It's an interesting question and one that I thought about from time to time. Most of the places that I would want to either live or spend significant time in would be considerably costlier than Thailand. Mexico appeals to me but I wouldn't know where. I have a close friend who recently moved to Guanajuato and though he seems to like it, it's a regional town and he said one of the issues that he sees right away is the extremely limited availability of imported food products, and the extreme scarcity of restaurants serving foreign food that is the kind of quality you would want to patronize. The other advantage is that it took him one month to get a permanent residency visa, something that the ignorant and xenophobic PM, and Thai officials would know nothing about. Mexico seems to value their expat community, in Thailand it sometimes appears as if they're deliberately trying to make it difficult for us in an effort to discourage us to live there. Every place has its pros and cons, and I'm sticking with Thailand, as I really love the place, the food, the quality of life, and it's people.
