10 Best Places to Retire in Bolivia

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If you want to find out which are the best places to retire in Bolivia, you’ve come to the right place. This beautiful country is more than ready to give you a retirement you always dreamed of.

So, what makes Bolivia a good pick for retirement destination? Well, first of all, the cost of living in the country is very affordable. Everything costs more than half the price you would usually pay if you were in the United States. For example, consumer prices are 50% lower than in the United States, while the rent prices are 70% lower. Then you have natural beauties that are rarely seen anywhere else, combined with a very pleasant climate. The natives are very friendly, and there is a large expat community in almost all the bigger cities. The minor problem for some could represent the fact that Bolivia is landlocked.

10 Best Places to Retire in Bolivia

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Still, if we are to trust World Happiness Report from 2017, people are not as happy in Bolivia as you may think from everything said above. Bolivia ranks 58th compared to other countries in the world. This is attributed to the country’s small economy and the fact that Bolivia is a developing country. As you may expect, the healthcare system in the country isn’t great. Bolivia is considered to have among the worst health systems compared to the countries in the Western Hemisphere. According to WHO, the country spends 6.3% of GDP on health and has only 0.4 physicians per 1,000 people, which is the second worst rate in South America. The hospital bed per population density isn’t promising since there are 1.1 hospital beds per 1,000. The major problem represents healthcare in rural areas where the situation is even worse. The number of physicians is disturbingly low and hospitals often don’t have the basic equipment.

Let’s see if is Bolivia at least a safe country. Well, World Economic Forum report tells us that Bolivia takes the 94th place in terms of safety and security. The 2017 Crime and Safety report for Bolivia made by the United States Overseas Security Advisory Council is a bit more reassuring. It tells us that pickpocketing and thefts are common, but those are non-confrontational crimes in most of the cases. Violent crimes happen, but in significantly smaller rates. The majority of the targets are tourists and visitors, so you may want to blend in with the locals if you are planning on taking a walk. In case you are looking for more retirement options, then you should definitely check out our list of the Best Places to Retire in Belize.

If you are curious about how we managed to come up with our list of best places to retire in Bolivia, let us explain. First, we tracked down the cities that were mostly recommended as good retirement destinations or best places to live by International Living, The Culture Trip and Expat among others. Cochabamba, Sucre, La Paz and Santa Cruz de la Sierra were the cities that were almost exclusively recommended, so we also took into consideration some other major cities in Bolivia. We then assigned points to each city taking into consideration the average price of monthly rent and restaurant meal obtained from Numbeo and Expatistan and hospital to population ratio (Google Maps). We also gave extra points based on the weather averages taken from World Weather Online.  In order for you to better understand provided information, we should note that hospital to population ratio theoretically tells us how many people are assigned to one city’s private or public hospital. The weather averages indicate the average highs and lows throughout the year.  After we covered everything, it’s time to check out the list .

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