist. You can start something. The energy is high. You can disappear into the city and reinvent yourself. You know, it's incredible if you want that, if you want that kind of pace and tempo in your life, but it's also really noisy. It's polluted at times. It's mentally stimulating in a way that never shuts off and can be too hectic or too much for a lot of people. You know, you compare that to somewhere like Daang or like an island in southern Thailand. Smaller, calmer, coastal, you know, slower by design, more tourism oriented. life revolves around morning routines, beach walks like this, health, possibly families, or just the idea of retreating. It's the same Vietnam, but it's a completely different nervous system. And Bangkok is on a whole other level of this. You know, Jakarta just became the biggest city in the world, right? This is true like Asian mega city vibes and gravity. And ultimately, everything works, but it will work in a different way and at a different speed. And everything happening all at once like that can be really relentless. Some retirees love it. I just had a coffee with a buddy Griff Abroad. Thanks for this video idea, Griff. He loves it in Bangkok with his wife. But for other people, it can burn you out. It can be a trap. It can be too intense. Right? If you're coming from like rural Midwest America, Bangkok's going to blow your mind. Ho Chi Min is literally going to take the top off your head. It's not just about visas, cost of living, YouTube hype, postcards, right? If you land in the wrong city for you, for your temperament, for your climate, you're just going to say, "I didn't like it." You know, I don't like Vietnam. I don't like Thailand. What you actually mean is I shouldn't have tried to retire in a mega city when I'm a small town person. Right? Or you mean like me here in Daang. Sometimes I got bored straight up. It's not the place. It's me, right? I move somewhere too small, too slow for who I actually am as a person. Your landing city, your place defines this. Your daily stress, your social life, your health, your routine, your sense of purpose, right? And if you get that wrong, the whole retirement abroad can feel wrong. Even if the country is perfect or the the idea of it is perfect, don't commit long term until you've lived at least two or three different cities, until you've tried scouting trips, you know, until you've gone urban, you've gone coastal, you've gone into the mountains, you've gone rural, maybe the mega cities for you, maybe a midsize city for you, right? Retirement abroad isn't about escaping. It's about finding the right fit, the right pace. and city fit often matters more than passport stamps. Right.
Number eight, can you handle your friends leaving every two years? This one does not show up in the cost of living videos, but it's a reason a lot of people quietly leave or go back home. Before retiring, I was part of the international teaching community. It was amazing. It gave me instant access to a city, to a country. But there's an unspoken rule in that world. Your friends leave every 2 years when they switch contracts. It's just how it works. Contracts end, schools change, people move on. You get used to it, but it doesn't make it great. It doesn't make it ideal. You retire abroad and in places like Daang, it gets even more transient. Seasonal touristbased locations. Half the retirees are on 90-day visas. They're doing temporary arrangements. They'll doing I'll see how it go plans. They show up excited. They're in honeymoon phase. They're in vacation mode. They talk about staying forever. Ah, I love it here so much. I've been here 8 weeks. I'm making a video about how this is the best place I've ever been in my [ __ ] life. They're full of it. They don't even know what they're saying because they haven't actually experienced the place in reality. They don't really know what it's like to live somewhere. They're in their first 90-day visa, right? Rainy season hits, visas change, health issues pop up, they have a falling out with a friend, they break up with their first girlfriend. You know, digital nomads tend to flip even faster. The minute the weather turns bad or the Wi-Fi sketches out or a new city trends on YouTube, poof, they disappear. You'll have amazing conversations, real friendships, shared routines, tons of variety and novelty. And then one day you're at the same cafe, the same table, and all of the people you were here with are not. They're gone. Right? And this is going to happen again and again. If you're single, this could be manageable. If you're a couple, maybe. But it gets harder, right? And for families especially, this becomes a defining issue. Kids need continuity in their lives. They need friends who don't vanish every rainy season. They need classmates who aren't saying goodbye every single term. And ultimately, adults need something, too, right? A sense that when you invest emotionally in other people, it's not temporarily by default. Trust takes time to build is one of the biggest reasons we are ultimately going to move back to Ho Chi Min City over Daang long term. Doesn't mean I won't be in Daang still, but Saigon just has deeper roots. It has long-term expat careers. It has real families and lifestyles there, schools, jobs, social gravities, cultural events, right? People come to Daang to exhale, to take a break, but ultimately more people stay in a place like Saigon to build a long-term life. And when you're raising kids, that often matters more than the vibes. Here's an uncomfortable truth, though, right? If you retire abroad in a transient city, you will spend a lot of time starting over socially constantly. Or if you do slow nomad travel, that can be very exciting or it can be really exhausting. Some people love that churn. They love waking up somewhere new every single day. Others realize they get really sick of saying goodbye really fast. And that realization more than cost, more than visas is often what sends people back to bigger cities or back home. Doesn't mean somewhere like Daang or Bali is bad. It just means your stage of life and desires matter. And retirement abroad doesn't freeze time. It accelerates decisions you didn't know were coming into your life.
Number seven, language barriers don't fade. They just humble you. I want to be very honest and personal about this one. When I lived in Mexico in my 20s, language wasn't a real barrier. I learned Spanish in about 6 months. You know, I dedicated myself to full-time studies. But not just classroom Spanish, not true Spanish. I mean like fluent living with locals, three Mexican roommates, joking, arguing, understanding, sarcasm. Spanish let me live with people, not next to them. It let me really become a part of a local culture. Vietnamese is a completely different experience. You know, I'm never going to pass as a local. Even when I learn the language, even after seven years, I'm always going to be a foreigner and other. And I still communicate like a toddler, more or less. I can understand people. People can understand me. I can get food. I can give directions. I can handle my daily life. But real conversations, nuance, humor, tone, thinking in another language, emotion, no chance. That's another level that I have not obtained. Not going to [ __ ] on that. Right? Vietnamese is tonal. It's regional. It's contextheavy. And here's the part people don't talk about. I often don't even know when I'm wrong. I think I'm saying it right. I'm not saying it right. I think I'm choosing the right context. I'm not. In Spanish, you get it. You feel it. Other languages that are just easier. You know when you're messing up. In Vietnamese, I can say a sentence that feels right on my mouth and receive a completely blank stare because I'm completely off in tone or context. And not slightly off, like a different word entirely. Sometimes I don't know if I've just asked for water or a different drink, if I've just named one price or another. You can insult people this way, too. Hey, what's up, man? People are polite about it. You know, like that dude who just said what's up and smiled. They nod. This doesn't mean they understand you or vice versa, right? you don't get corrected. People are back to the first thing. They're just going to say yes. They're like, "Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah." They have no idea what you're saying. And this means your options abroad result in Google Translate, a lot of silence, living closely with locals, being comfortable with smiles, but not understanding half of what said. And the last one requires humility, like real humility, because you're probably smart, you're probably capable, you're even articulate at home, and suddenly you're not. You're the toddler at the table, and you don't get to talk. You're reduced to gestures, context, and guesswork by a real language barrier. Some people love that challenge. Others feel isolated in ways they didn't expect or can't cope with. And here's the uncomfortable question you ultimately need to ask yourself. Are you okay being quiet? Right? Are you okay not being understood? Are you okay not fully understanding people? Because retiring abroad doesn't just test your finances, it tests your ego. And language is where that shows up first.
Number six, downsizing is mandatory. And in a lot of places where you go for a more affordable lifestyle, snowboarding or part-time living is expensive. And people don't put this in the retire abroad fantasy videos. You don't just downsize your apartment. You downsize your entire life. And not everyone wants to be a minimalist. When you move abroad for real, you sell things. You give away things. You realize how much of your identity might have been tied up in your stuff, in your material goods, in your furniture, your tools. You know, things carry memories with them. Your books, your office, the closet full of just in case clothes. You know, at first it feels very freeing and liberating, but sometimes you hit an emotional wall, the quiet moment where you realize you can't just grab something you used to own, you know, where it's no longer yours. That adjustment matters, but there's a second sort of optional part of it that some people miss. Doing both, keeping everything back home, going back and forth, splitting time, snowboarding is often the most expensive way to do it. Doing a location trip is smart. a mini retirement, spending three to six months to test a place, very good idea. But trying to live half the year in North America and half the year in Southeast Asia, that breaks down the whole math of it and ruins the geo arbitrage bit. Flights alone will kill you. Insurance in both places, long hall, waste of times, three times, four times a year, fluctuating prices, route changes, weather, etc. you're at the mercy of the airlines and the gods, you know, then you add in all the different visas, the border rules, the renewal stress, the timing windows. It becomes a part-time job. This is why I can't be a slow nomad traveler with kids, you know. Meanwhile, you're paying for a place back home, a storage unit, multiple kinds of insurance coverage, a car sitting unused, slowly rusting away in your driveway. Also, you can say like, you know, we're not really committed yet or we still have a place back home. Feel like you have that option B. The hard truth is you don't get the affordability benefit bit of retiring abroad unless you actually commit to living here, right? Rent drops when you sign longer leases. Life gets easier when you feel legal or you are legal. Costs stabilize when you stop moving. I haven't done a visa run in 7 years because I'm not half in, I'm not half out. I'm not a tourist. It's not that snowboarding is wrong, per se. Doing two 90day visas, 180 days a year in Vietnam is very easy. You know, going to Mexico or Panama or Costa Rica and planning for that pension and visa, the pensionado visa, all very doable, but the distance adds up financially and mentally. It's taxing. you know, being halfway home for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, having to decide all the time. You know, it's better and easier for most people to commit and simplify. Otherwise, you keep paying for two lives and wondering why the savings never really show up in your life. And that's ultimately why people ask, why doesn't retiring abroad feel cheaper? Well, cuz they're juggling. Because they never stopped living at home. They never stopped paying half of the cost of a western lifestyle. It's just the simple math. So, if you're serious about moving to Vietnam, I've got a 60-minute move to Vietnam master class that's linked below in the description. Walks you through visas, housing, banking, dating, and exactly how to set up your first 180 days on the ground here without guessing or expensive mistakes. You can watch that first, then decide if this lifestyle of retiring early in Vietnam is actually for you.
Next up is number five. The convenience shock is real and it hits fast. Let me say this one clearly. This is not Camdis or Chicago or G. And the minute you leave the tourist bubble, places like Antung Dang or Oldtown Hoyan, your western needs stop mattering. Not they're hard to meet. They just stop existing. Period. There's real cultural clash. You move a few neighborhoods inland, some are really local, and suddenly no one speaks English. Menus disappear. Store hours become suggestions. and the things you always buy simply do not exist anymore. You'll hear, you know, no tomorrow. People just shake their heads. You'll try and use a Google Translate on a phone and they'll shrug at you. That's it, right? They're not interested in taking part. They're not helpful or catering to tourists cuz that's not their business. It's not convenient. Abroad, convenience is a luxury good. In the tourist zones, life can be easy. There's western food. There's cafes that understand and care about your oat milk order. Pharmacies that know what you're asking for and have talked to other people. Landlords who text in English with you. Ultimately, you step outside that bubble and the system resets. This isn't bad. It's just real life. And real life in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia doesn't care about you. And that part often catches a lot of retirees offguard. but they have to stay in their bubble or learn how to cope. The things that inconvenience you aren't big dramatic problems. They're just the small daily quotidian friction points. The store that doesn't have what you need or the brands you're asking for. The repair that takes multiple visits that be simple at home. The form that needs one more stamp. The package that arrives after Christmas 80 days late. Individually, they're nothing. Cumulatively though, they add up. They test you. Some people adapt and laugh and don't stress about this kind of small thing. Others feel constantly irritated and they don't know why. Vietnam doesn't exist to make your retirement convenient. It exists for Vietnamese people, for locals. Right? If you expect the world to bend toward your habits, the lifestyle will feel uncomfortable very fast. If you're willing to bend instead, life opens up to learners. But you need to know which one you are before you move because convenience shock isn't just about missing your Costco, right? It's about realizing you are no longer the default setting and not everyone enjoys that ultimately.
Number four, visa stress is real and bureaucracy exists everywhere. So let's talk about visas because this is where the internet completely loses its mind in the comment section. You'll hear people saying you can only stay 90 days or you need $200,000 to move to Malaysia or you have to do visa runs or you can only get the retirement visa when you're XYZ age. It's impossible to live there. Blah blah blah. That's not true. You can stay long-term in Vietnam like elsewhere. I have for 7 years. Hundreds of well a 100,000 expats do. Many people I know do in Saigon and Hanoi. If you want to understand how, subscribe. save my how to retire in Vietnam 2026 playlist which I'll link up here. I break down the real legal long-term options. But now, let me tell you the people what people don't want to hear. Visas change constantly everywhere. In the United States, in Canada, in Europe, in Vietnam, in Thailand, in Mexico, it's constant. This is just part of life abroad. China has changed their visa so many times since when I first went there a decade ago. All of them do it. Rules shift. Politics change. Geopolitics and categories move fast. Thresholds move. Paperwork multiplies. Think about all these Americans who are going down to Colombia. How much stressful more stressful their life just got. If you think bureaucracy is uniquely bad abroad, I've got news for you. Try doing any of these things at home. US immigration is hideous. Canada is even tighter than America. Renewing anything in Europe takes forever. Filing taxes in France is a huge pain in the ars. Changing your residency anywhere in the world takes a long time. It's all a pain in the ass. The difference is abroad you notice it more because you're an outsider and often there's a language barrier. So yes, in Vietnam you'll hear about border runs, bus runs, visa agents, paperwork delays. Some people bounce around often. Some people do short stays. You'll hear that everyone is being rejected at the Thai border right now. It's not everyone. It's just some people who didn't do the paperwork. Some people who never had a plan. But serious adults, serious expats do not live that way. They choose a legal pathway. They get proper documentation, proper help, and they stop timing their lives based on hopscotching around. Is there paperwork? Yes. Will you maybe have to pay someone to help you? Yes. Is it annoying also? Yes. But it's not chaos. It's just the reality of administration. And the important mindset shift is that if you want to live abroad, paperwork becomes the price of entry for any country. You either deal with the bureaucracy intentionally or you complain about it constantly and don't fix your problems. There's no country on earth anywhere where retirement, residency, and immigration are effortless. That is a absolute fantasy. So once you accept that visa stress exists, it stops being scary and starts being manageable. Not fun, but manageable. And that's the difference between a lot of people who stay successfully long term and people who leave angry comments online and never bother coming.
Number three, you might miss home more than you expected. This is the one people don't like admitting. A lot of people moving abroad think, "I'm done with home. I'm over it. I've outgrown it. I'm leaving the West forever." yada yada. I don't need that life anymore. And then they miss it. Christmas, Thanksgiving, sometimes not the big things, sometimes the small things. The way conversations flow without effort. The way you've known people for years, the jokes you don't have to explain, the feeling that the system bends towards you instead of away from you. Because the hard truth is that when you retire abroad, the country does not adapt to you or your cultural system. You are forced to adapt to it. your habits, your expectations, your patience, your sense of identity. And that process of change and transformation can hurt, but ultimately it's rewarding. There are days when you realize you're always the foreigner. You're always translating language, tone, intent. You're always adjusting. Some people love that. I'm into it. It's enjoyable for me. Others slowly realized they wanted familiarity, predictability, easy life. Moving abroad is not the easy life. And there's nothing wrong with that. Missing home doesn't mean you failed. It means you're human. Means you're emotional, right? I've seen people last 6 months, enjoy those six months. Other people last 2 years, enjoy those two years. I've seen people quietly go back and just never talk about it again. Not because the country was bad, because the constant adaptation was heavier than they expected or they weren't honest with themselves. Retiring abroad isn't about finding a place that bends your need. It's about asking yourself, am I willing to adapt to a new life even at an older age? And if the answer is yes, the experience can change you in the best ways. The answer is no, it's not necessarily weakness. It's just clarity, right? And clarity can save people a lot of pain.
Number two, are you really truly a minimalist or do you just like the idea of it? This one gets people late in the process. Everyone thinks they can be a minimalist. They can do with less, they can do without, until they have to choose what fits into 20 kilos of checked luggage. Cuz here's the reality. You can't bring your favorite brands, your go-to bar or cafe where they know your order and the name, the bike you've had for 20 years in your garage, your garage, your tools, your man cage, the chair you always sit in. You can't FedEx your life across the Pacific. You have to let it go. And for some people, that's exhilarating. For others, it's grief, even if they don't call it that. That old bike, that wasn't just a bike. It was memory. It was routine. It was your identity. That local bar, that wasn't about alcohol necessarily, although could have been a few drinks. It was about belonging. People knowing your name, community, the garage, that's control, order. It's your domain, right? A place where things make sense, your own kingdom. When you retire abroad, you don't just lose the objects, you lose those anchors and those things that weigh you down. It's the opposite of the lightness of being. You don't replace the things right away either. Where would you put them? Right? You're forced to live lighter, to live quieter, to live less defined. Some people discover freedom in that space and enjoy it. Others feel unmed and lost. And it doesn't mean you're materialistic. It just means you're human. Stuff isn't just stuff. stuff is context, memory, emotion. So before you retire abroad, I would suggest you ask yourself honestly, do I actually love less or do I love my things? Are they part of me? Because if your joy is tied to familiar places, long-held routines, objects that carry your personal history, this transition will be much, much harder than cost of living spreadsheets suggest. Again, not wrong, just reality. Minimalism abroad isn't about aesthetics. It's about deciding which parts of your identity and life you're actually willing to let go and what fits in the suitcase.
Okay. Number one, this is it. You have to let go of control and of your past. This is the real one. Everything else on this list just leads up to this point. Retiring abroad is not a change of address. It is a full start over reset on your life. You're not importing your old life into a cheaper country with a better beach. You are starting a new life at a late stage in the game. And that means letting go of control. The systems you mastered back home gone. The shortcuts, the expertise gone. All of it gone. Gone. Gone. That feeling you understand. How should things work? Well, they work differently here, bud. That's all gone. All of it. Right. And in places like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, all across Asia, things are moving fast. The population is very young. The energy is very high. The cities are changing in real time. There's new buildings, new infrastructure, new airports, new tech, new ideas. If you're stuck in the past, if you're looking over your shoulder backwards, if you're trying to live in a different era, this isn't a way to escape the present tense. If you're constantly comparing today to how things used to be, this place will exhaust you. It is more forward-looking, more futuristic, more fast-paced than anywhere in the West or North America, and it's not going to apologize to you for changing. It can be really, really intimidating, or you might feel alive and exhilarated. You don't get to choose that pace. You only get to choose whether you move with the pace like that famous Saigon traffic. Retiring abroad works best for people who are curious, not nostalgic, flexible, not rigid, forwardlooking, not defensive. If your identity is built around how things were or used to be, it'll be hard. If your identity is built around what's next, it can be transformative and you can find growth. For me, letting go didn't mean erasing the past. It meant not dragging the baggage into the future, right? marriage, kids, a life that actually grew instead of just shrinking expenses. And it didn't happen by accident. It happened by leaning into it, by not holding on. And if Vietnam is on your radar, not just for the cost, but for the possibility, again, I've got a move to Vietnam master class link below that walks you through the practical size of your first 90 to 180 days on the ground. Because retiring abroad isn't about escaping, it's about adapting. It's about choosing where you're going and being prepared to succeed in that place. And that choice only works if you're moving forward. If you like this video, make sure to subscribe, comment, and share. I'm Evan A. You watch this one on how to start over in Vietnam with 10,000 bucks next if you're on a tight budget. Or the entire how to retire in Vietnam in 2026 playlist is here over my shoulder. Thanks so much. Take care.