I'm advocating a mindset, I think, more than the claim that specific countries are right for people. I think the first step for most people is getting it into their heads that the country they were born in is not the greatest place in the world, and being open to the possibility that other countries are better.
But which country is better depends very highly on your preferences... for instance, Dubai and Singapore are good climates for business, but a gay person might not feel comfortable in either. (and we've considered both, fwiw.)
It also depends on your nationality- a treaty between the USA and the Netherlands gives us an opportunity to get residency in the netherlands much easier than it would for others.
So, any list I might give is going to be a bit too personal to our specific interests.
But people should consider chile. Panama has a new program which gives residency for anybody from certain countries (and there's a long list) who starts a business in Panama. (Panama City is the new miami- the cultural and financial hub of the region, or so I've been told.) Costa Rica has a lot to recommend it, such as a culture very supportive of americans, and no national military (if that's your thing). Nicaragua is poor, and thus your costs would be really low there, akin to thailand or cambodia. Thailand is really nice, but you can't easily get residency so you're border hopping to keep your visa up to date. Cambodia, though, I hear has a new residency program, but I don't know the details. Paraguay and Uruguay are also ones to consider, as relatively inexpensive and relatively pro-business countries. For some people estonia might be the right choice and for others it might be shanghai, even though china has aspects that others wouldn't like.
I've found a great deal of useful information in Sovereign Man: Confidential, and his free email list you can join at http://www.sovereignman.com
This is a good point. Living on $500/mo in a lush tropical paradise sounds fantastic.
Until you realize there are no like minded people around - you'll have no one to bounce ideas off of. This is one thing that interests me about dubai over generic-cheap-tropical-place, it's very much a driven environment.
Thailand is great for a vacation, or retirement. But I wouldn't want to hire technical talent there.
It very much a pick and choose your tradeoffs sort of situation. Can you find low living costs with a good, cosmopolitan urban core nearby? If so I think you've found shangri-la.
Let me help you: Porto Alegre, Curitiba, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Recife, all cities in Brazil with boatloads of developers and entrepreneurs, healthy ecosystems, booming markets, great culture and nightlife.
We just held the largest Javascript conference on the planet in Porto Alegre, with 900+ attendees, while RubyConf was simultaneously happening in São Paulo.
We do have excess bureaucracy for business, but it's getting better.
Argentina's government has taken a hard left turn, and has gotten the nationalization bug. This isn't the first time, either. This is a contrast to Chile- the government in Chile has been rather stable since Pinochet was voted out.
Santiago is a great cosmopolitan urban city, and it has quite the concentration of startups-- Startup Chile brings in 100 new startups three times a year, and that's on top of the startups that were already here (though Chile is not as entrepreneurial as the government would like it to be, Chileans seem to be very attuned to world pop culture -- anime, american bands, etc. This includes a subculture of startups that was blown up by Startup Chile.)
And Startup Chile is just one of the government programs. There are many of them, of a wide variety of types.
One bonus about Chile- some big summer movies premier here first. For instance, I saw The Avengers a week before you guys did. And usually they are in english with spanish subtitles. (I suspect the Chileans would not like the cheap acting of the spanish voiceovers that many movies get.)
But this isn't a "live on $500 a month" situation- cost of living is about what it was on the west coast of the USA. But then, I suspect dubai isn't either (but I cant' comment on Dubai having not been there.)
I just looked it up. The taxes are way higher than I'm paying now, or I'd pay in dubai(zero). The prices can be high in dubai (Currently less than a major US city), but they're one time costs.
There's almost a need to start a wiki on this subject.
But which country is better depends very highly on your preferences... for instance, Dubai and Singapore are good climates for business, but a gay person might not feel comfortable in either. (and we've considered both, fwiw.)
It also depends on your nationality- a treaty between the USA and the Netherlands gives us an opportunity to get residency in the netherlands much easier than it would for others.
So, any list I might give is going to be a bit too personal to our specific interests.
But people should consider chile. Panama has a new program which gives residency for anybody from certain countries (and there's a long list) who starts a business in Panama. (Panama City is the new miami- the cultural and financial hub of the region, or so I've been told.) Costa Rica has a lot to recommend it, such as a culture very supportive of americans, and no national military (if that's your thing). Nicaragua is poor, and thus your costs would be really low there, akin to thailand or cambodia. Thailand is really nice, but you can't easily get residency so you're border hopping to keep your visa up to date. Cambodia, though, I hear has a new residency program, but I don't know the details. Paraguay and Uruguay are also ones to consider, as relatively inexpensive and relatively pro-business countries. For some people estonia might be the right choice and for others it might be shanghai, even though china has aspects that others wouldn't like.
I've found a great deal of useful information in Sovereign Man: Confidential, and his free email list you can join at http://www.sovereignman.com