So after living in Malaysia for one year in four different cities my wife and I talk about would we ever want to live in Malaysia permanently and make this country our home?
Well in this video I'm going to talk about different reasons that we've come up with why we think Malaysia would be a good fit for us,
but also a few reasons why we might hesitate on living or retiring in Malaysia.
I'm going to talk about the cost of living, the weather, healthcare, socializing and many other aspects about living in Malaysia. Let's get started!
The first reason why we would choose Malaysia to be our permanent home is the people here.
The people in Malaysia are very friendly we often get warm smiles and hellos from strangers as we walk down the street.
The people here are always asking us where are we from and they want to hear our story.
Our experiences with the Malaysian people have always been pleasant.
The second reason we would choose Malaysia is that there is a high level of English proficiency here.
When we've traveled in other countries we often feel quite isolated because we don't speak the language.
But here in Malaysia almost everybody speaks enough English to have a conversation.
And reason number three why we would live in Malaysia is that there is an established expat community here.
If you want to meet people from your home country it's very easy.
There are Facebook groups and there are organized meetups and organized activities arranged by the expat community.
We have lived in four cities in Malaysia and in our experience Penang is the place to go for the biggest retired expat community where Kuala Lumpur seems to be more business and career expats.
Okay reason number four is the cost of living, and really I think that's the main reason why people consider retiring outside of their home country due to lower expenses based on the strength of the home currency.
Our average spending during our year in Malaysia was US$1410 per month.
And that's for everything except for our flights to get to Malaysia and some donations that we made.
And that's for both of us, two people.
I won't go too much into our cost of living because I plan on making a separate video explaining our spending in detail.
I'll put link in the corner of the screen when that video is ready.
Overall we found that our cost of living in Malaysia is roughly half of what it was to live back home in the U.S., emphasizing the word ROUGHLY half.
Everyone's situation is different.
Okay reason number five we would consider retiring in Malaysia is that it is a more developed country compared to places like Cambodia or Mexico.
The road system is overall in good shape in my opinion,
Public transportation within cities and also between cities is really good quality, much higher than the U.S. in fact as far as I'm concerned, and so cheap.
The internet has been good enough for us, we haven't experienced any serious power outages,
and the overall infrastructure is high standards and getting even better over time.
Reason number six the medical care.
Oh wow, we are so impressed with the health care in Malaysia, it is some of the best in the world.
In fact before Covid put a halt to medical tourism Malaysia was receiving about a million foreigners coming to the country for medical treatment each year.
Just a few examples an MRI here in Malaysia might be a few hundred dollars versus a few thousand dollars in the U.S.,
and appointments for a specialist can generally be made just a few days ahead of time in Malaysia versus the few months ahead of time required in the U.S.
All right reason number seven crime and safety.
Now is Malaysia perfectly safe? No of course not, no country is.
But we feel safer here in Malaysia than many other countries we have visited and definitely safer in Malaysia than back home in the U.S., seriously.
I was a teacher back in the U.S. and teachers in America have to learn how to handle a mass shooting and sniper attacks. No shootings like that here.
The eighth reason we personally would consider Malaysia for retirement is the food.
The thing that is good about it is that there is access to both the wonderful Malaysian food and a tremendous variety of international cuisine.
Really you can find any food you want here and that is why Penang was rated the number one food location in the world by Lonely Planet.
I have two other videos about the food here, one sampling some Malaysian food and another on the international restaurants in Penang.
There's a link to these two videos down in the description.
Reason number nine: Malaysia has better air quality compared to many other popular retirement destinations.
As you can see on the screenshot I'm showing you here Malaysia air quality is mostly in the green and yellow zone compared to say Thailand.
And reason number 10 the threat of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes or typhoons is very low here.
Having lived in California and North Carolina, it would be nice not to have to worry about these things in Malaysia.
Okay now for a few reasons why we personally would possibly hesitate about choosing Malaysia as our place for retirement.
Reason number one is the weather. It is hot here.
When we go out for the day we usually come back home sticky and sweaty.
Maybe you like hot weather, I don't know, but we personally prefer more mild weather.
Now you can avoid just a little of this heat by either being close to the water, being close to a green area with a lot of trees or by living on the higher floors in your apartment building.
We had one apartment in Penang that had a very strong breeze and we found that we could be comfortable even without air conditioning.
And if you really want to escape the heat in Malaysia, head to Cameron Highlands.
This is a mountain area where the weather is absolutely perfect, not too hot, not too cold.
We actually lived in Cameron Highlands for three months when the country first went into lockdown due to Covid and we couldn't leave.
If we were to retire in Malaysia we would consider choosing Cameron Highlands due to the nice weather.
But there are some downsides. Because it's a resort town it's a bit more expensive,
the traffic is terrible especially on weekends, and it doesn't have the large grocery stores or movie theaters or other conveniences that you'll find in big cities like Penang or KL.
So yeah, in general Malaysia is hot, although there are ways to make it a little bit more tolerable.
But based on our personal preference, we prefer weather that is not quite so hot.
Okay now for reason number two why we might hesitate about choosing Malaysia is that, because of its location it's a lot of traveling for us to get back home to visit friends and family.
In fact Malaysia is 12 time zones away from our family, just about halfway around the world.
Now for you maybe that's not an issue, maybe you're from somewhere closer like Australia.
Or, I don't know, know maybe you're trying to be as far away from home as possible.
But for us we want to go back to the U.S. to visit and to get to our hometown of the U.S. it usually takes three separate flights, maybe even four,
and that makes it expensive, it's not good for the environment, and it's just exhausting.
I personally cannot hardly sleep on a plane and then a few days of jet lag, and yeah maybe you sleep fine on a plane so it's not an issue for me it's one downside to Malaysia.
All right reason number three is the immigration requirements.
Now let me just say that I am making this video in May of 2021, and at this time the immigration requirements are negative for us,
I'll explain in a minute, but this could change soon and even potentially be a positive, we'll see.
Malaysia has an immigration program called MM2H or Malaysia My Second Home.
We were in the process of working with an agent to apply for this visa that would have allowed us to stay in Malaysia for an extended length of time,
but while we were in the middle of gathering the required paperwork the program was suspended due to Covid and also some other reasons.
The information about the new MM2H program and the requirements have yet to be released but are expected soon.
I'll update the description below once I have updated information.
I should also say that Sarawak which is a state in East Malaysia, they have their own separate immigration system and they have already released the details of their version of the MM2H program.
If you Google to get information about Sarawak's program be sure you're looking at information after September 2020, anything older than that will be outdated.
So those are the factors that are important to us, but maybe there's some factors that I didn't mention that would be important to you.
Please let me know in the comments below.
I have to say I have visited almost 70 countries now and if I had to choose one to live in right now I would choose Malaysia,
that would be number one at the top of the list.
We still have more videos about our life in Malaysia coming soon so be sure to subscribe to our channel so that you can be notified when they're released.
We'll see you next time.