HavenScout About and Methodology

What it does

Selecting your home country personalizes every cost, safety, and healthcare comparison on the map to your actual starting point. All of the following update instantly when you change the baseline:

• Map colors — the composite score recalculates, recoloring every country
• Cost of living pill — "−42% vs US cost" becomes "−38% vs UK cost" etc.
• Safety comparison — "5.2 safer than US" becomes relative to your country's safety score
• Healthcare cost — estimated cost shown as a percentage of your home country's healthcare costs
• Composite score — the cost advantage component re-weights based on your home country's cost index
• Page title — updates to "Best Countries to Retire from [Your Country]"

Which baseline locations are available

The Retiring From list is grouped into countries, U.S. States, and Canadian provinces and territories. Country baselines use the embedded country cost and safety dataset where a matching row exists. U.S. States use BEA all-items Regional Price Parities and state safety data; Canadian provinces and territories use the embedded Canada regional scale and provincial safety data.

The list is sorted alphabetically inside each group with the United States pre-selected as the default. Choosing the United States or Canada as a country baseline is different from choosing a destination panel; for location-level comparison, select a U.S. State or a Canadian province/territory.

Coverage

All 13 Canadian provinces and territories are available as selectable regions on the map, alongside the 50 U.S. States plus DC and the country destination layer. Tap any Canadian region to open its panel. Canada is not presented as a separate national destination panel because the useful planning detail is provincial or territorial.

Province-specific data

Each province has its own entries for:

• Cost of Living — Provincial COLI benchmarked against the embedded Canada regional scale (Canada national anchor 58.7)
• Safety — Provincial crime and safety index
• Healthcare — Provincial health system quality and universal coverage details
• Transit — Major city public transit scores
• Government — Provincial government party and political lean
• Tax — Provincial income and sales tax rates
• Climate — Monthly temperature and precipitation averages
• Top Retirement Locations — Curated list of towns and cities

Budget calculations for provinces

When Canada is the selected home country, monthly purchasing power for provinces uses the embedded Canada regional COLI scale with Canada national anchor 58.7. Country baselines use the refreshed Numbeo 2026 country values. Visitor-cost tiers begin with Canada's BudgetYourTrip daily anchors of $71 / $197 / $593 and are adjusted by each province or territory's embedded regional COLI, so a high-cost territory no longer receives the same result as a lower-cost province.

Advisory level filtering treats provinces as domestic — they always pass advisory filters regardless of the level selected, the same as U.S. States.

What it shows

Monthly average high temperatures in Fahrenheit for the country's main expat region (usually the capital or primary retirement destination). These are 30-year climatological averages — long-term normals, not current or forecast weather.

Weather icons reflect the typical character of each month:

• ☀️ Sunny / dry season
• ⛅ Partly cloudy / mild
• ☁️ Overcast / grey
• 🌧️ Rainy / wet season
• ❄️ Snow / cold
• 🔥 Extreme heat

Pinning destinations

Open any country, state, or province panel and tap + Compare in the panel header bar. The destination is pinned to the compare tray at the top of the screen (desktop) or below the topbar (mobile). The comparison maxes at four countries or location records. Tap a chip in the tray to remove it.

Report - Page 1: Comparison Report

Tap View Report in the compare tray to open the full comparison overlay. The first printable page starts with a compact grouped comparison table so the major metrics can be scanned together before reading the destination-by-destination detail pages.

• Composite score, cost, safety, healthcare, transit, environment, and advisory level
• Tax, inheritance tax, budget equivalent, living lifestyle, tourist visit, and top areas
• Displayed in the on-screen report and repeated in the print/PDF report

Report - Page 2 and following: Destination Reports

After the landscape comparison page, the printable report creates one full portrait page for each pinned destination. With the current comparison limit, four pinned destinations produce a five-page report: one comparison page plus four destination pages.

Color coding: green = favorable, amber = moderate, red = challenging. Each printed report page includes the HavenScout website and a research-tool-only disclaimer; browser or PDF software can add page counts if the user wants them.

What it is

A 0–10 comparison score calculated from the data that is available for each destination. The score drives the map color and is not a guarantee of suitability, safety, affordability, or eligibility to relocate.

For countries, changing the selected baseline country changes the cost-advantage component and can therefore change the composite score. Safety, healthcare, transit, and environment remain destination measurements. U.S. States use BEA all-items Regional Price Parities with the US average set to 100; Canadian provinces and territories use the embedded Canada regional scale with national anchor 58.7.

How it's calculated

Missing-data rule: Missing components are skipped and the remaining weights are normalized. For a country specifically missing its safety score, HavenScout applies the stricter exception requested for the map: composite score 1.0, Tier 4, plus both Restricted and Not Enough Data warnings where applicable.

Score scale

What it measures

Compares the destination country's overall cost of living to your selected baseline country (default: United States). A figure of −42% means the destination is approximately 42% cheaper than your home country on a like-for-like basket of goods and services.

The index covers groceries, restaurants, transport, utilities, and rent — weighted to reflect typical spending patterns. It does not include property purchase prices.

Source and baseline

Based on Numbeo's Cost of Living Index. Country cost values use the 2026 country table refreshed in v237, while U.S. State cost values use BEA all-items Regional Price Parities for 2024. Each country's cost index is measured against your selected baseline. The United States baseline is 68.8 (Numbeo 2026). When you switch to another home country — say, the UK at 67.8 — all cost comparisons instantly recalculate relative to that new baseline. Countries with a lower index than yours show a green "cheaper" pill; higher shows red.

Changing your home country in the top-left dropdown updates this comparison instantly — a UK retiree moving to Portugal sees a different percentage than a US retiree moving to Portugal, because their starting cost baseline differs.

Source and methodology

The short overview paragraph in each country panel is editorial content compiled from multiple expat research sources. It summarises the country's key characteristics for retirement — affordability, visa accessibility, lifestyle, climate, and infrastructure highlights.

The attribution line shown below each overview reads: Editorial research · International Living · Expat Arrivals · ExpatExchange. This reflects the primary sources used across the dataset. For any individual country, the specific sources consulted may vary — these three represent the most consistently used references.

This text is not a verbatim quote from any single publication and is not sponsored or endorsed by these organisations. It is reviewed and updated as countries are added to HavenScout or when conditions change materially.

Why expat-specific?

National crime statistics often don't reflect what foreign retirees actually experience. For example, gang violence in Mexico is extremely high nationally but rarely affects expats in San Miguel de Allende. Conversely, tourist-targeted scams in Japan don't show up in national crime statistics but are the primary risk for foreigners.

Each country's crime list is curated to reflect crimes that actually affect expats and long-term foreign residents, not just headline national statistics.

Risk level dots (●●●●●)

Trend arrows

• ↑ Rising — This crime type has increased over the past 1–3 years
• → Stable — No significant change in recent years
• ↓ Declining — This crime type has decreased over the past 1–3 years

Trends are based on UNODC crime trend data (2022–2024), US State Department crime reports, Numbeo crime trend data, and expat community reports.

What they are for

The Destination Guides page is the companion directory for the interactive HavenScout map. Each country, state, and province guide summarizes cost, safety, healthcare, taxes, visa or legal-stay research, travel planning, climate, retirement areas, common planning questions, and source links in a page that can be opened, shared, and reviewed without guessing which map panel to tap first.

The guide pages are not separate advice products. They use the same research-tool-only approach as the map: they help visitors decide what to compare and what to verify next with official sources or qualified professionals.

Current published guide coverage includes 13 country guides, 7 U.S. State guides, and 3 Canadian province guides. The map contains more locations than the guide library, so a destination can have a panel before it has a full guide page.

How the directory is organized

Destination guides are grouped by broad region. Each region opens as an accordion, countries are listed alphabetically, and the search box can open the matching region and move the visitor directly to the country card. This keeps the page usable as the number of guides grows.

Individual country pages also include a limited related-guides section. Related links are capped so the page does not become a long list, and the current prototype prioritizes region first, then cost and safety similarity.

Area and background links

Guide area cards use two kinds of outside links. Tourism, government, national tourism, regional tourism, state, province, or local tourism links help users start practical place research. Commercial .com tourism pages are not labeled as official unless public ownership has been verified. Wikipedia article links are included as readable general background when a reasonable article exists, but Wikipedia is not treated as an official source.

Published country, state, and province guides now follow the same basic link standard: prefer official or publicly accountable tourism sources when available, use clear source labels, and include readable background links only as a starting point for further verification.

Long-term environmental score

The HavenScout score includes a 10% environmental factor for countries with enough auditable data and for states/provinces where a source-backed regional environment record exists. The long-term score is meant to reflect structural conditions, not one day of weather or smoke.

When one of the source layers is not available, HavenScout does not guess it. Available inputs are re-weighted and the panel shows a lower data-confidence label. Environmental values are approximate and should be treated as a comparison signal, not a health guarantee.

Current implementation: the EPI and ND-GAIN lookup tables are configured but do not yet contain populated country values. Therefore, a displayed country long-term environmental score is currently based on available World Bank annual PM2.5 exposure, normalized over that single available component, and normally carries Medium confidence. Regional records are being added separately; the first pilot records are Texas from EPA AirData and Ontario from Ontario Annual Air Pollutant Statistics.

Live AQI

The live AQI card uses the Google Air Quality API for a representative point in the destination. AQI requests run through the Netlify air-quality proxy only, using a server-side Air Quality key that is separate from the browser Maps key. If the proxy, key, or Google Air Quality API is unavailable, the panel shows an air-quality unavailable message instead of falling back to a browser-side API request. This is useful for current conditions, seasonal smoke, dust, and pollution spikes, but it is not directly added to the composite score because it can change hour by hour.

The panel keeps the two concepts separate: long-term environmental score is structural and affects the HavenScout score; live AQI is a current warning signal.

What it is

Two sections appear in the country panel for the 20–24 countries covered by WhereNext: Expat Income Tax and Estate & Inheritance. Both draw from WhereNext's open datasets, which are built from 27 institutional public-domain sources (OECD Taxing Wages, Eurostat, World Bank, PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, and more) rather than crowdsourced surveys.

Expat Income Tax — how to read it

The panel shows three income scenarios: $50,000, $100,000, and $200,000 gross annual income. For each, it displays:

The effective rate is colour-coded: green ≤15% · amber 16–25% · orange 26–35% · red >35%.

What "effective rate" means vs marginal rate

Tax brackets are often quoted as the marginal rate — the rate that applies to the last dollar earned in a given bracket. A country that says "top rate is 45%" only taxes the portion of income above its top threshold at 45%. Everything below that is taxed at lower rates.

The effective rate is what actually matters for planning: it is the total tax paid divided by total gross income. HavenScout shows effective rates so you can directly compare the real tax burden across countries at your income level.

Example: At $100,000 gross income, Portugal's top marginal bracket is around 48%, but its effective rate shown here is 49.2% because social contributions stack on top. Germany shows a 45% effective rate at $100k despite a 42% income tax top bracket, again due to high social contributions. UAE shows 0% at every income level.

Estate & Inheritance — how to read it

This section answers a question many retirees overlook: what happens to your assets when you die? The panel shows:

Coverage

Grocery Staple Prices: 62 countries — see full list at the WhereNext food prices dataset link.

Expat Income Tax: 20 countries — UAE, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Panama, USA, Mexico, Vietnam, Costa Rica, UK, France, Ireland, Uruguay, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Netherlands.

Estate & Inheritance: 24 countries — all of the above plus Malta, Cyprus, Sweden, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland.

Countries outside this coverage show neither section. The panels only appear when data is available for that specific country.

Grocery Staple Prices — how to read it

For countries, the country panel shows retail prices for four staple groceries (milk, eggs, chicken, rice) at January 2026 USD rates, alongside a computed staple basket and an Estimated Basic Groceries planning range. For U.S. States and DC, the United States grocery range is adjusted with BEA/FRED Goods Regional Price Parities. For Canadian provinces with complete coverage, the estimate uses direct Statistics Canada retail food prices in CAD and converts to USD when exchange rates are available.

What the basket is not: The formula is 4 litres of milk + 2 dozen eggs + 4kg of chicken + 4kg of rice per month. For Canadian direct estimates, chicken uses Statistics Canada's chicken breast item and rice uses the white rice item converted from 2kg to 1kg. It is a transparent planning signal, not your actual grocery bill. Estimated Basic Groceries multiplies the basket by a broad 4.25-6.75x planning range and rounds to the nearest $25.

Examples: Portugal's $40 staple basket displays as about $175-$275/person/month. Ontario's direct Statistics Canada basket is about C$97/person/month before the planning multiplier, then displays as an approximate USD range with a CAD equivalent when live exchange rates are available.

Cheapest in the dataset: Bangladesh ($18/mo). Most expensive: Switzerland ($98/mo).

Important limitations

These figures are for tax residents earning employment income as a single filer using Q1 2026 rates. They do not account for: pension or investment income (which is often taxed differently), applicable tax treaties between your home country and the destination, territorial vs worldwide tax systems for expats retaining home-country ties, state/cantonal/regional variations (Switzerland, Spain, USA), or special expat tax regimes you may qualify for (Portugal's IFICI, Spain's Beckham Law, Italy's Impatriate regime).

Inheritance tax is especially complex — rules vary by relationship, asset type, asset location, and the tax residency of both the deceased and the heir. The figures here are a directional comparison only. Always consult a cross-border estate planning advisor before making any relocation decision.

Data source

What it does

Find My Match asks a short set of planning questions, then returns the top five country, state, or province matches from the available HavenScout data. It uses your Retiring From location, monthly budget, household size, safety preference, climate preference, healthcare importance, air-quality preference, tax importance, service access needs, rural-or-city preference, car preference, and retirement activities.

The results are not recommendations. They are a shortlist for comparison. A high match score means the available broad signals fit more of the answers entered by the visitor; it does not mean the location is safe, affordable, eligible, or medically appropriate for a specific person.

How answers are used

The questionnaire can populate the same Retiring From, budget, currency, and household-size fields used by the map. The match model then scores against existing HavenScout signals such as composite score, safety, budget fit, healthcare, climate, environment, services, transit, and retirement-area descriptions.

The optional More Preferences section is not required. Leaving an optional answer blank simply means that signal carries little or no weight in the match calculation.

Privacy and print report

Your answers are saved only in this browser unless you export or print a report. The quiz report starts with the answers you provided, then uses the same destination report format as the comparison report for each matched location.

Clearing site data, local storage, or cookies in the browser removes the saved questionnaire and budget values.

System of Government

The formal constitutional structure of the country's government. Common types shown include Presidential Republic, Parliamentary Republic, Constitutional Monarchy, Federal Republic, Semi-Presidential Republic, and Single-Party Socialist State.

This reflects the constitutional structure, not the quality of governance or democratic health.

Political Leaning

The political orientation of the current ruling government as of mid-2025 — not a permanent characterization of the country. This is relevant for retirees who care about social policy, property rights, and expat treatment under different administrations.

These labels will shift as elections occur. The map reflects the government in power at time of last update. Source: editorial assessment based on party platforms, policy records, and Freedom House / V-Dem classifications.

System Type

Describes the structure of the country's healthcare system. Common types include:

• Universal — tax-funded, free or near-free at point of use for residents (e.g. France, Germany, Taiwan)
• Mixed — combination of public and private systems; expats often use private (e.g. Thailand, Mexico, Philippines)
• Mandatory Private — government-regulated private insurance required for all residents (e.g. Switzerland, Netherlands)
• Limited Public — public system exists but is under-resourced; private essential (e.g. Cambodia, Laos, Nepal)

Quality Rating (★ stars)

A 1–5 star editorial rating based on WHO World Health Report rankings, OECD Health Statistics, Bloomberg Health Efficiency Index, and expat community reports from International Living, Expat Forum, and similar sources.

Estimated Cost vs Baseline

The approximate cost of equivalent private healthcare in the destination country compared to your baseline. For example, a figure of ~15% means a doctor visit or procedure that costs $200 in the US would cost roughly $30 in that country.

This reflects out-of-pocket costs or private insurance premiums for expat-level care, not the cost of the public system (which may be cheaper or unavailable to non-citizens).

Source: International Federation of Health Plans (IFHP) 2024 Comparative Price Report, Expat health insurance benchmarks, and editorial research.

Where housing appears

Housing research appears on published destination guide pages when source-backed information or useful official source routes have been reviewed. It does not appear as a numeric factor in the composite score, because housing markets are local, fast-moving, and often not available in clean national or regional datasets.

Panels for locations with guide pages include a gold text link that sends visitors to the guide's housing section. This keeps the map panel compact while encouraging users to read the longer guide context before relying on a broad cost score.

How to read the housing section

Housing blocks may show purchase-price trends, broad housing or utilities inflation, rental-market context, homeowner-cost signals, rent baselines, or an explicit Not Available label. When a clean source-backed number is not available, HavenScout does not invent one.

The planning-note table explains what the available signal means, what it does not mean, and which city, neighborhood, insurance, tax, climate, healthcare-access, or legal issues still need local review. Data confidence labels identify whether the section has almost complete data, some missing data, incomplete data, or no usable data.

Important limitation

Housing is not calculated in the country, state, or province score. It is a planning context section only. Users should verify current listings, leases, ownership rules, taxes, insurance, utilities, HOA or condo fees, flood or storm exposure, title rules, and local healthcare access before making housing decisions.

Exchange Rate

Shows how many units of the destination currency equal 1 USD. The Netlify function requests Frankfurter daily central-bank exchange rates first. exchangerate.host is kept as an optional fallback when a server-side key is configured. If live exchange-rate requests fail, the browser uses a valid cached rate when available; otherwise the budget display marks exchange rates as offline instead of inventing a value.

Countries that use the US dollar (Panama, Ecuador, El Salvador) show "Uses USD" — no exchange rate risk for American retirees.

US State Dept Travel Advisory

The official US State Department travel advisory level for the country, fetched live from the State Department's public RSS feed.

• Level 1 — Exercise Normal Precautions
• Level 2 — Exercise Increased Caution
• Level 3 — Reconsider Travel
• Level 4 — Do Not Travel

The level number and label link to the full State Department country page. Tier 4 panels can also show the UK FCDO level and a US/UK consensus badge.

The red Active Armed Conflict warning is dynamic after the US feed loads: HavenScout requires advisory level 3 or 4 plus conflict language detected in the current advisory. Until that feed loads, an embedded conflict warning may appear as a clearly labeled fallback. If the live advisory no longer contains the conflict signal, the fallback is removed for that session. Missing safety data is a separate Not Enough Data warning.

Inflation Rate

The most recent annual consumer price inflation rate for the country, fetched from the World Bank's public API. This is the official CPI (Consumer Price Index) year-over-year percentage change.

High inflation (shown in red) significantly affects retirees on fixed incomes — a country with low nominal costs can become expensive quickly if inflation is running at 20–40% annually (as Argentina or Venezuela have experienced).

How to use it

Tap the 🔍 Filter button in the topbar to open the filter panel. Set one or more criteria — the map immediately dims any destination that doesn't match, leaving only qualifying countries, states, and provinces highlighted in their normal heatmap color.

An orange badge on the Filter button shows how many filters are currently active. The panel footer shows a live count of matching destinations. Tap Clear all to reset everything.

Available Filters

• Composite Score ≥ — Only show destinations scoring above your chosen threshold (0–10 slider)
• Safety ≥ — Minimum safety index (0–100 slider, based on Numbeo / GPI data)
• Cost Index ≤ — Maximum COLI — slide left to show only cheaper destinations
• Transit Score ≥ — Minimum public transit quality (0–10 slider)
• Healthcare Quality ≥ — Pill buttons: Any / ★★+ / ★★★+ / ★★★★+ / ★★★★★
• Advisory Level ≤ — Pill buttons: Any / L1 Only / L1–L2 / L1–L3. Filters by US State Department advisory level. Unknown advisory = treated as L4.
• Living Lifestyle — Modest+ / Comfortable+ / Affluent. Requires a monthly budget. It uses the same normalized COLI and household-adjusted living model shown in the Budget section.

For country advisory filters, an advisory that has not loaded is treated as Level 4 and fails closed. Visa filters apply to countries only. States and provinces are treated as domestic for advisory filtering.

How dimming works

Destinations that don't match are dimmed to near-invisible on the map (very low fill opacity, dark grey). They remain clickable — you can still open their panel. Hovering a passing destination highlights it normally; hovering a dimmed destination does nothing, so you're not distracted by destinations you've already filtered out.

All three geographic layers filter simultaneously — countries, U.S. States, and Canadian provinces all respond to the same filter settings.

Desktop smart tags

On desktop pointer devices, hovering a mapped destination shows a compact smart tag with the destination name, score, cost, safety, healthcare, advisory, and budget summary when available. Smart tags are intentionally hidden on touch-style devices and clear when the pointer leaves the map, the page scrolls, Escape is pressed, the map is clicked, or the browser window changes visibility.

What it does

Enter a total monthly household budget in any supported currency. Every country, U.S. State, and Canadian province or territory panel shows purchasing power plus two separate estimates inside one Budget section: Lifestyle Living Cost and Tourist Visit Cost.

All displayed equivalents remain in the currency selected by the user. They are not automatically converted to the destination's local currency.

Your budget, currency, and home country are saved automatically in your browser and persist between visits, nothing is stored on the website. When you clear your cookies, the data will be cleared as well.

Step 1 — Currency conversion

If your budget is entered in a currency other than USD, the platform first converts it to USD using live exchange rates. This USD figure is used as the base for all calculations that follow.

• Formula: Budget in USD = Your Budget ÷ Exchange Rate (units of your currency per 1 USD)
• Example: £3,000 GBP ÷ 0.79 = $3,797 USD
• If your budget is entered in USD, this step is skipped — the number you typed is used directly.
• Exchange rates are requested on each page load through the Netlify proxy. Frankfurter is the default live source; exchangerate.host is an optional fallback. If live FX is unavailable, HavenScout may use its last cached rate and labels the live-data status accordingly. Without either a live or cached rate, the budget section displays a warning and pauses non-USD calculations rather than inventing a conversion.
• The currency dropdown includes supported currencies only when HavenScout has both a display symbol and an exchange-rate path. Recent additions broaden coverage across Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa while preserving that accuracy rule.

Step 2 — Purchasing power calculation

The USD budget is compared against the destination's Cost of Living Index (COLI) relative to your home country's COLI. The ratio tells you how much further — or less far — your money goes.

• Formula: Purchasing Power Ratio = Baseline COLI ÷ Destination COLI
• Formula: Equivalent in selected currency = Budget (USD) × Ratio × selected-currency units per USD
• Example: $4,000 USD/month · US baseline 68.8 · Portugal COLI 48.8 → Ratio = 68.8 ÷ 48.8 = 1.410 → approximately $5,639 USD equivalent purchasing power.

The relative buying-power line is an index comparison against the retiring-from country, not the affordability verdict. The Lifestyle Living Cost and Tourist Visit Cost tiers show whether the entered budget clears modeled local cost thresholds.

Step 3 — Baseline COLI by destination type

The purchasing-power calculation first puts each destination on the global Numbeo-style scale:

• Countries: Destination COLI = the country's embedded Numbeo-style COLI.
• U.S. States: Normalized destination COLI = 68.8 × state BEA all-items RPP ÷ 100.
• Canadian provinces and territories: Destination COLI = the regional value already stored on the Numbeo-style scale.

For all three destination types, the purchasing-power ratio is then selected home-country COLI ÷ normalized destination COLI. This is what makes a European or Asian user's comparison to a U.S. State follow the same baseline logic as a comparison to another country.

Step 4 — Household size adjustment

The entered amount is treated as the total household budget. The same household setting is used consistently in both estimates.

• Living thresholds: The per-person destination benchmark is multiplied by the household multiplier.
• Visit spending: Daily per traveler = Budget in USD ÷ Household Multiplier ÷ 30.
• Multipliers used by the map: 1 person 1.0; 2 people 1.6; 3 people 2.0; 4 people 2.4; 5 people 2.8; 6 people 3.1.
• The household multiplier is set via the Household dropdown in the topbar.

Step 5 — Lifestyle Living Cost

The living model starts from three HavenScout US monthly reference levels per person, scales them by destination COLI ÷ 68.8, and then applies the household multiplier:

• Modest: $2,500 US reference per person/month
• Comfortable: $4,000 US reference per person/month
• Affluent: $7,000 US reference per person/month

If the budget is below the Modest threshold, the result is Tight. These reference levels are HavenScout planning assumptions, not source-published minimum-income requirements.

Step 6 — Tourist Visit Cost

The same Budget section separately shows the effective daily amount per traveler, then compares that amount with Budget, Comfortable, and Luxury visitor benchmarks. The benchmark rows are destination thresholds, not additional monthly-budget formulas.

• Countries: Use the destination's embedded BudgetYourTrip daily thresholds.
• U.S. States: US daily anchors of $121 / $325 / $928 are multiplied by BEA all-items RPP ÷ 100.
• Canadian provinces and territories: Canada daily anchors of $71 / $197 / $593 are multiplied by regional COLI ÷ 58.7.

Worked example: California has a BEA all-items RPP of 110.720. Its normalized global COLI is 68.8 x 110.720 / 100 = 76.18. The one-person Comfortable benchmark is therefore $4,000 x 76.18 / 68.8 = approximately $4,429 per month. For a two-person household using the 1.6 multiplier, the estimate is approximately $7,086 per month. Separately, a $6,000 monthly household budget gives $6,000 / 1.6 / 30 = approximately $125 per traveler per day for the visit-cost comparison. California visitor benchmarks are about $134 / $360 / $1,028 per traveler per day after the same RPP adjustment.

Visitor thresholds cover typical lodging, meals, local transportation, and activities. Airfare is excluded.

What the numbers do not include

The budget calculator is a purchasing power comparison tool based on cost of living indexes. It does not account for:

• One-time relocation costs (shipping, flights, deposits)
• Visa fees, legal fees, or residency costs
• Property purchase or long-term rental prices
• International health insurance premiums
• Tax obligations in the destination country or your home country
• Currency fluctuation risk over time

Planning estimates only. These figures are not financial advice, a quote, or a promise that a particular lifestyle is attainable. Verify costs independently and consult a qualified financial professional before making relocation or financial decisions.

Overall Score (0–10)

An editorial score reflecting how well a retiree — particularly one who may stop driving — can get around using public transportation alone. Factors include network coverage, reliability, affordability, accessibility, and English-language usability.

Breakdown categories

• 🚂 Rail / Metro (1–5) — quality of train, metro, tram, and light rail networks
• 🚌 Buses (1–5) — coverage, reliability, and affordability of bus systems including long-distance coaches
• 🚶 Walkability (1–5) — how much of daily life (groceries, medical, restaurants) can be reached on foot in typical expat neighborhoods

The "Car needed?" summary reflects the practical reality: scores of 7.5+ typically mean a car is unnecessary; below 5.5 a car is strongly recommended.

What it measures

For countries, HavenScout's numeric safety value primarily uses Numbeo's 2026 Safety Index when a matching country row exists. Numbeo is a perception-based composite drawn from resident and long-term visitor surveys covering crime rates, personal safety, mugging risk, car theft, property crime, drug problems, and corruption.

When a direct country row is unavailable, HavenScout may use a clearly marked proxy or estimate informed by sources such as Global Peace Index context, UNODC crime data, official advisories, or other documented regional evidence. U.S. States and Canadian provinces do not use Numbeo for this field: states use WalletHub 2025 / FBI UCR 2024, while provinces use Statistics Canada crime data.

Scale: 0 (higher crime risk) to 100 (lower crime risk). The comparison label ("X safer than [country]") always reflects your selected baseline country. Official US State Department and UK FCDO advisories are shown separately because advisory risk includes broader travel issues such as terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, natural disasters, arbitrary detention, or regional no-go areas.

Scale interpretation

Note: This is a perception index, not an official crime statistics measure. It correlates well with actual crime data but is influenced by media coverage and local attitudes. Use alongside the Crime section for a fuller picture.

Search bar above the map

The Search bar above the map opens the HavenScout comparison window. A visitor can type a natural question such as cost of living in British Columbia, retire to Georgia, or healthcare in Spain and Portugal. HavenScout matches locations first, then shows structured comparison rows for the selected subject.

The comparison window can also be refined manually with a subject dropdown and an Add Destination search field. The Add Destination field uses the same location list pattern as the Retiring From selector, so countries, U.S. States, and Canadian provinces or territories are listed consistently.

My location language

Search phrases such as my retirement location, my home country, or where I am retiring from can use the current Retiring From value. If the Retiring From value is the United States or Canada, HavenScout asks for a U.S. State or Canadian province/territory because those countries are handled at the regional level for destination comparison.

If the search cannot identify a location, the comparison window asks the visitor to add one rather than guessing.

What search can read

The search index includes guide-page text plus panel-oriented destination terms. It can match places, sections such as cost, safety, healthcare, taxes, visa, housing, environment, and travel, and common user phrasing around retirement planning.

Search results are still planning signals. They are not a legal, tax, healthcare, safety, immigration, or financial conclusion.

Third-party API handling

Live data requests for air quality, exchange rates, World Bank data, travel advisories, news, and WhereNext tax data run through controlled Netlify functions or documented browser-safe paths. Server-side functions validate text, URLs, numeric ranges, response shape, response size, and allowed origins before returning data to the page.

Third-party data is sanitized before it is inserted into the DOM. Panel and report rendering share the same sanitizer rules for unsafe URLs, unsafe styles, event handlers, blocked elements, and external links.

Security headers

The Netlify deployment uses security headers including Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, and Referrer-Policy. The CSP blocks unapproved inline script execution, limits script sources, permits only the hash-validated analytics bootstrap, blocks object embedding, and restricts framing.

Security headers reduce browser-side risk, but they do not make broad planning data suitable for final decisions. They are one part of the site's technical safety posture.

Browser-only planning data

Budget, currency, household size, Retiring From selection, theme settings, and Match questionnaire answers are stored in the visitor's browser. HavenScout does not treat those saved browser values as account records, and clearing browser storage removes them.

Printed or exported reports are controlled by the visitor's browser or PDF software. Once a visitor prints, saves, or shares a report, that copy is outside HavenScout's control.

How it works

Every time you open a destination panel, the URL updates automatically to include the destination name as a hash — for example havenscout.net/#Portugal. Sharing or bookmarking that URL opens HavenScout with the Portugal panel already open.

Works for all three destination types: countries, U.S. States (#Florida), and Canadian provinces (#Ontario).

Copy Link button

Tap 🔗 Copy Link in the panel header bar to copy the current destination's direct URL to your clipboard. On mobile, this triggers the native OS share sheet so you can send it via Messages, WhatsApp, email, or any installed app. On desktop, the link is copied silently with a brief "Link copied!" toast confirmation.

How locations are selected

Each location is chosen based on a combination of established expat community size, access to English-language services, proximity to hospitals and international airports, cost of living within the country, and quality of life as reported by expat communities.

Sources include International Living's annual retirement indexes, Expat Forum community data, InterNations Expat Insider reports, and editorial research.

Daily In-Country Costs (3 tiers)

Shows the average cost per person per day inside the country, excluding international flights. Three tiers are shown:

• Budget — hostels or guesthouses, street food and local markets, public transport, free or low-cost activities
• Mid-Range — 3-star hotels, sit-down restaurants, occasional taxis, paid attractions
• Luxury — 4–5 star hotels, fine dining, private tours, business-class domestic travel

These figures represent realistic in-country daily spending and do not include international airfare, travel insurance, visas, or pre-departure costs.

Current Flight Search

HavenScout does not store airfare amounts. Use an airline or live search provider to choose an origin airport, destination, travel timing, passenger count, and trip type before checking current search results.

Live prices can change with dates, airline, baggage, connections, currency, and booking conditions. Enter a current quote into the Budget Planner only after checking the route you expect to use.

Grocery Staple Prices — how to read it

For countries, the country panel shows retail prices for four staple groceries (milk, eggs, chicken, rice) at January 2026 USD rates, alongside a computed staple basket and an Estimated Basic Groceries planning range. For U.S. States and DC, the United States grocery range is adjusted with BEA/FRED Goods Regional Price Parities. For Canadian provinces with complete coverage, the estimate uses direct Statistics Canada retail food prices in CAD and converts to USD when exchange rates are available.

What the basket is not: The formula is 4 litres of milk + 2 dozen eggs + 4kg of chicken + 4kg of rice per month. For Canadian direct estimates, chicken uses Statistics Canada's chicken breast item and rice uses the white rice item converted from 2kg to 1kg. It is a transparent planning signal, not your actual grocery bill. Estimated Basic Groceries multiplies the basket by a broad 4.25-6.75x planning range and rounds to the nearest $25.

Examples: Portugal's $40 staple basket displays as about $175-$275/person/month. Ontario's direct Statistics Canada basket is about C$97/person/month before the planning multiplier, then displays as an approximate USD range with a CAD equivalent when live exchange rates are available.

Cheapest in the dataset: Bangladesh ($18/mo). Most expensive: Switzerland ($98/mo).

Important limitations

• No airfare is stored in HavenScout; use an airline or live search provider for a current route search
• Live search results vary by departure airport, dates, airline, baggage, connections, and booking conditions
• Daily costs vary significantly within large countries (e.g. Bali vs Jakarta in Indonesia)
• Daily visitor figures are in USD and exclude international airfare, insurance, visas, and pre-departure costs

Known refresh candidates: Tax Foundation 2026 state tax material and WalletHub 2026 safest-states data are available, but HavenScout's embedded state tax and state safety values remain on their currently labeled source years until those tables are numerically refreshed.

Research current requirements

Visa and residency rules can change quickly and may depend on citizenship, finances, family situation, purpose of travel, and intended length of stay. HavenScout does not want to lead anyone astray or present outdated requirements as fact. Before traveling to or relocating to a foreign country, conduct your own research and confirm current requirements with the nearest embassy or consulate for that country and its official government website.