Permanent Escape, hopeless?

I would really like to leave Canada forever; to somewhere warm, rural,(hopefully english) and peaceful?

I have a home in Nova Scotia, of little value, and an income of enough to live on(and have been for years), ($500 mo), and I spend 6 months in the US every year(cheaper than paying for oil, etc. in Canada).

I have no interest in working only 'retiring'(see voluntary simplicity)... Any places/suggestions where and HOW one could migrate with a low income, and 1 year Cdn Community College? Belize sounded interesting initially, but their crime rate and malaria are not selling points.

Seems Australia, NZ, and those jewels are out because of minimum requirements. How I loved Australia...



Living is not the problem, only! legal permission.

Try Vancouver Island. It gets more sun than Nova Scotia.

I have some feelers out now hoping to find a place cheap to purchase and check it out for the summer, though it does seem unlikely based on a quick scan of real estate values.

There are hundreds of homes in Atlantic Canada for < $25,000 or land for as little as $150 an acre(when purchased in parcels of 25-100 acres). Florida is very similar right now, with hundreds of homes for < $25k, land is more about $2000+ for 1/4 acre) to those who are interested.

The cheapest listing on mls.ca for Vancouver Island is: $27,000 for 1/4 acre. I attribute this to there being so little privately owned land out west; government 'claims it all' and only sells at great profit to select bidders. Identical situation in much of Australia. One of the most underpopulated countries in the world yet land prices are through the roof.

Gotta love it!

You know how the lottery board runs those adds saying how great Atlantic canada compared to everywhere else "where a million really means something".

Well, the same is true for $25K.


I suspect you wouldn't even want to move to PEI for the same reason.

Yeah, the Atlantic coast was populated by offerings of free land. Consequently there is less 'government land' there than most anywhere in the world. PEI($150 acre) included(tho not Newfoundland).

Sadly Atlantic Canada is also one of the most polluted areas thanks to local industry AND from all over North America. google 'Tail pipe of north america'.

If I could sell my home in Nova Scotia and buy 'anything' on Vancouver Island for the same price, I would just to give a new place a try<I've never been to Vancouver Island, but I have no doubt it's a better place to live(climate mostly, ocean doesn't freeze to pack ice etc).

Anyone have a legal freehold shack/mobile in the woods with 1/8 to 1/2 acres in SW BC they want to trade for 30 acres in Cape Breton? I would seriously make that trade.

Maybe I should start playing the lotto... Where a million dollars buys your way out!

Canada is a lovely place and real estate sector has given lot of opportunity.There are foreclosure homes also.Visit m3reo com

Just lovely, freezing cold weather, large mosquitoes and blackflies, some of the highest taxes, 100% markup on basic food/fuel(wheat/dairy/poultry boards), CRTC, bureaucracy, and overpriced health care.

have you tried the healthcare in the US? Talk about overpriced

I guess that depends where your coming from... "PST" started as a "Health Tax" and 100% of that money went to the health-care system, over the years the government has siphoned off as much as 66%(Nova Scotia) of that into other things, and of course claim there is a shortage of money for the health system...

Incidentally that's an easy way to fix most of the problems in the Canadian system, just restore the funding...

But what we are left with is a backlogged system where patients wait months even years(Speaking from family experience) for cancer treatments and other issues that are treated THAT DAY in the American/capitalist system(There is no money from a dead patient).

So if you have insurance, the American system is far superior, the Canadian system is better if you have no insurance/bum. Now we Canadians PAY insurance in the form of PST on most everything we buy.. This depends on you, but health insurance in the United States costs me (30's , 200lb, non-smoker, healthy) $50-$75 a month for the cheapest full coverage, with a high deductible($2-5k). So if I bought $500-750 in taxable goods in a month, I would be paying the same in Canada for inferior coverage.


So it's debatable, personally I'd rather a $5000 deductible and my cancer/surgery treated that day in a likely superior way. A nice deductible also keeps people out of the hospital for anything not really serious. So many people go in with the sniffles, and minor things in Canada. I wager they wouldn't if they had to pay for the visit(or wait until 1 of their annual doctor visits often covered by insurance).


Oh, and where the health care system gets 'bad' or 'super-expensive' in the United States is where someone tries to get insurance after they are sick, or! after they are old.. Canadian system starts taking their % from the time you are old enough to spend, mandatory. American's can choose when to start, and if you get sick without insurance, your scr3wed. If you wait until your old, you basically have such higher rates your paying for all the years you were uninsured.

Like life insurance, the sooner you start it, the lower your premiums are for 'life'.

for a single person, sure, health insurance in the US may be affordable. But wait until you have some catestrophic accident, or a terminal illness, and you'll find out just how much they *don't* pay for! My husband had to sell his house to pay medical bills when he had cancer 8 years ago. Tell me how that's a good system?!

Plus, for a family, the premiums go up exponentially. If I were single, or if my husband had a job with insurance himself, I'd be paying $75 a month. But because he *doesn't* have a job with insurance, I pay $400 per month, for just 2 of us! Adding him to my policy costs $325 per month! Plus, there's still the deductible, and co-pays, and stuff the insurance won't cover because THEY deem it is not medically necessary. Stuff like x-rays to determine arthritis, or anti-depressants, unnecessary stuff like that.

Plus I still have a fairly high tax burden, for which I have nothing to show.