Retire in Colombia – Overview
Colombia is located in the Upper North West portion of South America. Largely bordering on the Pacific its eastern geography connects with Panama in Central America and on the Caribbean Sea has had a sorted history with violence and drugs. The Weather on the coast is very nice, the average temperature 27C/81F, the rainy season is April to November. Inland is very Mountainous with a median temp of 20C/68F.
In the last 5-10 years, the Colombian government has worked hard on eliminating the stigma of its dark drug-fuelled violent past. It has new trade agreements with both the United States and Canada which leads me to believe that a North American presence we’ll lead to Colombia’s untapped possibilities for retires.
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Retire in Colombia – Healthcare
Healthcare is excellent in Colombia; it’s very affordable with state of the art equipment and services. Doctors are all trained in the U. S. and Europe.
97% of the Colombians have health care insurance. 4% of everyone’s salary goes to covering health care. there are two regimes, contributive and subsidized. You can decide to join buy either a public or private insurer. There are accusations of corruption and misdirected funds. If you decide to spend any time there you can purchase extra private health insurance.
Before going to Colombia you need vaccinations for Typhoid, Hepatitis and the usual diphtheria-tetanus, chickenpox, and polio
Is it Safe?
In the past, the drug trade was a huge contributor to violence in Colombia, North America, and Europe have contributed greatly to finance the reduction of the trade to a point where violent crime has been halved in the last ten years. In 1993, Bogota centrally located in Colombia listed homicides at a rate of 81 per 100,000. When you consider the noted reduction of a half, we could expect 40 per 100, 000 in a city with a population of 7.5 Million people. Not to say you still need to be careful, but it’s worth watching to see where it goes.
Your biggest worry in terms of safety is going to be a street crime. As is the case in any metropolis around the world, burglary, theft, credit card and ATM fraud are common, as are vehicle theft and carjacking. Follow your usual safety precautions, and if you are unfortunate enough to be robbed, do not attempt to resist as things can quickly get violent.
I will say I felt very save visiting Bogota but that doesn’t mean that something can’t happen. Kidnapping still sometimes happen. Like in any country or major city there are certainly places visitors should not go
Retire in Colombia – Overall Potential
I’ve visited Colombia; I found the people incredibly nice and the culture wonderful. I have never seen so much traffic in my life, I was told that there are so many cars and trucks in Bogota that certain license plates can only drive on certain days. I can’t confirm that but I certainly can confirm driving on the highway is pure madness! Lol!
There are still concerns about safety which are well warranted, militant groups like the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) are still concerns. I will say as a Canadian we walked around Bogota with no problems while the Americans were restricted to where they could visit without security.
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Again, to me, Colombia is worth watching as it might be a real goldmine of untapped retirement potential.