Q: Which cities are your possible retirement destinations? Here are my preferences and needs ranked:

1. affordable and reliable health care — SG has medishield + polyclinics. MYS is #1 in health-care among 25 retirement countries. See my blog. MYS, Philippines and Indonesia are close to Singapore.
2. low living cost/inflation — (property cost doesn’t bother me), so my savings can stretch longer. Actually SG living cost is acceptable to me.
3. weather — Florida is popular. Vancouver is also somewhat popular. My dad said in winters he is very likely to fall sick. My wife also prefers warm weather. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2018/01/03/international-livings-top-10-places-to-retire-abroad-in-2018 shows 100% of the popular retirement destinations are tropical.
   • free of natural disasters like snowstorm in the U.S.
4. Chinese community — esp. important to my wife
5. essential services — by government + commercial providers.
6. .. For onsite service, usually concentrated in cities, but U.S. suburbs are well-served.
7. .. In terms of helpline, U.S. is very poor compared to Sg and Chn. See my long email to Henry.Yin.
8. age-friendly, perhaps part-time, job market
9. ====The minor or optional factors below may turn out to be rather important.
10. [minor] close to my kids, so I can easily visit them
11. [minor] close relatives in place of immediate family members to take care of some(?) needs of old age. Grandpa raised this point and said Jiande
12. driving — walkable neighborhood. less car-dependency. Some old people have difficulty driving and becomes dependent on other people — see separate blogpost
13. government won’t run out of money and cut services
14. [minor] affordable rental, because I have a growing feeling that we may favor the flexibility of renting a home close to the things we need, such as our kids
15. [minor] extensive public transportation (like SG, HK, NYC, Boston city, Beijing), unless I really embrace everyday driving
16. [minor] quick access to medical services. I guess most suburban locations in U.S. are good, since many middle-class families (having many choices) actually choose there.
17. [minor] affordable nursing in the “ElderShield” scenarios
18. [optional ] close to my properties that I rent out

If I look at my parents, they told me a different story about medical services. This is a peculiar China phenomenon — the best medical resources are concentrated in major cities, according to my dad. Therefore they felt they had few choices in terms of retirement destinations.

All of the analysis so far assumes we would retire in our 60s and live 20 years more in some retirement destination. However, my target retirement age is rather late — minimum 65, possibly 70 or 75. Before that age I will enjoy going to an office with colleagues, doing a useful job. Will keep me active physically and mentally, and engaged. Until I fully retire, I would live in a major city with plenty of tech or teaching jobs. So my longer answer is

AA: close to some tech hotbed until I fully retire
BB: some cheaper city after I retire, but not unfamiliar places and perhaps not far from AA

A few specific locations:

• Batam,
• Penang
• Johor (rail link)
• 新安江,
• 北京

It’s a tentative answer subject to change. Some (like my parents) would say I’m thinking too far ahead. But I enjoy thinking about this question, even if it doesn’t really help me plan for retirement. Perhaps with all my thinking now, when I am actually close to retirement (like 65) I would make a very different decision. That’s fine. Still better than unplanned, hasty, impromptu decision.