The best countries to retire to

With the weather turning icy, thoughts begin to turn to sunnier climes, not just for the Christmas period but for life generally.

The number of Brits trying life abroad has grown significantly over the past few decades — there are more than a million Brits living abroad, according to the Institute for Public Policy research.

And it's not just students taking a year out to 'discover' themselves making pots in a shack in Peru, but older Brits too. According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, an extraordinary 38% of over-55s are planning to relocate in the next few years.

So if you fancy retiring somewhere abroad, which countries should top your wishlist?

Quality of life

HSBC Bank International has recently published parts of its Expat Explorer Survey, encompassing the views of more than 3,000 expats across more than 100 countries to find which nation performs best in various different areas.

And it found a clear correlation between those countries that offer a great quality of life to all expats, and that nation's popularity among silver expats — those looking for a new country for their twilight years.

But what does quality of life actually mean? The survey took into account a range of features, including the following:

• accommodation,
• food/diet,
• entertainment,
• healthcare,
• work life balance,
• social life,
• commute to work,
• opportunities for sports
• opportunities for travel,
• the ease of organising schools for their children,
• the ease of learning the language,
• how easy to make friends,
• healthcare and utilities,
• weather,
• how easy to fit into the new culture/lifestyle.

The top nations

With that in mind, below are the top 15 ranking nations for overall quality of life according to the Expat Explorer Survey.

Rank	Nation
1	Thailand
2	Bahrain
3	South Africa
4	Canada
5	Bermuda
6	Spain
7	France
8	Switzerland
9	Australia
10	Malaysia
11	Philippines
12	Germany
13	Belgium
14	Singapore
15	Hong Kong

Some of the top-performing nations boast extraordinarily large numbers of retirees among their expats — in Spain, just shy of 40% of all expats are retirees, while France (33%), South Africa (24%), Thailand (24%) and Canada (17%) also boast a large proportion of retired expats.

Perhaps a touch worryingly, the UK finished 23^rd in the survey, behind nations like Qatar and Mexico, but just ahead of Russia and India. And you can't blame that entirely on the weather.

If you can't make your mind up on which nation you'd like to retire to, why not have a read of Ditch Britain for somewhere better!