Ten reasons to live in Belize

A T-shirt in Belize proclaims: "Where in the Hell is Belize?" And on it's back: "If you are good and say your prayers when you die you will go to Belize."
 
Why wait until you die? Come to Belize now to retire-you may live longer.
 
Forty-five years ago, in Belize City, I met a man from Florida whose doctor had told him he was dying of a liver disease. He would be gone in a year.
 
He could hardly walk when he came to Belize to die. He took a shack on the beach on Ambergris Caye. He quit drinking alcohol. He lived on coconut water and lobsters, fish and conch.
 
A year later he was not only walking, but running his own speedboat standing up.
 
Twenty years later, when he was 83 years old, I saw him walking down the street in Chetumal, Mexico, with a young girl on each arm. He had been drinking. 
 
"It's going to kill me," he said, "but so what? I've had 20 years of a better life than I had for the first 63 years."
 
You want more reasons to retire in Belize? Here are 10:
1. Everyone speaks English.
2. English law.
3. Proximity to the United States (it's a two-hour-flight from Miami or Houston).
4. Belize is the healthiest country in Central American or the Caribbean. There are more than 100 doctors, a hospital in every town, and three big hospitals in Belize City. You can fly Wings of Hope to Mexico in case of serious problems. A medivac plane from Miami can be here in two hours.
5. We have less than 300,000 people in a country the size of Massachusetts, so there is plenty of elbow room. 
6. Education is excellent and based on British and American standards. We have universities as well as high schools and junior colleges.
7. There are friendliest people in the world. In Belize there are six different cultures, with eight different languages. Yet we have no racial discrimination, no religious intolerance, and no political violence. Show me another country like that.
8. We have satellite hook-ups for phones and the Internet.
9. The climate is mild, subtropical year round. It rains from June to December, but there are no monsoon rains. We have hurricanes, now and then-six in total in the 20th century.
10. There are attractive retiree incentives. To qualify, you must be 45 years of age or older and you must lodge $2,000 a month in a Belize Bank (and spend it in Belize, we hope). You may not work under the law, but you may own a business and watch us work. You can also import a car, an airplane, and a boat duty free. There will be no income tax on your pension or other sources of income. You can also bring in all your - household goods and personal effects duty free.
-Emory King, Belize